No parent wants to see a child’s potential -- athletic or otherwise -- go to waste. But no parent should pressure a kid into playing a sport he doesn’t like, either -- or into playing at a level of competition that’s inappropriate for his ability and commitment.

How can you tell whether you’re pushing your kid into a sports activity where he doesn’t belong?

Well, for starters, if you have to "push" at all, you’re probably pushing too much. Kids don’t have to be pushed to do things that they love. An occasional nudge, here and there? Sure. "Come on, pal, get your stuff together. It’s almost time to leave for practice." But if you find yourself doing that more than once or twice in an entire season, it’s time to back off.

That’s right. Simply stop "pushing" at all for a few weeks, and see what happens. If your youngster truly wants to participate in a sport, he’ll quickly pick up whatever slack you cut him. If the sport is in season, he’ll start bugging you to get ready to take him to practice. If it’s out of season, he’ll want you to work on the sport with him, or he’ll want to get together with friends and practice or play.

I’ve experienced this from both sides. I’ve seen my kids sign up for a sport and then lose interest after awhile. And I’ve seen them sign up and become fanatical about getting to practice a half hour early.

If I saw their interest wane, I’d nudge them occasionally. But once they made it clear that they really didn’t want to play, I stopped nudging. My only rule after that was, if they planned to quit, they were going to call the coach and tell him, themselves. I wasn’t going to make the call. Also, they were going to return all equipment on their own. I’d drive them, but they were going to walk up to the coach and do the return.

Obviously, I’d also make sure they did more research the next time they wanted to sign up for a sport or any other activity. But my biggest concern was making sure they didn’t stay involved with a team, in a competitive sport, when they had no commitment or enthusiasm for it and would only be taking away practice time from kids who really wanted to be there.

If memory serves, I only dealt with two sport "resignations" from my kids. One of my daughters quit softball -- I believe she was about 10 or 11, at the time-- on the first day of signups, because the coaches got into a violent argument while they were "drafting" kids for their respective teams. She ended up playing several years after that, when we moved to another town.

And my other daughter quit lacrosse after one or two practices, because she didn’t want to play at such a competitive level. (It was a non-school travel team that practiced four or five nights a week, and once she discovered that, she realized the commitment was more than she wanted to make.)

Some might argue that you shouldn’t let kids quit a sport once they start; that they should at least finish the season. The logic is, if you let them quit a sport in midseason just because they don’t like it, they’ll become "quitters in life."

I understand that reasoning, but my experience doesn’t agree with it. My kids didn’t become quitters simply because I let them give up a sport they didn’t like. It was fairly easy to monitor how they dealt with challenges and bad decisions in other parts of their life, to be sure that quitting didn’t become their default way of responding to setbacks.

Besides, I believe there’s a difference between "quitting after a few days of practice, because you've discovered you don't really like the sport or you don’t want to make a commitment," and "quitting in midseason, because you have an argument with the coach or you aren’t getting enough playing time."

Both meet the definition of "quitting" -- no doubt about it. But in the former case, you haven’t abandoned an established team that was counting on you; and you actually accomplish something positive for the rest of the team, by ridding it of a player who doesn’t share the team’s goals. In the latter case, your accomplishments are almost exclusively selfish.

The other side to all of this is disconnecting yourself from your child’s athletic interests and pursuits permanently. I’ve seen parents do this. They’re so aloof, they don’t even know what position their kid plays, let alone trying to encourage and guide him toward improvement.

Some parents do this because they just don’t know how to help. But others, I suspect, are so intent on not becoming "annoying sports parents" that they back away completely.

Somewhere between aloof and intrusive, there’s a happy medium that involves encouraging and guiding your child. The key to finding it is mutual trust: You need to trust your child to determine his own athletic interests and levels of commitment, and he needs to trust your motives when you nudge and cajole.

• The initial impetus came from him; you didn’t insist that he learn to ride a two-wheeler.
• You gave him an outlet for his interest, by getting him a bike, helping him climb up into the seat, and then steadying him as he pedaled his first wobbly way across the yard or playground.
• The first few times he fell, you encouraged him and told him he could do it. Maybe you even helped him climb back up into the seat all over again.
• But eventually, you went into the house and let him succeed or fail on his own, the same way you did.