Somewhere around the start of every season, a well-meaning conversation happens in a kitchen: "So — what do you want to do this year?" And the answer, almost always, is some version of *hit .400*, *make the all-star team*, or *hit a home run*.
Those are all perfectly natural things to want. They're also terrible goals, for one specific reason: your child doesn't control any of them. Here's what to set instead, and how to check in on it without turning the season into an assessment.
An outcome goal is a result: hit .300, win the championship, make the top team. A process goal is a behavior: take a full swing at strikes, get in a fielding-ready position on every pitch, do tee work three times a week.
The difference isn't semantic. A player can do everything right at the plate — good approach, hard contact, laid off the bad pitches — and go 0-for-4 because four defenders made good plays. Under an outcome goal, that's a failure. Under a process goal, it's a great day that happened to produce no hits. One of those framings keeps a ten-year-old playing baseball.
Three reasons, and they compound.
It's entirely within the player's control. It's measurable from the stands with a pencil. It has no bad side effects — a hitter who takes more pitches sees the ball longer, learns the strike zone, draws more walks and tires the pitcher out. And every single one of those helps the team even on days the hits don't come.
It also produces improvements that show up in the numbers *before* batting average moves — which is exactly the reassurance a struggling player needs. A flat average with a rising on-base percentage is a hitter who is learning the zone. That's real progress that average alone hides completely; OBP vs batting average explains why, and the on-base percentage calculator will do the maths.
The younger the player, the fewer and simpler the goals. A seven-year-old can hold one goal in their head — "swing hard at strikes" — and that's plenty. A twelve-year-old can manage two or three, and can meaningfully participate in choosing them. A high-schooler can own the whole thing and should.
Two rules that apply at every age. First, the player picks at least one goal. A goal your child didn't choose is your goal that they're carrying. Second, cap it at three. Beyond that nothing gets remembered, let alone practiced.
Mid-season check-ins are where good goals go wrong. Some things that keep them useful:
Here's the catch that trips up most families: "see more pitches per at-bat" only means something if somebody is counting. Otherwise it's a nice sentiment that quietly evaporates by the third week of the season, and the review conversation becomes vibes.
You don't need much. Decide the two or three things your goals depend on and log those every game — for the goals above that's usually walks, strikeouts, at-bats and hits. That short list is the same one in our guide to what stats to track, and the free printable stat sheet has room for all of it. If you'd like the formulas explained in plain English first, the stats explained guide covers them.
The reason to keep it going all season is that the trend is the whole point. One game says nothing; twelve games say whether the thing you set out to work on is actually happening. And if your player changes teams next season — rec to travel or back again — a record you keep yourself means this year's goals and next year's start from the same page.
An outcome goal is a result, like hitting .300. A process goal is a behavior the player controls, like taking a full swing at strikes or doing tee work three times a week. Process goals work far better for young players because results in youth baseball are noisy and largely out of the player's hands.
No more than three, and fewer for younger players — a seven-year-old does best with one. Beyond three, nothing gets remembered or practiced.
Set them together, and make sure at least one is genuinely their choice. A goal your child didn't pick is your goal that they're carrying, and they'll treat it that way.
About once a month, and never in the car straight after a game. Lead with the trend rather than a single number, and be willing to change a goal that turned out to be wrong.
Log a small, consistent set of numbers each game — at-bats, hits, walks and strikeouts covers most process goals for hitters. A printable sheet or an app both work; what matters is doing it every game so the trend is visible.