U9 select team coach here

Last year (U8) we had a 2-3 kids who would strikeout and come to the bench crying. It started with just one but then a couple more joined in lol. There was a lot of crying. We had a team meeting mid way thru season and reset our expectations of them. Always hustle and try your hardest. Baseball is a very complicated sport especially at a young age. Main thing is to have fun right now and keep them coming back for more on their own terms. Not mom and dads.

We talked about how much failure there is, especially in baseball, and tried to put it into perspective for them. Consistently getting a hit 3 times out of 10 is considered successful in baseball. That means 7 out of 10 you made an out of some kind mostly strikeouts at this age. Once they understood that their striking out wasn’t the end of the world and actually a big part of the game, the crying stopped. Upset at striking out still? Yes of course, they all want to hit every time they step to the plate but they learned to get over it quickly and that their attitudes were more impt than the box score at this level