If you have a son who wants to be a pitcher (regardless of whether he plays in high school, little league, or even tee-ball!), there are a lot of things he will have to learn to “do right” before he can be effective, but there is one thing that is more important than anything else, and that is easy for you to teach him yourself!

When a boy first starts pitching, one thing he will likely want to do is emulate his favorite pitchers – throwing curveballs and sliders and “cutters” and split finger fastballs – but most pitching instructors and pitching books will give you this important piece of advice: Never let your child pitch “breaking balls” (everything besides fastballs) until they are at least 14 years old (some even say 16 years old), as this can injure their arm. And when your son is not allowed to throw breaking balls, he might wonder how he is supposed to be effective.

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The answer to this question has two parts, and both parts are simple: learn how to pitch with control, and change the batter’s “eye level.”

Learning how to pitch with control takes a lot of time and a lot of practice, but you can help your son to gain this control by setting up a backstop in your backyard, with a strike zone drawn on it; encourage your son to practice pitching to the backstop, picking a spot to aim for and trying to hit that spot!

After your son has gained enough control that he can effectively direct his pitches where he wants them to go, train him in the importance of changing the batter’s “eye level” all throughout the at-bat; changing the batter’s “eye level,” of course, means varying where you pitch the ball – whether it is high or low, inside or outside, a ball or a strike.

When your son is able to control where his pitches are going, and when he remembers to pitch the batter inside, outside, low, and up – always changing where the batter is looking – he will be much more successful than before, even without those breaking balls!

As summer rolls toward us, your kids will soon be out of school and will be spending most of their time around the house; but of course, as parents, your goal (for both your children’s health, and for your own sanity!) is probably for your children to be spending much of this extra time outside, rather than in the house! With the television and the internet holding a monopoly on the attention of most children, it can be more difficult to get them to spend their summers outside, but if you follow a few simple tips, it will be easier for you to get your children outside – and to help them make summer memories they will not soon forget!

The best approach for getting your children to spend time outside is to simply limit their “media” intake; consider giving your children a budget for each day (or for each week) of how much they are allowed to use the internet and the television. When you give your children such a budget, they are going to have to find other ways to use their time – and of course, they will usually turn to the outdoors in order to have something that they can do.

You can also nudge your children toward playing outside by spending some time outside with them yourself; make a personal budget of how much time you will spend outside with your children – playing sports, playing games, or just “hanging out” – and make sure you fulfill this budget each week.

Finally, it is important that you realize that “forcing” your children to play outside is never a good idea; when you force them to play outside, they are less likely to have fun, but when you take these other approaches, your children will naturally play outside, and they will have a lot more fun. And of course, they will want to be outside more and more as they have more fun out there - and this cycle will repeat itself until your children are rarely using up their media budget because of all the time they are spending outside!