Parenting Assist from NBA Finals: The Lessons Behind the Game

Trying to explain a foul in four-year-old terms, I said, “Well, the guy in the black jersey wanted the ball that the guy in the white jersey had.” Without missing a beat, he replied, “Well, why didn’t he just ask him for it?”

Touché.

Rather than drawing up a detailed playbook on basketball rules and competitiveness, I saw an open lane for a parenting moment. “You know how sometimes when you want a toy and someone won’t give it to you, you get frustrated? Sometimes people push or hit because they’re angry. That’s kind of what happened here.” “That’s really mean,” he replied. I said, “Sometimes it’s hard to see how the other person is feeling when we’re frustrated or upset. But when you watched it on TV, you could tell that man on the floor was sad and hurt, right?” He nodded.

You could see the wheels turning. He was replaying his own SportsCenter highlight reel of toy disputes from the three hours since he’d gotten home from camp. From that point on, he watched the game with a completely different perspective. He wasn’t tracking the score. He wasn’t watching for big shots. He was watching to see how the players were taking out their “frustration”. Then we all went to bed with the Knicks down by 20 and had a long talk about emotions: disappointment about the Knicks losing with my daughter and understanding that we can’t push or hurt others when we want something with my son.

But thankfully, the New York basketball gods had BIG plans and somehow, the Knicks stormed back to complete the largest comeback in Finals history. When I shared the news the next morning, it was a lesson in perseverance for my daughter. But the bigger lesson from the Finals came for my son, who learned a little about empathy and emotional regulation both on and off the court. So it turns out, if you let your kids stay up way past their bedtime now and then, you might get a parenting layup in return.