Here are three things to remember.

1. At the end of the day, win or lose, it is just a game. Yes, we like to win. Yes, we like for our team to win. However, sometimes we, or our team, learn as much if not more from losing than from winning. We don’t like to learn lessons the hard way, but sometimes it is essential for our overall well-being. We may not understand it at the time, but at some point later in life, we likely will. This lesson is oftentimes more important for fans than for those playing the game, especially when children and teens are the ones playing. Too often the fans expect them to play as well as the pros do, and that’s just not going to happen. If you lose, mourn the loss, then get over it and move on.

2. You can’t accomplish much in life without knowing how to read. You don’t have to like reading, but you have to be able to read. As often as not, most information is communicated to us through the written word. We have to be able to understand what we’re reading. Parents who encourage their children not to be successful readers are doing them a huge disservice. I’d go as far as to say that it is a form of negligence. In the year 2013, there is no reason for a healthy child not knowing how to read.

3. If you don’t learn from your mistakes, you will repeat them. Experience is the best teacher, and we can learn a lot from the mistakes we make. We learn easier, better ways to accomplish things based on experience. We learn who to trust and who not to trust based on experience. Life can sometimes become a lot more enjoyable if we learn from these experiences. If experience shows us we can’t trust somebody, then it doesn’t matter how much we love or like that person, we need to stop trusting them. You can love someone and not trust them. If experience shows us that eating certain foods is detrimental to our health, we should refrain from eating those foods. If experience shows us that procrastination is more harmful than helpful, then we should stop procrastinating. Experience is the best teacher, but only if we stop to actually learn something from the experience. These experiences and lessons can be both positive and negative; not all things we learn have to be learned through negative experiences. It’s just up to us to make sure whether it’s positive or negative, we get the message.