Some of the best conversations with your kids happen in the car. Not at the dinner table, where everyone is facing each other and the questions feel like an interview. In the car, side by side, both looking forward, with nowhere to go until you arrive.
Researchers have actually studied this. And what they found is both encouraging and a little uncomfortable — because the car works, but mostly we waste it.
What the research found
Sport psychologist Katherine Tamminen spent years studying the car ride home. Her first study, in 2017, interviewed 27 young athletes and their parents about the drive after games and practices. Then her lab went further: cameras on the windshields of 28 families, 98 real car rides, thirty hours of footage, every comment and question coded.
The numbers are worth sitting with. Fifty-nine percent of all car time was silence. Thirteen percent was spent talking about sport. Eighty-three percent of parent questions were closed — answerable in a word or two. Out of 851 parent questions, only 18 were open ones that asked the child to think out loud. And more than half the time, when parents praised their child, they kept talking or cut in before the child could respond.
One phrase from Tamminen explains why the car matters at all. She called it a “pod of privacy.” Two people, side by side, not face to face, nobody having to make eye contact. That setup can open up conversations a child would never have across a table.
Two honest notes. These were families who agreed to be filmed, so they were probably on their best behavior. And the research followed young athletes and their parents, not every kind of family. But the car works the same way for anyone: the seating is the same, the silence is the same, and the ride ends when you arrive.
Sources: Tamminen et al., 2017 (DOI: 10.1037/spy0000093); Tamminen et al., 2022 (DOI: 10.1016/j.psychsport.2021.102095). Figures as reported in “The Car Ride Home,” Coach Saltmarsh, which links both studies.
Why the car works
At the dinner table, a hard question lands face to face. In the car, it lands side by side, while both of you are watching the road. Nobody has to perform a reaction, and nobody has to explain why they went quiet. The gaze is already somewhere else, which is exactly what makes room for the real answer.
The car also solves the problem every hard conversation has: how long will this run, and how does it end? In the car, everyone already knows. The conversation ends when you arrive. Nobody has to negotiate an exit, and nobody is trapped at the table waiting for it to be over.
And a quiet car is normal. Nearly six in ten minutes in those filmed rides were silence. Silence in the car is not a failed ride. It is the space where a child decides whether to talk — and they can only decide that if nobody fills it first.
What gets in the way
The same research shows how the ride goes wrong, and phones are usually in the middle of it. Headphones go in. Eyes go to the window. Some of the young athletes in the study admitted they pretended to fall asleep to avoid talking about the game — taking control of a conversation they did not want.
Parents do their version of the same thing. A call on speaker. A quick check at a red light. A playlist that fills every gap so the silence never gets a chance. The car is a small room, and a phone in it takes up more space than it looks like it should.
None of this is about blame. The ride is the one place in the day where nobody can leave the room, which is exactly why it deserves the same small pause as the dinner table and the bedtime story.
Try one phone-free car ride this week
You do not need a new system, a lecture, or a perfect week. One ride is enough to start. Here is the simplest version:
Agree on it together. Pick one regular ride this week — school pickup, practice, the grocery run — and decide as a family that phones wait. Let everyone, including the adults, say yes to it.
Give phones a visible place to wait. The seat-back pocket works. The point is not hiding them. It is a small, visible pause everyone can see.
Ask one open question, then wait. Not “How was school?” — that gets one word. Try “What was the best part of today?” or “What was the toughest part?” Then count to three in your head before you say anything else. Most of the time, your child will fill the space.
Notice what happens. That is the whole assignment. One ride, one question, and see how it feels.
A small pause, not a punishment
We are not anti-phone. We are pro-family moments. The goal is not to quit screens or to feel guilty about the ones already in your home. It is to protect one small moment where connection already wants to happen.
If one phone-free car ride goes well, try another next week. And if you would like to be part of what comes next, join the waitlist and help shape the first phone-free ritual. Read more about why these moments matter, or start with our phone-free dinner and phone-free bedtime.
This article shares research and practical ideas for families. It is not medical advice. For guidance about your own family’s media use, the AAP’s family media plan resources are a good place to start.