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The power of positive feedback
Children do not know how good they are at anything. They rely on feedback to determine this. You can make a big difference in their lives if you give them the positive feedback they need.
When my son started to play football I decided not to be the "hero" and tell everyone else how to play the game and how to coach. Instead I was happy to stand back and watch as others coached my son in the early years of his football, starting in the Under 9's.
There were a few interesting things I observed during these years. First was the way, after every match the young players would sit together while the coach handed out the awards for the game. If you watched the boys' faces you could see that every one of them was anxiously hoping that the next name that was called out for an award was going to be his.
It was standard practice not to keep on giving the awards to the same (best) players every week, and to try and share them around so that, over time, all players would receive an award. Sometimes this wasn't easy to do, for the players who were not very good. But the smart coaches would always be able to come up with something that they saw them do well during the game, and would use that as the reason for the award.
The second interesting thing was the fact that often these players would improve as players starting the very next game. It was as if telling them that they were good at something, anything, would give them an enormous boost in self confidence for other things. A few years later I did coach one of the teams my son played in and I used this technique myself. There is no doubt this works.
So I will say again, children do not know how good they are at anything. They rely on feedback to determine this. You can use this to great advantage. If you tell them they are good at any aspect of what they are trying to do, sport or otherwise, you significantly increase the chances that they will improve in other aspects as well. Self confidence is a make-or-break factor when it comes to achievement.
Look for the opportunity to give your child positive feedback about something, in everything that they do. The guidelines that US Youth Soccer produced "for handling 10 common coaching situations" provides very good advice on how to do this. here