My personal theory is that if you intently focus on something to make sure you avoid it (physically or psychologically), you're naturally aiming for a near-hit: you're trying to _closely_ avoid the thing rather than missing it by a mile when not even paying attention to it
And once it was done, he was like "great, good job". Turns out he had literally been hands off the whole time. What I had thought had been me just seeing where he was sending us, actually corresponded to my own movements making it happen.
That doesn't really work when the pitchers are throwing fast since you have to predict where to swing. But it really works for early levels of the game.
I spent my entire childhood trying to make this clear to my parents, but I never succeeded. For a lot of people I think this is just very difficult, if not impossible.
Example: you come into a corner a little fast, see you are going a bit wide, fixate on the ditch/edge of road, get afraid and hit the brakes - which stands the bike up and drives you wide; sometimes right off the road.
The right response here is to look away from the ditch to the line you want on the other side of the lane and lean into it more. Easier said than done if you are afraid or anxious.
I find it's a lot more complex than that. I have had that backfire where if I focus too much on the positive aspects, my kid doesn't feel that their fears are heard and understood.
Kids and emotions are complex and highly variable. There's rarely simple solutions. You kinda just have to throw your whole brain and heart at the problem and navigate it as best as you can.
The point made was that it's impossible to not-do something, you can only do.
So when told "do not do X", the "not" disappears and it effectively translates into "do X". And so the soccer player being told not to hit the goalie ends up doing just that.
The moral of the story was to focus on what you should do, rather on what you should not do.
Telling what to focus on works with kids, drunks and adults.
Which, according to the article, was the second step of Fred Rogers' rewriting process.
With children, I find it's almost always a better strategy to focus on the positive sides of an experience. Of course, it's more difficult when they're already afraid of something (maybe through their friends, a previous experience, or the parents themselves). But there are lots of blank slates and it's one of the great parts of being a parent to let them write something positive on it instead of tainting it with fear.