I'll push back a little on the "intrinsic" desire to excel.

Sometimes, a kid needs to achieve a certain level of competency before there's the fire to push harder. Your job as a parent is to push until that level of competency is achieved. I firmly believe that for most skills, you don't really have fun until you've put in a certain amount of effort and developed a certain skill level. I've found this true for myself with regard to piano lessons (it doesn't get fun until you can sight read), ballet (boring), cooking (need to master terms, learn to improvise a bit, develop confidence in the kitchen), etc., etc.

I would, as a parent, sign your kid up for clinics as often as is feasible, if he won't practice on his own.

Also, for team sports, so much of the fun at this age is making friends and playing with your buddies. Sign up for clinics and workshops with friends, if possible.

Thanks, all - OP here.

I really like the idea of trying to connect DS with a high school ball player to hear how much he practices, etc. DS is more apt to listen to him than to his parents . Thanks for all of the ideas and for those who shared their own experiences.

In case I wasn't clear, I don't want to figure out some magic solution as to how to help DS to make a travel sport team. I want to figure out how to get DS to connect the dots between hard work/practice and results. This will apply to many things in his life, certainly not just sports, but I thought that with a goal that he dearly seeks (making travel ball) and has not yet achieved, he would/should be able to make the connection. It frustrates me that he still doesn't.

It's intrinsic. Coaches know when kids have it and without it or overwhelming talent it'll be tough to make post rec teams and definitely not highschool. Sorry, that's just the truth these days.

My almost 10 year old adores baseball, too, and also won't practice. He is a pitcher, but will only practice at practice...which won't really get you where you want to go! He swears his life plan is to pitch for the Orioles. I think these kids WANT to want to put in all that practice and be fantastic, but they don't want to, so they are stuck. Its going to take them some years to reconcile their desire to be great athletes with the reality that you have to practice hard and long to get there. To be honest, I didn't get to that point until late teens, where I realized that wanting passionately to be great at my sport wasn't the same thing as running enough stadium sprints at 6am to make me great. I just wasn't willing to do the work...and so I wouldn't be great. I figured that out at 18. It may take your boy a while, too.

Baseball is tough as usually just one travel team per area. For example Bethesda, it's BCC for the most part and the boys on travel largely have been for years. A boy has to be cut and an exceptional player has to stand out at tryouts. Usually there is only 1-2 cuts a year. These boys play nearly 100 games a year, fall, spring, and summer. They practice 4 hours a week minimum and most get extra hitting or other coaching lessons. They train as a team in the winter. My son played 9u- 14u for BCC and it's a great travel program but at this point your son should get so
Extra instruction and try out for the select teams if you are in bethesda area. They are a step above rec

Anonymous wrote:Kids who excel at a high level in sports do so because they fall in love with it to a degree that they want to practice, work hard and excel. You cannot "give" your child this intrinsic motivation. Encourage, provide opportunities to play, and that is it. It is up to him. I am always amazed that parents who were not dedicated highly skilled athletes think that their kids will be.

Ditto this. Kids either have this or they don't. You can't change who your kid is. But kids do change over time as they grow and realize that obtaining goals may mean working really hard. But you can't teach or train the "fire" that some kids have.

If this is limited to sports then I would let it take its natural course.

If however it is everything in his life, its time to let him know that failing to plan is planning to fail. I asked my son the same question a couple of years back. "What have you done to get better at lacrosse?" His was a lame response about throwing the ball a couple of times with the neighbor. "How many hours?" I asked. Maybe 2 or 3 he responded.

I told him point blank that he did little to make the team in the last year and that he should have had at least 2 - 3 hours a week or 100 - 150 hours of practice in the last year in or to make the team. He said that sounded like too much effort. I told him he really did not want to play on a club level team and should look to intramurals or other less competitive sports.

That's what he did and he is happy.

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks for these replies. The sport is baseball. He's the same with any sport, though - but he loves baseball and foresees a future for himself in this sport (which breaks my mom heart, but that's part of life).

There are a million kids who go through this. Others will make it clear to him, so don't worry about this and be glad that travel sports won't take over your life.