Parent Tips

POINTERS FOR UPWARD PARENTS

  1. Provide them what they need to be able to practice - a basketball, tennis shoes and a place such as a driveway or backyard.
  2. Demonstrate the skill drills. Don’t worry about whether you can do them 100% perfect or not, your child is just happy to have you doing the drills with them.
  3. Repetition is the name of the game. Muscle coordination improves through consistent repetition of a desired movement. Come up with creative ways to keep your child from getting “bored” with the repetition. Ideas include keeping some kind of score or playing a make believe game.
  4. Always Encourage …. especially the first efforts where they may feel like they just “can’t get it.” Stay positive and keep the focus on practicing and getting better a little each day. Remember they will always take their cue from you so if you see them doing positively, they will see themselves doing positively.

Three skills that practicing at home will really make a difference.

  1. Dribbling: and lots of it!!! It is easy to set up a few things for them to dribble around and back and forth to. Try to work with your child on learning to dribble first, then as they gain confidence, on looking down the court while dribbling. Don’t forget the left hand (right hand if your left-handed)! We will focus on this all year long, but the more practice the better!
  2. Passing: Have your child practice passing the ball directly as well as practicing bounce passing and handling the ball as it is bounced to them. Start with very soft bounces so they get used to the angle the ball bounces up at them.
  3. Shooting: With young players especially, the most important thing in shooting will be just helping the girls to build arm strength to shoot the ball. This is best accomplished by having them “shoot” the ball if not toward a lowered basket, toward a garage wall or just up in the air 10-15 times a day. This will help them to get used to shooting the ball, managing the weight of the ball and gaining arm strength to be able to reach the basket consistently.
  4. Working on these three skill sets a few times a week can really make a difference in your child’s ability and confidence level in practice and on the court. Make sure that they also have the mental reflection time to be able to study and think about their memory verse that goes with practice that week too!!!!