The car ride to a big game has a specific energy. Your kid is quiet, or they are talking too much. Either way they are somewhere in their head doing what competitors do before a hard thing. What you say in those twenty minutes, or in the parking lot when they grab their bag, will follow them onto the field.
Most parents understand that the wrong words before a game can mess a kid up. Fewer understand that the right words are simpler than they expect.
The most common mistake is adding to the pressure. “This is a big game” is something the kid already knows. “Everyone is going to be watching” is something the kid already feels. Naming the stakes out loud does not motivate, it amplifies anxiety. If a kid is already nervous, adding language that confirms the moment is high-stakes gives their nerves more material to work with.
The second most common mistake is instruction. “Remember to use your left hand more” or “last time you were hanging back too much on the left side” is coaching, and unless you are the coach, this is not your lane. Even if you are the coach and the parent, the pregame moment is not a technical meeting. The kid’s brain is in a different mode. They are not processing new information at that moment. They are settling into the game state. Throwing a technical reminder into that process disrupts it.
So what does work?
Short and specific. Not “play hard” or “have fun.” Those are empty even when they’re sincere. Something that references a real thing you know about this specific kid: “You’ve been good in the big moments all season. I’ve watched you.” Or: “You’ve put in the work. Go show them what that looks like.” Both of those land because they are grounded in evidence. They’re not wishes for the future. They’re observations about what already exists.
The best pregame message a parent can send is that the relationship is not on the line. This is the one thing kids actually need to hear and almost no one says it directly. What they need to know, consciously or not, is that you will not be different in the car on the way home based on what happens in the next two hours. “I’m going to love watching you play today, whatever happens” is the most underrated sentence in youth sports parenting. It removes the one piece of external pressure that parents are in a position to remove.
From a coach perspective, the pregame talk is different from the parent talk but shares one principle: the goal is not to raise the energy to a peak, it is to settle the team into themselves. Programs that go out screaming and chest-bumping before every game usually have teams that play tight in the first quarter and need the second half to settle down. Programs that go out calm and focused tend to start faster. The energy should come from inside the athlete, not from the pregame talk.
A useful framework for coaches: what do we already know about ourselves? Not what do we hope to do, but what have we already established about who we are as a group? The pregame talk that reminds a team of their own identity, with specific evidence from the season, creates confidence. The pregame talk that tries to manufacture belief from nothing usually sounds like motivation but feels hollow.
For parents coaching their own kid, the split between parent-talk and coach-talk is hardest right before a big game. The coach needs to say something to the team. The parent wants a moment with their kid. One of those is your job today. Pick one and commit to it. If you say something to the team as a coach, do not then pull your kid aside for a separate parent moment. The kid sees the double approach and it adds weight instead of removing it.
Silence is underrated. Some kids before a big game just need you to be there without adding words to the space. If your kid is clearly in a zone, the right move is to let them stay there. A hand on the shoulder. No speech. You can tell them what you thought of them on the way home.
After the game the words matter again, but the postgame dynamic deserves its own treatment. What matters before the game is what you say and what you deliberately leave unsaid. Leave out the reminders. Leave out the pressure. Leave out the outcome language. Say one real thing about who they are, not what you want from them. Then get out of the way.
One practical note. Some kids want a ritual. A handshake, a phrase you’ve used for years, a specific thing you do in the car on the way to every game. If that ritual exists, maintain it. Do not suddenly get formal or intense in a big game when every other game has been loose and normal. The kid’s nervous system is calibrating to the size of the moment. Keeping your behavior consistent is a way of telling them the size of your support does not change with the size of the game.
And if they have a bad game? The ride home is where you earn it. Say less than you want to. Ask one question and listen to the answer. Let them lead. The pregame talk is already over. What comes next is the harder part.