By Coach Joe Hernandez

Parents (and coaches) are always walking a fine line when it comes to encouraging their kids with their athletic endeavors in baseball. If not careful it can become a no-win situation. Give too much encouragement and your kid will likely feel that it is insincere, unrealistic, or they wish you kept quiet because you are embarrassing them. Offer too little encouragement and you might be perceived as uncaring. But most parents and coaches want to help and encourage their young athletic children's confidence and self-esteem. So what are some of the ways we can do this without alienating our kids?
1 Windows of Opportunity
To begin with, make sure you create windows of opportunities for success. How? Simply by creating an environment that will enable your child to practice. With every practice you increase the likelihood of your child doing something right. There is no better way to build confidence than from doing the very things you want to get better at. Whether you are learning how to play chess or ride a bike, you first need to learn how and practice it often enough to get better at it. This "learn, practice, get better" cycle is very conducive to success. The more successes you have, the more you want to continue experiencing it. This can get very addictive, in a fun sort of way.

2 Behave "As If" 
Secondly, teach your child to visualize and behave "as if". This is very potent - the mind has amazing powers. Teach your child to behave with confidence, to act like a great ballplayer or a great musician or whatever he/she is trying to accomplish. This "acting-out" must be complete. In other words, your posture, body language, talk, thoughts and feel must behave "as if". This is strong medicine. By acting more confident you actually will begin to feel more confident. Parents need to adopt this "as if" behavior as well. By demonstrating this "as if" behavior to your child you actually encourage and facilitate your child to believe as you do. In a sense, you have the power to create this self-fulfilling prophecy.

3 Welcome Mistakes 
Always welcome mistakes as a learning tool. Teach your kid that there is something to learn from every mistake on the field. Kids have a tough time learning this lesson, but if they are successful with this process they will be better ballplayers and better human beings for it.

What makes it tough is that either they dwell on a mistake forever or just pretend it never happened. They do not want to talk about it or figure out how to avoid the same mistake again. As parents and coaches it is imperative that you help them understand that mistakes are part of the game, especially in baseball. Baseball is a game of failure ...if you fail 7 out of 10 times at bat you are still a successful hitter. Performing badly or making a "wrong" decision or play is not important. What is important is to recognize the mistake for what it is and use the experience to do better next time.

4 Don't be the Problem 
Make sure that you are not the problem. Many adults have a great deal of difficulty with their kids making mistakes, especially at important games. You need to get use to it ...kids will make mistakes, and lots of them. How else do you expect them to learn and get better? If you are a parent that has trouble dealing with this you need to get a handle on it quick...in the meantime don't coach. Leave the coaching to those with more patience.

5 Focus On Strengths Not Mistakes 
Stay on the positive side by always encouraging your child to do better. Focus on your child's strength not his weakness. Try to provide an environment and an atmosphere where your child feels that it is okay to make a mistake. Don't try to walk your child by the hand at every turn.

Allow your child to make mistakes. Don't try to protect him from the pain of doing so. You must allow your child to fall and pick himself right up ...otherwise you are being too over-protective to the detriment of your child's development. On the other hand, don't go to the other extreme and criticize every mistake he makes with the notion of "that is how he will become tough". Your kid is going to get enough criticism from his peers and coaches; you need not join the bandwagon. Never criticize your child‚s performance, even when you are alone with him. If you need to say something, make sure it is positive and encouraging. Be there for him ...be supportive.

6 Look for Teaching Opportunities 
Always look for the reasoning behind your child's mistake. Recently a young ballplayer in our all-star team was involved in a play where he was called out at home plate on an attempted steal from third base. There were no outs with runners on second and third and the heart of the line-up was up. The play was very close but he was out nevertheless. He was not sent by the third base coach, he just took off on his own.

At first it seemed like a foolish gamble. He was then asked why did he try to steal home with no outs. His reasoning was that we had already done it twice in the same game and he had done it successfully six times in the regular season. Besides, he had just stolen second and third base. He saw the pitcher was not paying attention and he just went. The fact that the play was close, he used his judgment and almost pulled it through is something we need to encourage. Kids need to make decisions on their own. It is just poor baseball when the kids can only steal or advance a base when a coach tells them to.

Of course we take the opportunity to explain the game situation and how he should handle it the next time. But the point is to hold-off jumping all over a kids case until we take the time and inquire what was the reason for a given decision. Many times you will find a method to their apparent madness, even if it was a wrong play or decision.

7 Don't Keep Score 
There is no need to point out and correct every mistake a kid makes during practice and games. All you will accomplish is to intimidate developing players. They will become afraid to make an error, take risks or be creative. You will hurt the young ballplayer as well as the team. Let the kids play their game and not of their coaches.

8 Keep It Simple and Fun
All to often coaching becomes moving players around with tons of strategies and no input from the kids. It stops being a game for kids and more of a chessboard for adults. A good coach gets his team started, give them some fundamentals about what to do and then let them do their thing and have some fun.

Just keep it simple and fun, embrace mistakes and let the children blossom. Be daring, let the children take charge of some of the practices - even come up with their own rules. Be careful with too much organization and control. Don't fall victim to planning practices and games around the convenience and the needs of adults. Remember that little league is for the kids! Let them come up with some of the ideas and game strategies. Don't be so concern with winning to the point that the kids have no say. No one can expect his or her child to get better and become successful at a given sport if the child does not enjoy doing it.

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For an example of how Coach Hernandez has applied this final suggestion in his own coaching, click here.