General Discussion

I know you very well might be right -- and I sure hope so.

A lot of that could depend on how the important people in her life respond. All kids at that age can be damaged if they react by saying it is important that she/he improve her skills, as if they somehow failed.

I will add that over the decades I've been familiar with school sports, I can say without risk of error that not all adults & coaches are objective when it comes to team sports. That is often another issue that parents and others have to deal with. (When I was on the school board, and watching my daughter's junior varsity basketball game, we had to have the state police remove one parent. She was way out of control. An extreme example, perhaps, but there are many others. Parents actually engaging in fist fights happens. And some coaches lack the capacity to deal with students in a positive manner. I watched as one of our school's coaches humiliated a good friend's daughter on the b-ball court in front of a packed gym. I went over and said, "Hey, sport, don't mistake yourself for a university coach, and I won't mistake you for an Elvis imitator." Later I did a training for coaches on the emotional development of teens, noting the differences between the average 15 year olds and 19 year olds. Any good coach knows that stuff.)