fear of getting in front of a ground ball

Question
My son is 8 yrs. old and I can't get him to get in front of the ball. If a ground ball is hit to him he has a tendency of trying to catch it at his side. How can I correct this problem? Is there any drills that I can use to help make this better?

Answer
Hey Tim,

The best thing to do is to throw ground balls to him on a good field. Then work your way up to hitting him grounders. You may even want to start with a rubber-coated ball. Tell him to concentrate on getting the ball close to the ground to avoid bad hops, which is probably the issue here.. He may have gotten hit from a grounder before. This should work..

Dennis