The Fascinating Phenomenon of the Car Seat Confession
Why do our kids open up to us more on the road?
“I really love being an unpaid chauffeur for my kids,” said no mom ever. And yet: many of us also have experienced the strange and wonderful phenomenon of the monosyllabic child who suddenly becomes a faucet of information while riding in the back seat to soccer practice, a dentist appointment, or a play date. In those moments, we often learn more than we do in a week’s worth of conversations at home.
What is it about car rides that cause kids to open up, often without prompting? Based on my own experience as both a mom and a former backseat-riding child, I have an unscientific theory. I believe it’s a magical combination of close physical proximity, lack of distractions (cell phones, tablets, other siblings), and absence of eye contact.
That last part took me by surprise. Child psychologists and other experts have long recommended meeting our kids at eye level with lots of sustained gazing and reactive facial expressions when they’re young. Towering over a toddler who’s having a tantrum serves only to further remind her of her relative powerlessness in the world, and that’s the opposite of soothing. Getting down to a little kid’s level is a way of building trust, and that’s still how my almost-4-year-old prefers to engage with me: face very close to face.
But by the time my older two kids reached elementary school, I started to notice a slow but steady increase in their desire for privacy, an ability to keep secrets for longer than 5 seconds, and — directly related — an improved capacity for lying to me. They also became less reliably talkative at the kitchen table or in their rooms when I’d ask about their day at school, how things were going with certain friends, or what was bothering them when they were clearly out of sorts. Sometimes they’d launch into a long monologue; other times…crickets.
My conversation success rate in the car, however, is impressively high, and I’ve spoken with many mom friends who’ve had similar experiences. For my 7- and 8-year-olds, that environment — with me in the driver’s seat facing forward, and them close by but out of my line of sight — seems to facilitate honesty and a desire to talk. Perhaps me listening but not looking at them eases some of the pressure when they’re sharing something I might find unpleasant or verbalizing thoughts and feelings that are confusing to them. They also see that I’m not engaging with them while also trying to do six other things. Other than watching the road, I’m in a rare non-multitasking state.
When I entered 7th grade, I began attending a school that was a solid 20-minute drive from my childhood home, often longer if there was traffic. I’m sure that commute wasn’t always how my mom wanted to spend her time, but I remember it was one of the only reliable windows in the day that hormonal tweenage me could be counted on to converse. When I think of filling her in on my doomed crush on a friend’s boyfriend or the many other dramas of middle school life, I always picture us in the car.
I imagine as my kids approach adolescence, I’ll need to constantly remind myself not to push too hard for information, affection or attention (the exact opposite of life with little ones), and instead stay quiet and present and let them come to me. For now, I’ll work on that challenging skill as I shuttle them to school and their countless activities. I’ll try to remember to be grateful for the occasional traffic jam, as it might provide us the opportunity for closeness and connection that we’ll all remember decades from now.
