Brick hands

Do you guys have any drills you can do to help develop softer hands. She is my tallest girl and I like to move the kids around to play all positions but its a hard task when you can't catch the ball. If you guys have Ideas let me know. (I am having patience she is only in 5th grade and young 10yrs old) Thanks

Don't worry too much, I've seen high school kids that couldn't catch a cold. She is young so be patient....

She needs to strengthen her hands... she can do ball slaps... slap the ball as hard as you can alternating hands. She can bounce the ball very low and hard off the floor... she can stand close to a wall and bounce it off the wall as hard as she can... you can have her pound the ball ( dribble ) as hard as she can alternating hands... those are just a few of the things that we used to do with players that had bad hands. These things will help her concentrate and get better at catching the ball.

Good luck and Happy Thanksgiving.

That is pretty young. I would worry less about developing "soft hands" and more on overall athletic development and coordination. Once they get a little older it's harder to make progress in coordination.

You can do things like tennis ball toss, balance on one leg, skipping forwards and backwards,
martial arts, bear crawl, swimming, etc, etc. Here's on example of a basketball related drill that good for coordination:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/drills/biglow-one-hand-passing.html

Then once she gets older the soft hands and watching the ball all the way in, will be there. Also, just because she's tall doesn't mean she just plays post. She should learn to and play on the perimeter and the post. Do guard skills too.

Believe me I am teaching guard skills but guards need to catch the ball to. I never said anything about her playing the post I just said she is tall. But thank you for the advice and links this is a great site and love all the great insite I can get here. Thanks again

These are young kids... Just run a lot of passing drills on the move.... that will help them develop the skills necessary to do what you need to play this game... PASS & CATCH.

Again. be patient... I watched several games over the holiday... and I saw several kids miss easy passes where the ball went right through their hands.... Varsity players.

Good advice here. One thing I will say is that some kids don't know how to catch. The ball hits them in the palm of their hands and bounces off. I would want to make sure she is catching it with her fingers. Also tell her to keep her eyes on the ball until she catches it. "Look it in."