It is always helpful to have parent help out there at practice. If there is nothing obvious to do then what I can use is someone helping keep kids focused and preventing goofing off & side conversations. Things like that – keeping it “classroom attentive.” Otherwise one or 2 kids get side-talking and it breaks the concentration for the team – kids who want to learn start getting cheated out of their learning time.
In things like doing calisthenics – it can help to keep the kids in line, in form. One of our team-building things is to keep together with the cals.
During games it’s the dugout scene. Classic: we’re up, dugout full of kids, 2 coaches out – 1st & 3rd. I’m trying to watch the game & coordinate and the dugout gets sooo raucous that all I do is tell kids to chill out. If there is another parent in there then it’s helpful to, again, keep the kids focused. Work on positive talk, encouragement of the batter, etc. Discussion on the game – looking at the plays going down, etc. And of course, keeping kids managed as to who’s up, who’s on deck, who’s in the hole. Keep kids from swinging the bat inside the cage & killing each other, etc. I want them to have fun, but when the dugout (or practice) gets behaviorally out of control then it’s not fun for anyone.
Overall my objective is to maximize teachable moments, and wild behavior, interruptions, lack of focus all work against that, so any contributions towards that end are appreciated. It’s good to ask, but probably just fine & welcomed if you help in the dugout when we are at bat – or be available to be a base coach. I usually like 1B, but am not overly attached to that if the flow goes otherwise.
Anyone who works with kids must fill out a Volunteer Application first:
http://ptll.org/forms/
AND – positive talk. We focus on positive talk with the kids.
