Naysayers, beware!

Last month my son was completing his fifth season of little league baseball. I admit to being a typical biased parent when I state that, in my eyes, my son is a talented baseball player. I attend every practice and every game with great enthusiasm. I also suffer the inevitable ups and downs of our teams progress throughout the season along with all of the other hopeful future MLB parents.

During one of the last games, my husband and I were faithfully planted in our lawn chairs stuffing our faces with hot dogs and cheese fries while intermittently shouting, "Go, Padres," in hopes of inspiring them to do something other than play with the dirt under their spiked shoes. Our team wasn't fairing so well as the score was 6 to 1 in the third inning with no outs. Our son plays short stop, first base and third base extremely well and occasionally has been called on to pitch at the end of a game when the main pitchers have met their pitch quotas. However, he has a tendency to crack under the pressure after two or three batters, so pitching has never seemed to be his forte even though he wants it to be so with all of his heart.

On this day, the coach decided to put my son in to pitch. My husband and I nearly choked on our cheese fries as we watched our son lope from short stop to the pitching mound and take the ball from his coaches hand. My husband stood up and said, "I can't watch this! The pressure is too much for me." He strolled over to one of the assistant coaches and said, "What is he doing?! Jack won't be able to handle this pressure!" The asst. coach gestured for my husband to settle down and said the coach knows what he's doing and it'll be alright.

Obviously, my husband and I were projecting our inability to handle the pressure of our son being under such scrutiny in,what seemed like at the time, such a harrowing situation. He was completely unaware of our doubt and if he had any self doubt, he overcame it successfully. Our son deftly proved us completely wrong by striking three batters out in a row! His team came back to score three runs and he continued to pitch like a pro over the next inning keeping his cool and the opposing team from running up their score. The Padres still lost by two runs, but they rallied spectacularly and my son was at the center of it.

I was so ashamed for doubting my son's ability and learned a valuable lesson about being a 'naysayer.' My husband's and my overreaction to our son being put on the mound came from our own of fear of failure as well as a natural, parental inclination to protect our son from public ridicule or failure. When we buy into our own fears and stand in the way of our children trying new things, especially when its not their 'forte,' we deny them the experience that can lead to success even if it's through failure. I pledge to do my very best not to engage in naysaying again. I may relapse occasionally, but I know the key is being aware of this human flaw which makes it more likely that I will recover from it more quickly.

My goal is to be a naysayer, no more!