Your goal with a 5-8 year old boy is very simple and has nothing to do with skills. YOU NEED TO GET (AND KEEP) THEM CONFIDENT. Even if your son is on a 7u travel team, and routinely makes backhanded putouts from deep in the hole at shortstop – BEGIN EVERY PRACTICE SESSION WITH A CONFIDENCE BUILDING ACTIVITY. This is the most important thing that you’ll do.
NEVER start out by firing line drives or throwing hard to your son to warm up- no matter his skill level. Start slow, easy and close. Kids love games and races. If you’re playing pitch and catch, give them a reward or tell them you’ll do 5 push ups every time they catch 3 in a row. You want them smiling as they play. Here’s 4 steps to build confidence in young players.
1 – Use tennis balls underhand from about 10-15 feet away when you get to the field or in the back yard. The ONLY thing you want to see is your son catching the ball with his thumbs together above his waist, and pinkies together below it. If you can get him to turn his glove over and reach across his body to catch balls on the side opposite his glove – that’s great. Throw balls to him left of his body, right of his body, high and low. Try not to get anything around or near his face.
I know what you’re thinking. I even think it every time I write this. “He’ll never learn how to catch balls that come at him in a game then. If he’s on an all-star team, he’s going to get balls thrown to him way harder than this – and he won’t be ready!” You’re forgetting our first goal already. You have to build him up and ease him into tougher and tougher catches. Let him experience success. If he catches it – praise him. If he misses it, say nothing or show him his mistake in a positive way.
FOR LITTLE LITTLE GUYS – try using THOSE VELCRO PADDLES with a tennis ball. This will get them used to putting their thumbs together and pointing fingers up to correctly catch above the waist balls.
FOR ADVANCED PLAYERS, go ahead and use a baseball, but stay close- and your goal doesn’t change: we just want to see them catching the ball correctly, wherever the ball is in relation to their body.
2 – Once he’s consistently caught balls all around him, give him some tosses around his midsection. Tell him beforehand, and point out how good he’s doing already. You want to encourage him to stay in front of the ball at watch it into his glove. Once he’s been thrown a few, each of you take 2 steps back. Rinse and repeat.
3 – If he’s looking confident (note: I didn’t say catching everything) and having fun go get the squishy tee ball. Toss it to his left and right, make sure he’s got his glove in a good position on either side of his body.
Again, build confidence with good catches and show him pointers with misses. Be positive. He’s going to make dumb mistakes. He’s going to start doing things he’s NEVER done before.He’s going to be afraid of the ball. You just have to encourage through it, show (not tell) him the right way and keep at it.
4 – After you’ve thrown a bit ask him if he wants some grounders, etc. Let him experience good catches and let him decide if he wants more. If he’s done, move on to something else-at this age kids will like playing catch, but not as much as you do.
Source: http://teachbaseball.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/lesson-1-playing-catch/
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