Why Your Child’s Private Lessons Aren’t Working And How To Fix It

Stop paying for motion when you want progress. We dig into why so many private lessons fail to create real separation on the field and show how to flip the model from selling minutes to producing measurable outcomes. The focus isn’t more reps; it’s the right reps—built on intent, movement quality, and a game-ready mindset that holds up under pressure.

We start by naming the problem: uniform, overpriced sessions that treat a beginner like a travel standout and mistake activity for development. Then we lay out a better path. Tier instruction by age, experience, mechanics, and goals. Set a clear objective for every session and end with a takeaway plus a weekly plan. Teach athletes how to think: self-diagnose after a miss, read pitch rotation, anticipate count leverage, and make in-at-bat adjustments. Movement training becomes a lever for skill—balance, sequencing, rhythm, and strength flow directly into command, bat speed, and adjustability.

Our myth-busting segment tackles stubborn beliefs. More reps don’t equal better results; only quality reps with feedback drive change. Pitching lessons can’t be just throwing—health, control, and performance come from movement patterns and sequencing. Tee work isn’t kiddie stuff; used with purpose, it’s how elite hitters refine positions and ball flight. We challenge facilities and coaches to stop babysitting, invest in education, and mentor athletes toward clear, trackable goals. Parents get the accountability script: ask “What’s the goal today? What’s the long-term plan?” If lessons don’t produce visible improvement over teammates who only attend practice, it’s time to make a switch.

Modeled on what pros do in the offseason—analyze, measure, adjust—this approach builds smarter, stronger, more resilient athletes. When training targets mechanics, movement, mindset, and game IQ, kids don’t just hit in cages; they perform when it counts. If this resonates, subscribe, share with another family, and leave a review so we can grow a community committed to raising athletes the right way.

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Chapters

• 0:00 A Call For Better Youth Training
• 1:50 The Problem: Uniform Lessons And Empty Reps
• 2:39 What Must Change: Tiered, Intentional Coaching
• 3:25 Teach The Game: Mindset, Movement, IQ
• 5:21 Cage Skills vs Game Skills
• 5:21 Myth Busting: Reps, Pitching, Tee Work
• 6:50 Hold Coaches Accountable: Plans And Outcomes
• 8:07 Offseason Models From Pros
• 9:06 Expect Separation Or Make A Change
• 10:33 Smarter Athletes Win; Share The Mission

Transcript

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Training isn't just about reps. It's about results, growth, the right type of coaching. And I'll tell you what, athletic training across the board for young athletes needs a revolution.

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Raising athletes, the things that causes all dads to go bald and moms to buy minivans, empowering parents to help their kids succeed.

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To my fellow parents raising athletes, our kids deserve better. The results that they are not getting can happen with the right environment and the right approach. So we need to come together and to revolutionize this industry so that all young athletes have the opportunity to learn, play, and grow appropriately. Now I want to be clear: this is not an episode to bash instructors, to bash other facilities, but it's simply to hold them accountable to do better because these kids want to do better and they deserve an opportunity appropriately that it puts them on the correct path to success. I simply want to challenge the status quo and call for better standards in athletic development. I've spoken with several families recently whose children were part of lessons over the past couple years and they've spent thousands of dollars. And over the course of that span and that significant investment, their young athlete has not improved faster, better than the athletes in their environment, on their team and in their league. That's a problem that needs to be addressed. Parents, you need to hold people accountable. Kids, you deserve better. And instructors and coaches and facilities, we can all do a better job of helping these kids progress the correct way. So here's the problem. And it's what's happening in most facilities around the country. First, this uniform training for all athletes. The elite travel player is getting the same session as an AU beginner. It makes no sense. There's no individualized plans or data-driven instruction. Two, overpriced, underwhelming lessons.$80 plus dollars for 30 minutes of t-work or playing catch is not gonna do it. You know, BP does not equal big development. And third, these, and this all leads to this the empty reps culture is out of control. I, you know, these mindless repetition, it's not helping young athletes. In fact, I might even take such a bold position to say that it might even be hurting those young athletes. There's a few things that must change in order for us as a culture to do better. The first thing, lessons should be tiered. They should be tiered by age, experience, mechanics, goals. All of these things should determine lesson structure. Also, instructions should be purposeful. Teach how to think, not just what to do. Build reps around intent, adjustments, and understanding. Third, private instruction does not equal babysitting. Facilities need to stop treating kids like clients and start treating them like athletes with goals. There should be an athlete-centered approach to lessons, customized development plans, define goals, mechanics focus, weekly plans. There should be mental training, and that should not be optional. Teach young athletes resilience, self-diagnosis. That's a big one. Performance mindset. Also, movement training equals an athletic advantage for young athletes. How agility, strength, and movement drills directly impact skill performance. Also, in-game application. Teach young athletes how to problem solve. They can handle that. What to do when a swing fails in the game. A smarter athlete is a more skilled athlete. If we educate them to learn how to self-diagnose and understand situationally what will happen, I'm not just talking about what happens when the ball is hit to you. How about how to handle yourself when you swing and miss, to understand and analyze a pitcher's pitch, a location, understanding and trying to recognize pitch rotations, understanding the defense? There's so many aspects of the games that we actually don't teach kids. We think they're not capable, maybe, of handling the technical and psychological and intellectual aspects of the game, but yet we'll use terms like baseball and softball IQ to them. How about this? Why don't you start teaching them as a coach, as their instructor, as their trainer, as you're instructing, why not talk through why it is that you're teaching them or why it is that you're trying to change the mechanics? Teach them all these things because a smarter athlete will become a more athletic, skilled athlete on the field in the game. It's not about getting them to be able to blow up a ball in the cage. Great, they're a great cage hitter, but does that translate to the game? I think we need to change how kids are trained. And now for everyone's favorite segment of the episode, myth busting. This one is going to be fun. The first one is more reps equals better results. Wrong. It's only if it's the right reps you get the better results. Myth number two, pitching lessons should only be about throwing. That is absolutely false. It should be about balance, sequencing, understanding your body. It's so much more than just throwing. In fact, I think that things when it comes to pitching lessons that are just centered around throwing is one of the things that's contributing to more arm problems, to more injuries, to lack of control. There's so much more to pitching than just throwing. We need to start educating both the parents. We're raising athletes together, so educating parents, but also educating on uh educating kids on the proper techniques to become a better pitcher. Third, teamwork is boring and only for little kids. That is absolutely wrong. It's how elite hitters refine mechanics. And our last myth buster for today's segment is my kid just needs to get more swings in. Here's the thing: without proper guidance, that's just muscle memory for bad habits. I want to talk directly to facility owners, coaches, trainers, and instructors for a second. And I want to challenge you all to rethink your lessons. Stop selling time and start selling results. Provide real results for young athletes. Invest in your trainers' education, make them mentors, not just bucket fillers. And here's my message to parents you're paying for development, not just activity. Ask your instructor, what's the goal today? What's the plan long term? Don't settle for a warm-up or a pat on the back. Demand coaching that teaches, not babysits. Now, there's a ton of incredible stories that you as parents can go online and find from professional athletes and their approach to training, both now and when they were younger. A pro, they don't just take swings, they analyze, they measure, they track, and they're constantly adjusting mechanics and mindset. And it all starts in the offseason, not the season. Even MLB players, there's they still train on movement, on mental skills, on refining mechanics. And if it's good for them, is it not good for your young athlete as well? We can take from these incredible experiences, tools, and resources that we have of things that are working and getting tremendous results from others. Your kids deserve that type of training. They deserve a true investment into them as a whole to help them in aspects of all, in all aspects of their game. Don't settle for just reps. They deserve more because more than reps is going to be the thing, the difference maker in them progressing to where they can be versus where they are right now. Don't be afraid to raise your expectations. Choose facilities, coaches, trainers, and instructors who train the whole athlete. Training isn't about making clients, it's about making athletes better. If you made a decision as a parent to invest and thus sacrifice financially in a private lesson for your young athlete, well then you deserve an incredible environment where that private lesson is going to make them better than just the empty reps that your kid can do at home in the backyard. That environment should be for them to really progress faster than everyone else. Think about it this way, in a way that everyone can now understand. If your child is on a travel team, let's say he's on a 13U baseball travel team, and everyone is going to the team practices, and everyone is participating in the team games, but your son is the only one at that team taking private lessons. Shouldn't you expect to see a big difference in your child's skill and ability on the field over time? Absolutely. There should be this separation that happens where your child starts to progress faster than all the other kids who are not getting lessons and they're just doing what the team's doing together. However, if your child is not on that path to success where they are now noticeably different after taking private lessons, there's a problem. And you as a parent need to make a change. You have to change the facility, you have to change the program, you have to change the instructor. Because that child should be improving at a different rate than everyone else around them. But if your child is not making the school ball team, is not getting better on their travel team, but maybe they're just really good cage hitters, that's a problem for your kid. If in fact their goal was to make their school ball team, their goal was to do better with their travel team. Their goal was maybe even to play beyond high school. Your kids deserve better, and there is better available for them out there. Do a little research. There's incredible places that deal with the athlete as a whole, helping them not just become more mechanically sound as a hitter or a pitcher or a fielder, but understands that baseball and softball IQ involves a lot of other things, like understanding the why, being able to read rotation on the ball, being able to adjust athletically, defensively to a ball, understanding a hitter's count. There's so many intelligent things that your child can be taught, and it should be incorporated in every lesson because a more prepared athlete, a more intelligent athlete is a more skilled athlete on the field. I hope today's episode was of value to you. If you thought so, do me a favor. Can you share it with another family? Because I would love to grow this community together. Because you know what? We are all raising athletes together. And it should be a community project because I think that's where we can make real lasting change. I'll see you next time on Raising Athletes.