Sorry for the long post, but I am looking for advice on how to keep my kid grounded as he navigates high school basketball.

My son is 14 and has been playing travel ball since 6th grade. He started out as one of the worst players on a really, really bad team, and he's grown to be an intermediate player on a better team. He's not a super star by any means --- he's not fast, and in the past he has not been aggressive or hustled much, but he can make shots when he musters the confidence to take them. He's shown glimmers --- in 6th grade he played in a scrimmage at a skills clinic where he scored more than 40 points (I stopped counting). The coach knew him as a player who was scared to shoot and not aggressive, so when he went on a tear the coach kind of stopped everything and kept him playing, even after the clinic was supposed to end --- he told the parents who were waiting to pick up kids "we will keep playing till this kid misses a shot." Spring season in 7th grade he was playing on a bad 8th grade team and was the 2nd leading scorer. Last year (8th grade) he changed from a pretty toxic AAU team to a much friendlier team and his confidence increased dramatically (he went from averaging zero points to averaging 6-8 as a reserve, with one or two 20+ games).

Toward the end of 8th grade, he also started working out with the team at the large public high school that he chose to attend. He was actually choosing between the big school (where he feared he would almost certainly not make the freshman team) and a smaller one where he could definitely have made the JV team, He went to practice at the big school and had one of his crazy scrimmages --- scoring multiple threes over their varsity kids as an 8th grader. Coach told him that day that he'd make a team if he came to that school and invited him to come to voluntary conditioning and open gyms. He started working out with those kids and did well --- crazy well compared to his previous teams. He played summer and fall pre-season leagues with the school team (one of two freshmen to do so) and has scored more than all but 1 other freshman (a kid much better than my son who is regarded as one of the best players of his age in our large metro area) and many sophomores and juniors.

My question is how to help him navigate this new environment. The coaches and many of the players at his high school think he's a much better player than he's been on his travel team. They seem to expect a lot from him, and it seems likely that he might make the JV team rather than the freshman team he feared he wouldn't make. He has had to pre-season games that he did well (well enough that people were cheering for him by name and yelling at the coach to put him in when he was on the bench). His high school is basketball crazy and kids come to watch them practice, and apparently cheer for him by name when he does well. He's friends with a bunch of older kids and he's starting to be invited to parties and to hang out with an older, popular crowd.

Here are my concerns:

1. My son is inconsistent. I worry that if he has some bad games and the people who have been cheering boo, then he'll be crushed.

2. I know some "phenom" AAU players, and some of them seem like jerks. They seem arrogant and they don't treat less skilled players well. There are a couple of kids at my son's school that also fall into this category --- arrogant, trash talking, always arguing with refs. I definitely don't want my son picking up those habits, especially since other than shooting he doesn't really have the skills to back them up (he's not doing the crazy alley-oops and dunks like some of the the kids he's playing with --- he's just a good shooter).

3. Some of these kids are being recruited to play in college, and their approach to academics reflects that priority --- they get grades just good enough to maintain eligibility and they take easy classes. My son takes honors classes and has previously gotten all As. We don't want that to change, especially since he will almost certainly not get a college scholarship.

4. There is a social cachet that comes along with being good at basketball. My son is making friends with a lot of new, popular kids and getting invited to parties by older kids. They seem nice, but at 14 he's still basically a little kid (even though he's 6'2"). The idea of him being invited to a party by high school seniors seems insane to me.

Anyone have any advice?

Don't let your head run too much on stuff like this. I've been to a lot of high school games and never had people boo at a player who wasn't having a good game. Having your son take some private lessons on the side could help with his inconsistency, however, he's only a freshman, so some of that will be worked out as he goes along.

As a parent, all you can do is instill in your son what you believe is the correct way to behave, both on and off the court. You can't control other kid's behavior.

That is up to you as a parent and should have no bearing on other player's grades. I understand the concern for bad influence, but you control what is acceptable grade-wise and what isn't. You set the standards in your house. You establish the priorities and make it crystal clear what they are.

Same answer. You control this as a parent. You are wise to be concerned at age 14. Again though, you set the rules and standards in your house regardless of the social cachet.

My youngest son is a senior in high school now, my other sons have all been through the high school scene at this point. High school can definitely be a tricky time for parents and kids. Kids are struggling to fit in and find their place while beginning to assert their independence as young adults. It's a time where young adults hopefully see there are both negative and positive consequences for their choices.

I understand the struggle for a high schooler to "fit in" and have his parents tell him he can't go to parties at age 14 or act a certain way on/off the court. It's easy for me to tell you that you establish the rules in your house, but I know it's not that simple. I know there's peer pressure to fit in, so don't think I'm coming off glib as if this is some easy task ahead of you.

What I've found with all of my boys is that honest communication helped a ton. It wasn't perfect and I know they didn't share everything with me, but they shared enough. This helped me offer guidance as they navigated through high school. If you ever needed an extra dose of love and encouragement, high school is the time.

Quick story. My hs senior took his first road trip (age 17) over spring break of 2016. He decided to go solo and meet some friends along the way. Long story short, I added a few more grey hairs, my wife had an extra glass of wine that week and my son had the time of his life.

Coach Rob, belated thanks for this reply. All of what you said makes sense.

To update you --- my son made his school's 9th grade team rather than JV, which turns out to be a real blessing. The JV coach actually talked to him after tryouts and said "I wanted you on my team, but the head coach thought that the 9th grade team would be better for your development", which is absolutely true and gives me a lot of faith in the coaching staff.

My question now is about keeping my son motivated and how much if any role I should play in that.

As I mentioned previously, he's not a superstar athlete but he's worked really hard up until now to develop his skills. In the first couple of interscholastic scrimmages, his team has won, and he's been the leading or second leading scorer. However --- his strength is his shooting, and relative to that other areas of his game are weak. He's a good ball handler but not at the level of some kids he plays with, and he moves slower than many other kids on the floor, both with and without the ball.

He wants to play JV next season and hopefully varsity after that, but I'm not sure he understands how much he'll need to improve to get there. At the level his school plays, 50% of varsity baskets are dunks or alley-oops off fast breaks, and the perimeter shots are all taken off screens or dribble moves to create space. The thing my son does now of catching and making an open 3 when the defense gets lazy will not work with those guys. My son is big-ish (6'2" at 14 and still growing), and he's learning to dunk, but he moves slowly and doesn't seem to see how much faster those kids move. Similarly, he can do great dribble moves, but they are all a step or two slower than the kids he plays with --- even other kids on the freshman team.

Now that he's doing well on the 9th grade team, he seems tempted to take it easy -- stopping the daily shooting and ball handling that he was doing, not eating carefully, etc. I'm wondering if I just let him do what he wants and assume that natural consequences will show him that he needs to work harder, or do I try to encourage him to be better? I worry that waiting months to get back on the daily ball handling stuff, for example, will really impact his chances to reach his goals, but I also don't want to be a crazy sports parent.

Thanks for the update! Excellent questions.

As a parent, I believe we always have the responsibility to try and provide guidance/motivation when needed. That becomes a bit trickier as our kids get older though. "I got this dad" becomes a more commonplace saying around the household.

Honestly, your son will have to develop his own motivation to work harder. Sometimes that comes with few lessons learned. My son didn't make an elite team in 6th grade and ended up on a lesser skilled team. He was one of the better players on that team, but that didn't help the sting he felt from not making the elite team. Some of the boys from the elite team made a few comments about him not making the team and that's all it took. He had a fire going. It motivated him to take private lessons and work harder. It paid off big time. He ended up being one of the better players on my team from 7th - 9th. His stats improved greatly and the comments from teammates and parents kept fueling the fire. He continued to take private lessons on his own accord without me pushing him.

I've also watched kids get cut at the soph - varsity level and kind of give up. You'd think it would light a fire, but they get discouraged and quit all together.

A few suggestions:

1) Attend a few JV/Varsity games with him. Not sure I'd point out how good Johnny is on the team, but maybe some comments about how quick they're playing. The intensity level seems higher. That kind of stuff.

2) Talk with the freshman coach and share your concerns. Maybe he can help light a fire.

3) Talk with the JV/Varsity coaches and ask if they could talk with your son about what it takes to make the team.

3) Offer to pay for a few private lessons from a respected coach.

You're a wise man not to get too wrapped up in this deal. It's a sport, it should be fun and you shouldn't get too stressed out over it. Neither should your son.

The best advice I ever received as a dad/coach of my son was to let him know I enjoyed watching him play. The temptation game after game was to immediately critique his performance both good and bad right after the game. I quit doing this in 6th grade and it made a big difference. I still got nose to nose with him on the court during a game, but afterwards, we didn't talk basketball unless he brought it up.

I'll leave you with this. Kids change. I've watched kids I thought would never turn into a real good player rock it out a few years down the road. I've also watched "hotshots" not be able to cut it at the higher levels.

Keep us up to date.