I played professional basketball in seven countries — Spain, France, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, England, and China. I know what it feels like to perform under pressure. And I also know that the hardest pressure to manage isn’t from coaches or crowds.

It’s from the people who love you most.

That’s not an accusation. It’s the truth every athlete carries but rarely says out loud. Because they don’t want to hurt you.

Here’s what I’ve learned working with athletes at every level, and what I wish more parents understood early:

The car ride home is where it all goes wrong.

You had good intentions. You wanted to process what you saw. But your athlete just gave everything they had — physically, emotionally, mentally — and now they’re sitting in a closed space being evaluated. And it feels like criticism.

What they needed was silence, or a burger, or a simple “I loved watching you play.”

Research on athlete identity consistently shows that young athletes who feel their value is tied to performance — and not to who they are — are more likely to experience anxiety, burnout, and early dropout.

Your postgame commentary, however well-intentioned, is often reinforcing that equation.

So, what can you do instead?

Stop being a scout. Start being a safe place.

Your athlete doesn’t need you to break down their fourth-quarter decisions. They need to know that no matter what happened on the floor, court, or field, you still see and love and support them. Not the stats. Them.

During my 17 years running content and digital for the Nuggets, Avalanche, and Mammoth at Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, I saw professional athletes at the highest level still talk about their parents’ voices being the loudest in their heads.

It’s natural to want to please our parents. To be enough for them.

That doesn’t change with age or contract size.

After their next game, say nothing about performance for 24 hours.

Not to them. Not to your spouse in earshot. Nothing. Just be present.

See what opens up.

Sports isn’t the destination. It’s the vehicle. The confidence your athlete builds after a hard loss, the self-belief that survives a bad game, the resilience that gets forged in practice: that’s what they’ll carry into every room they walk into for the rest of their life. Long after the final buzzer, that’s what remains.

Your job isn’t to manage your kid’s performance. It’s to protect the process that’s building them. It’s to help them see they can handle adversity. They can keep going.

That’s not a small thing. That’s everything.