Parents are unwittingly damaging their children’s love of sport through post-match car rides

Research shows that critical comments and silence during car journeys after sporting events can harm young athletes’ confidence and enjoyment, highlighting the importance of supportive, non-judgmental parental behaviour to foster positive memories and lasting trust.

Parents who turn every post-match car journey into a post-mortem may be doing more harm than they realise. In a reflective essay for CNN, Don Riddell describes looking back with discomfort on the times he criticised his sons after junior tennis matches, and argues that the real issue is not only what is said in the car, but what those moments can do to the relationship between parent and child.

That concern is echoed by Melanie Bedard, the mother of Chicago Blackhawks captain Connor Bedard, who told the Toronto Star that children can come to dread the ride home with parents who turn sport into a test of character. Her warning was blunt: even for a future superstar, damaging trust in childhood can leave a lasting mark long after an athletic career is over. Research on youth sport suggests that this anxiety is not anecdotal. The American Academy of Pediatrics has said 70% of young athletes leave organised sport by the age of 13, and recent surveys from Aspen Institute’s Project Play have found that parental pressure and a lack of support are major reasons children quit.

The problem is not always loud shouting or obvious confrontation. A study led by Jeemin Kim, an assistant professor of kinesiology at Michigan State University, found that much of the post-game ride home was marked by silence rather than conflict. Working with the late Katherine Tamminen, Kim analysed 28 parent-child pairings and around 30 hours of footage, and said 59% of the time was spent without conversation. Sport was discussed only 13% of the time, and parents were often more complimentary about performance than the young athletes themselves. Kim said the findings challenged the stereotype of the always-angry sports parent, while still showing how easily a tense exchange can land badly when emotions are still raw.

Several parents and coaches have tried to draw a firmer line. The True Sport Foundation in Canada used a public-service film to dramatise how quickly a disappointing ride home can turn into a stream of criticism, while former professional footballer John O’Sullivan, who founded the Changing the Game Project, has argued that parents should resist the urge to dissect a child’s performance straight away. His advice is simple: tell the child, “I love watching you play.” That approach reflects a broader view among child-sport advocates that children usually know when they have made mistakes and often need space before they are ready to talk about them.

The risk is not just that children feel judged in the moment. It is that sport, which should be a source of pleasure and confidence, becomes tied to anxiety and self-protection. Brad Stulberg, an author and coach who has worked with his own children’s teams, told CNN that the worst instinct is to analyse the game on the way home, even after a good performance, because it can make children feel that parental approval depends on athletic success. That dynamic may help explain why many young athletes disengage, particularly when pressure is combined with unrealistic demands, negative feedback or the wider social pressures that research from Sweden and France has linked to drop-out among boys and girls alike.

Riddell’s own conclusion is disarmingly straightforward. The better ride home, he writes in effect, is the one that is not about the match at all. A song, a joke, a half-finished story from the day at school , anything that restores ordinary parent-child conversation can matter more than a tactical debrief. The lesson for families is not to ignore sport, but to remember that a child’s memory of it will be shaped less by scores and errors than by whether being driven home felt safe, warm and worth repeating.