‘He’s Just a Little Boy’ poem placed on ball fields, inspires parents

As parents, we can sometimes be too hard on our kids when they fail, especially in sports. How do you handle it when your kid strikes out or drops a touchdown pass?

There is a national campaign quietly gaining steam to change the way we handle our kids on the field mistakes.

“He’s Just a Little Boy” is a decades old poem recounting a young boy at the plate, swinging and missing with the bases loaded, and the crowd starts riding him for his failure.

“Tears fill his eyes,” it reads, “the game’s no longer fun.”

I came across this poem in Marysville this week, posted at a field where my son was playing in a tournament.

This poem has been going up at youth fields all across America after Joel McKinnon, a youth coach in Ohio, found it on Facebook last year. He posted it to his webpage, and then his company, Farmer’s Insurance, put it on its homepage.

“I think we need that reality check that these kids aren’t trying to lose the game,” McKinnon said. “They’re trying their best. We can’t always hit the home run to win the game. Sometimes we’re the guy that strikes out to lose the game, and we have to be able to talk those kids through that situation so next time maybe they do hit the home run rather than discourage them to where
they stop playing.”

I stood there and read the poem several times, “Mom and dad can’t help him,” it reads, “he stands alone.” It really put me in my son’s shoes, and made me think of myself through his eyes.

That’s the point, McKinnon said. “When you read it and really think about it, you kind of change your perspective on how you want to coach and how you want to address these kids.”

And it did, almost immediately. I found myself being much more positive and encouraging of our team, especially my son, and his smile was noticeably bigger.

As parents, we can easily get caught up in the moment because of our expectations, our fears or our embarrassment, but try to remember the last lines of the poem the next time your child fails in the spotlight.

“Open up your heart and give him a break, for it’s moments like this a man you can make. Please keep this in mind when you hear someone forget, he is just a little boy and not a man yet.”