When Do You Start Teaching Your Kid How to Play?

A question that I get quite often is "how young was your son when you started teaching him how to play baseball'?"

First, that is really the wrong the question. The question should be when did you teach your son how to love the game of baseball. Love the game? What exactly does that mean? How do you do that? Doesn't a kid just naturally love the game or not?

Before really getting started on the answers to these questions you should take a minute and think of all the kids who became doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, teachers, coaches that had parents that were also the same thing. This isn't always the case, however, it does happen frequently. The reason seems to be that if a kids parents have the ability, both mental and physical, along with a passion for a field, that enthusiasm and interest can and does get passed on to the child.

If you love football and watch it on Sunday afternoon your kid is probably going to sit there with you and learn to enjoy football. Or, if you take him to the local high school basketball games and also shoot hoops with him in the drive-way he will likely be a basketball fan.

So the question of teaching "The Love of the Game" is just a natural thing that happens between the parent and most kids. If you do it right.

When my son was just a baby (9 months old) I would sit him in my lap and with a big fat red wiffle ball bat and my wife would pitch us balls and I would hit them and I laugh and carry on "that ones long gone" and the like. It is interesting that when he did pick up a bat he swung it left-handed, and that is also the way we  hit those early wiffle balls. Even though I didn't realize it at the time, I was programming him to bat left handed.

When was old enough to start throwing a ball I just gently showed him to point his left shoulder in the direction he was throwing the ball and then just step, turn, and throw. Pretty simple right? I see high school players who don't close up right and turn and throw like they should.

Same goes for hitting. Point the lead shoulder at the pitcher and step at him, then turn and swing.

These are the first steps. They are critical to developing correct mechanics.

But, what if little Johnny doesn't do it right? No big deal. Just remind him once in a while when you are playing with him to point his shoulder at you, step, and throw. Same for hitting. But, its not a big deal if he doesn't do it right. But, when he does do it right you should get excited and say things like, that looked like Nolan Ryan or Ken Griffey or whoever. Don't even acknowledge when they don't do it right. You don't want your kid thinking about making mistakes, you want him thinking about what he/she just did right.

These first steps are critical. They start the learning and teaching process. They have to be positive. They can take a long time to develop. There's no hurry, just keep reminding him/her.

Warning: If you handle these early years wrong and get on your kid all the time, you can forget your kid ever wanting to play baseball or whatever. Keep it fun. Play with them. The more time you spend with your kid having fun the better they will become. 


Next Blog: The one position on the baseball field you don't want your kid to play growing up.