John O’Sullivan is the author of the bestselling book Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy High-Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids. He is also founder of the changing the game project, and has spent nearly three decades as a soccer player and coach on the youth, high school college, and professional level. I asked him to share five mistakes sports parents commonly make and how to correct them. Here’s John’s response:

I have never met a parent who does not love their child, or says “I cannot wait to wreck my child’s life.” I have, however, met many who love their kids in ways that are not necessarily helpful when it comes to performance both on and off the field. After two decades of coaching elite soccer players on the youth, high school and college level, I have seen quite a lot, but there are five common mistakes that well meaning parents often make that negatively affect their child’s performance. If you are a parent of a young athlete, try avoiding these five things, and you will see an athlete emerge who plays more confidently, competently and with greater enthusiasm.

1. Do not overestimate your child’s ability
Very few parents can objectively evaluate their child’s ability in a given sport unless they have both experience playing that sport, and coaching/evaluating talent. We are hard wired to respond emotionally to our child’s performance in a much different way than we respond to a neutral’s performance. We also are not good at realizing that in many young athletes, current performance is not a great indicator of future performance. Many young athletes excel because they are a little older, stronger and faster than their peers. After puberty, these differences tend to even out, and many elite pre-pubescent athletes no longer possess the advantages that made them great at 11 or 12. if you think your child is really special, get a qualified, independent evaluator (not your private trainer or coach) to give you the truth.

2. Praise your child for effort, not outcomes
Praising kids for ability and results, instead of effort, creates what Stanford researcher Dr Carol Dweck calls a fixed mindset. Fixed mindset individuals see ability as unchangeable; you are either good or not good. They do not value effort or learning, for they believe you either have ability, or you do not. Praising effort, on the other hand, focus upon the process of learning, and promotes a growth mindset. You are what you are today because of what you have put in to this point. What you will be next week, next month and next year will be a result of effort and application. You are what you do, not what you have done.

3. Allow your child to fail
The most successful people fail the most, yet many sports parents have forgotten that. Learning and development is about trial and error, overcoming disappointment, and developing mental fortitude to deal with setbacks. Many parents swoop in every time their child has a difficult coach, or loses a starting position on a team, and blames coaches, teammates and administrators instead of using failure as a teachable moment. Allow your kids to fail if you ever want them to succeed.

4. Leave your kids alone on the ride home
Many kids say their worst sports memory is the ride home after games! Many parents use this time of emotional and physical exhaustion to critique, criticize, and relive every moment of the game, yet this is not a teachable moment. Let your child bring up the game if he wants to talk about it, and let him end the conversation when he is done talking about it. If he does not want to talk, wait until emotions have cooled, you have a good meal in you, and then discuss the game. Let the car ride home belong to your kids!

5. Never, ever, tie your love to athletic performance
Whether intentionally or unintentionally, many parents tie their love to sports outcomes. Have you ever behaved differently after a win or loss? Do you overlook certain things after a victory, but give your kids a hard time even when they give their best effort in defeat? Far too many athletes play with fear because they have been ingrained with the belief that their worth is tied solely to their athletic performance. Want to do one thing that will change your kids lives forever? As Bruce Brown, the founder of Proactive Coaching says, just learn to tell your kids 5 simple words after every game, and your world will change. The words? “I love watching you play.”

Every child, and every family, has different needs, and there is no one size fits all solution for raising young athletes. Parenting is an art, not a science. That being said, if you avoid the five common mistakes above, you are well on your way to raising a happy, high-performing child!