How to Help Your ADHD Child Stay Focused When Playing Baseball

When my seven year old grandson, Peyton, told me he wanted to play baseball last year, I smiled and then slightly cringed. He has ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), and was taking medication for it, but he still had difficulties concentrating on the task at hand. It is hard for any child to stay focused on anything for very long, but it is even harder for an ADHD child. Peyton also was not an overly or even moderately athletic child. Not wanting to disappoint or discouraged him, his mother and I signed him up.

Long before the first baseball practice, we started practicing hitting and catching the baseball with Peyton, as he had never played baseball before and needed lots of practice. Not much of a baseball fan myself, I tried to explain the basics of how to play baseball. I showed and told him the names of the bases and how to run around them when he hit the ball. I showed him how to hold a bat and how and in what direction to hit the ball. I explained that when he is in the outfield, he was to try to catch the ball and if not able to catch it, than to run after it, pick it up and throw it to the person on home plate. I explained that he had to pay attention to the game, to what was going on around him, and to listen to his coach. I explained what a coach was and how the coach would help him play better.

Some parents and grandparents believe that the way to show a child how to act is to ignore the bad behavior and reward the good behavior. I do not believe this. I believe that in order for a child to learn what is appropriate and what is not, they need to be told what is incorrect, told and shown what is correct, and discipline and reward as needed. Anticipating Peyton having difficulties, for the first two practices I did not criticize when he would sit down in the outfield and start playing with the grass, wear his glove on top his head, try to strike up a conversation with other the kids in the outfield, squat down and start drawing in the dirt, or when he would make faces at the pitcher.