"Penalty Strikes" outside the zone called by an umpire is, however, bad baseball at any level, but ESPECIALLY in Little League

I would agree with this, but we ( as a league) do ask the umpires to “expand” the strike zone for our 8U to 10U kids. As most of our umpires are High School umpires with a strike zone the size of a Tuna can, we encourage them to make the strike zone a little “taller”. prior to the start of each game. Kids this size are not that accurate and primarily have “one” pitch. This has the effect of encouraging the hiiters to swing at pitches that may be just outside the black, or at the top or bottom of the zone. It helps develop hand/eye coordination for the hitters and doesn’t shame the pitcher that is missing slightly with the pitch. As long as the umpire is consistant with the zone.

In order to encourage pitcher development in the younger divisions, we also have inning limits and walk limits. The pitcher can only physically walk one player in the 8U and 10U. Coach pitches to every walked batter after the first walk. The hitter assumes the count, and the Coach has three pitches. Strikes are called on Coach pitches. The only exception is that the hitter can stay in the box for additional pitches as long as they foul off pitches until they strike out or hit. The pitcher still gets their work in on the mound, but can’t “walk the lineup”. This gets the infield involved in the game and makes the hitting team have to “hit” the ball to advance runners.

Let’s face it, pitching is a skill that is mastered with extreme repetition, and most parents are unable or unwilling to devote the time to throwing with their kid every other day. Most cannot afford instruction for kids this age, and may not want to if the kid is playing basketball, soccer, and football as well. They will only get better by practing their motion and mechanics. By allowing and compensating for time in game situations, these kids come to understand that if they want to pitch, they must work at themselves.

Especially about maintaining their stances while taking a pitch, however I would add that I think you should instruct them to track the ball into the glove or at least until it crosses the plate as it trains their eyes to track pitches and also hopefully not swing with their eyes closed as LL’ers are prone to do.

If this is an issue for those guys, another thing you can do in practice is when you’re working with pitchers have the free swingers stand in the box to track pitches and call balls and strikes, with the catcher or someone else letting them know when they’re wrong. It helps the pitcher get practice with someone standing in the box, but also helps the hitter better define their strike zone and train their eyes to track pitches.

But telling a kid not to swing doesn’t teach them that, it just tells them that they suck. So badly that you think there’s a better chance of them getting on base by not trying.

It’s one thing if the kid is doing everything right and still not succeeding. But if they’re making fixable, common mistakes like being too aggressive, I don’t see what’s wrong with trying to change that so they might succeed. I’d rather tell a kid they can’t hit when I’m sure they can’t hit.

I don’t know about your area, but in mine people don’t really know each other, and there aren’t enough kids around to do that kind of thing anyway. Even if there were, I’m betting they’d rather spend their time playing video games anyway.