Learning Mental Toughness in Little League

Mental toughness is a vital part to success in both sports and life. Yet, sadly enough, kids in today's world don't learn mental toughness at an early age. If you go to any little league park today you won't find very much mental toughness being taught to kids. We live in a world where no matter how a kid does his parents are always telling him how great he is. Growing up if I was 0-4 at the plate my dad didn't tell me how great I was, but rather drive home wasn't so pleasant. Now my father didn't just flat out yell at me. That's not the way to go about things either. But he did make sure I knew how and when I had messed up that day. It wasn’t something I always wanted to hear, but I knew my dad knew the game and knew much more than I did. Of course I was a kid so I let some things just go in one ear and out the other, but there were some things that stuck with me. By doing this my father was developing my mental toughness. If he had told me how well I did when I had done horrible then I wouldn't have learned anything about failure and perseverance. He didn't give me the ol' line, "Well you did your best and that's all I can ask for," because he knew I could do better. By him letting me know where I had messed up I then knew what I needed to fix. Now granted I didn't always fix it on the first try (actually it was very rare that I ever fixed it on the first try). Sometimes he would tell me things "till he was blue in the face," as he said, but I did learn what needed to be fixed. I truly believe that that helped prepare me for my future life. I learned that when I made a mistake it wasn't ok and I didn't deserve a pat on the back. I needed to sit down, reevaluate myself and fix the problem. Now I'm human and I can't say that I have fixed every mistake that I have ever made, but I feel that I have the tools to do so simply because I wasn't told good job when it wasn't due. I learned more from little league than you could imagine. I firmly believe that if we help develop a kids mental toughness at an early age then they will grow into much more capable adults. I thank my dad for giving me that gift. I didn't always enjoy the car rides home after a bad day at the ballpark, but what he told me I always needed to hear.