Bringing Habits and Routines to Game Day (Parents, Ep. 369)

Just following up on last week's parent segment with David Hutchison, talking about the game day routine. Hutch.

Thanks, Daren. Okay, goalie parents. A few weeks ago, we built routines on practice days, and I told you why, because practice is predictable. Tuesday at five, same rink, all season. It's the best classroom you've got because nothing moves.

So let's go somewhere a little harder today. Game days, which at least get scheduled and then tournaments where you genuinely don't know what tomorrow looks like until somebody emails you at 09:00 at night. Travel deserves its own segment, so we'll leave that for a little later. Today's about what happens to the routine when the schedule stops cooperating. So here's the shift.

As your kid gets older, the routine stops being a schedule and it starts being a set of principles. So I eat at 04:30, that's not really a routine, that's a timetable. And a timetable of course breaks the first time you get a 02:00 draw in a tournament. I like to eat about two hours before I play. Now that's a routine.

It can survive a 04:00 game, a 09:00 game, and a tournament schedule that changes a couple of times without you knowing. Your kid can carry that anywhere. So listen for which one they're building as they put the routine together with you. If everything they say has always got a time attached to it, gently just pull it up. Not what time do you eat, but how long before you play do you like to eat.

It's the same habit but in a more portable way. And then, don't carve that one in stone either because you're not eating two hours before a 7AM game, nobody is. So the principle bends as well. You have to eat a little bit closer to puck drop, well, maybe you eat less. Know you'll be starving by the second period?

Then something goes in the bag for the bench. Admittedly, this one's harder to dial in this whole concept. Be patient. It's gonna take time. It's probably gonna be shifting over the years.

And yes, I sat on the bench and I know not every coach is gonna be cooperative with this one, but I watched our kid skate back to his crease two nights ago during a TV time out and he was still chewing. That's not a failure of preparation. That's a kid who knows what he's gonna need and he solves it. Okay. I think it's really important that you involve them young.

Not because a seven year old needs a pregame routine, of course they don't, but because you want them in the room while the plan gets made because that's where they learn. A seven year old, of course, isn't stuck in routines yet and please don't get them stuck. Build a rigid little machine at seven because it's easier for you and you're gonna be the one taking it apart when they're 12. But you want them to hear you adapt out loud. So, games at 08:00 in the morning, we can't do the usual, what do we want to do instead?

Because if they only ever get told what's happening, then they learn compliance. If they watch you think it through, here's what we're keeping, here's what we're moving, here's what we're dropping, they learn the method. And the method is what they're gonna need as they grow up. Our son started a game the other night, the very next day, early afternoon, three hours away on a bus, had to start another one. Not telling you that because he's special, he's just a regular goaltender.

I'm telling you because on that bus, nobody's managing it for him. Either he's got a method or he doesn't. You don't build that one in the moment, you build over years of letting them watch you do it and then letting them do it badly a few times. Changing plans isn't a disruption to the routine, changing plans is the routine now. So you put all this effort into the system and then it breaks.

Now what? 05:00 game, Johnny likes to eat two hours out and uh-oh, you're out of rice. Now it's pasta. Depending on the kid in the day, you might have to talk him off a ledge about it. Fine, that happens.

But watch what happens after. Because if it goes fine, and let's face it, it usually does, you've got a short window to subtly point it out and most of us, of course, will say nothing. And if you say nothing, he's gonna forget it and move on. Worse actually, some kids won't forget it. They're gonna draw the wrong conclusion.

One goal game, a win, and now it's pasta from now on. Congratulations, you've traded one superstition for another. So say the thing and be careful what you praise. Don't praise the pasta, praise the part that's actually there. Something like, hey, it's awesome to know what helps you play your best.

That's a real system you've got. What I love is that when it changed, you didn't let it stop you. Great game today. And then stop. We're not giving a speech.

We're just kinda putting a post it note on a situation for them to remember. It doesn't hand them a new rule, it tells them the routine gave them confidence and a break in the routine didn't take it away. That second one is gonna be paying off in ten years. We're not looking for a better pregame meal, course, we're looking for a kid who's hard to knock off balance. One more and, it's the one that we all get wrong from time to time because we're human.

Think back to when they were tiny and they fell over. Remember the look? That half second where they turn and check your face to find out how they're supposed to feel about it? If you came flying in worried, the crying started. If you smiled and laughed and said, Uh-oh, you fell.

You get a laugh back. Now, at least that was our experience. That never stops. That look just gets subtler. So the tournament email lands and it's an 8AM start.

What happens at your kitchen table or in the hotel room? Do mom and dad groan and start complaining about the early wake up and the drive? Or do you get interested? Oh, look. Look who we drew.

We're gonna have to find somewhere cool for breakfast on the run-in the morning. They're reading your face. They always were. If you handle it well, they'll learn the same habits. So build principles, not timetables.

Put them in the planning when they're young enough to be flexible. And when the routine breaks and they handle it, say so out loud and praise the resilience, not the pasta. And a little foreshadowing for next week, I'm not gonna give it away. I'll just acknowledge that having a genuine smile on your face about an 8AM Sunday game in a hotel room you paid $200 for knowing your kid is going to be sitting on the bench. If you can pull that one off, mom and dad, congratulations.

We're going to talk about it a bit next week. See you then.