Presenting challenges to young players is essential towards them reaching their pinnacle in any sport. If we do not continue to challenge, then a young players talents can start to stagnate. A push in recent years has been to play your son or daughter up in age level to challenge them. It has become so normal where an 11-year old and under team might be filled with nine and ten-year-olds.
Although the idea of this process seems understandable. Parents will state that their son or daughter will receive more challenges and their son or daughter will rise to that level.
But there are fallbacks to this idea and many young player’s abilities might stagnate even more if they do not find success.
Success is key in this game of failure. We need to find success at every level before we move up the ladder. Essentially by moving your son or daughter up a level or two, we are skipping that level of success that might be essential towards their progress.
The idea is “sometimes it is okay to be a big fish in a small pond.” Because that success that we might attain will be essential to compete at a higher level.
When a young player skips a step and they constantly compete against older and many times better kids, then they might start to doubt their own abilities. They forget that they were good enough in the beginning for a step to be skipped.
If you choose to play up a level or two, make sure your son or daughter is finding success in some way.
It is important in every avenue of life to have success and it is essential for a young mind and body to find that success.
Baseball is not a rush to the top. It is a lifelong process and it takes time. Make sure the proper care and time is taken and not overcome by a rush to push and push up the ladder where we might not find success and then regret the decisions.
Until Next Time