When He Cries in the Car

It usually starts about a mile from the field, once the adrenaline has drained and the helmet is off and there's nobody left to hold it together for.

He'll be looking out of the window. You'll notice his shoulders first.

Every goalie parent gets this eventually, and most of us handle the first one badly — not through any failure of love, but because watching your kid cry makes you want to make it stop, and making it stop is not the job.

The short version

Let it happen. Don't narrate it, don't fix it, don't ask him to explain it.

Say one short warm thing, then drive. That was a hard one. Or just a hand on his shoulder. Silence with somebody in it is a completely adequate response, and frequently the best one available.

Almost every version of this is over within ten minutes, and what he'll remember is not what you said but that it was allowed.

Why the fixing instinct backfires

Explaining costs him the feeling. It wasn't your fault, the defense left you exposed is true and it arrives as an argument. Now he has to either agree, which he doesn't, or defend his own upset.

Questions ask him to perform. A crying eleven-year-old who's asked what's wrong has to organise it into sentences, and he can't yet. The answer is usually "I don't know," which is honest.

And urgency signals that crying is a problem. If every episode produces a flurry of parental activity, he learns that this reaction is alarming, and the next time he'll hold it in until he's alone in his room. That's the outcome to avoid — not the tears.

What's usually underneath it, by age

Third and fourth grade. Almost always tiredness plus disappointment, in roughly that order, and almost never about lacrosse specifically. Food and a quiet car solve most of it.

Fifth and sixth grade. This is where it starts being about how he played. He's begun keeping his own score and comparing himself to others, and the gap between how he wanted it to go and how it went is new and sharp.

Seventh and eighth grade. Frequently about something social — a teammate's comment, a coach's tone in front of everyone, the fear of being seen as the reason. At this age the crying is also more likely to be suppressed and to come out sideways as anger, which is the same thing wearing a different coat.

Ninth and tenth grade. Rarer, bigger, and usually about identity — whether he's actually good, whether the work is paying off, whether he's letting people down. Take this one seriously and slowly.

Eleventh and twelfth grade. Rare, and generally about endings and pressure rather than about a game. If it happens, it's worth a longer conversation on a different day.

Suggestions on what you can do

Say less than feels natural. One sentence. Then quiet. The quiet is doing more than you think.

Offer something physical. Water, a snack, the heater on, a hand on the shoulder pad. Bodies settle before minds do, and a hungry, cold, dehydrated kid cries more easily than a fed one.

Name it without diagnosing it. Makes sense. That one mattered to you. That's a complete response. It tells him the reaction is proportionate and doesn't ask him to justify it.

Let the conversation come later, if it comes. Sunday afternoon, doing something else. Most of the useful things a young athlete says arrive sideways, days later, while nobody is looking at him.

Don't report it. Not to the coach, not to the other parents, not in front of siblings. He'll find out, and the cost is that he stops letting you see it.

And check what's underneath if it's a pattern. Once a season is ordinary. Most weeks is information — about volume, about a team, about how hard he's being on himself, and that last one has its own article.

A few things worth avoiding

Try not to say "don't cry." It's reflexive, it's kindly meant, and it teaches a specific and unhelpful lesson about what's permitted in front of you.

Go easy on toughness framing. "You're okay, shake it off" in the car is a coach's line in a place that shouldn't have a coach in it.

Try not to make it about you. "It kills me to see you like this" is true and it hands a kid something else to manage.

And don't bring it up at dinner. Whatever it was, it's over. Raising it again turns a ten-minute thing into an event.

The thing to keep in view

He's playing a position that guarantees public failure in front of a crowd, and he's a child. Sometimes that's going to overflow on the way home.

What you're building isn't a kid who doesn't cry. It's one who knows that the car is a place where he doesn't have to be finished yet — and that's the thing that keeps him telling you the truth at sixteen.

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The program teaches an actual reset routine, so a young goalie has something to do with a bad game other than carry it to the car. Three real days of a fifth-grade week are open on the site, no signup. Take a look at the free week.

Coach Greg — LAX Goalie Hub

Coaching from a coach — general information, not psychological or mental health advice. If distress is frequent, intense, or showing up in sleep, appetite, school or how your athlete talks about himself, talk to your doctor, a school counselor or a mental health professional.