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By Daniella Gray
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For months, mornings were the hardest part of the day for a family from Orange Country, California.
Devin McGovern and his wife, Marlene Martinez, were battling tearful school drop offs with their daughter, Veronica.
McGovern, 46, told Newsweek that Veronica was born during the COVID-19 pandemic and therefore never attended daycare, making the first week of preschool difficult.
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“Big tears; wanting mom and dad,” McGovern said. “We were told by other parents and teachers [that] it gets better, and this was normal. Then preschool became TK [transitional kindergarten] and then kindergarten, and we still had struggles.”
Some mornings were easier than others, but many were heartbreaking. “These were not just small crocodile tears with an occasional, ‘My belly hurts’ and ‘I don’t want to go,’” McGovern explained. “This was a big scene of emotions, crying, screaming [and] not letting go of my neck as I held her before class.”
Nothing seemed to work—not books, not pep talks, not reassurances. The daily battle became exhausting for the parents and they needed a new strategy.
That solution came from an unexpected source: the NBA. One night, while watching basketball highlights, McGovern—an avid NBA fan—noticed something familiar yet profound.
“I saw LeBron [James] doing his special handshake with every teammate before a big game, and I watched Steph Curry with his teammates doing the same thing,” he explained.
“When I saw Curry give his wife and his kids each a fun, special handshake, that’s when it hit me,” he continued. “We should do that and come up with our own special handshake that is unique for the two of us.”
The next morning, McGovern and Veronica debuted their ritual: a playful handshake that ends with kissing their fists and “putting it in their pockets” to hold onto each other’s kiss all day long.
“The handshake completely changed the game for us—literally,” McGovern said. “We went from screaming, crying meltdowns to a handful of tears, but ultimately she walks into school. I was actually kind of shocked.”
McGovern shared his school drop off hack in a reel on Instagram, which has gone viral, amassing over 120,000 views.
Other parents resonated with challenging school drop offs in the comments. Some even felt compelled to try the handshake themselves.
“That is a wonderful idea so sweet. I’m gonna [sic] keep that in the back of my mind in case anyone needs something like that,” one user wrote.
“You may have just changed mine and my daughter’s lives,” another added.
Now Veronia is 6, the handshake is a treasured part of the family’s morning routine. “We still do our handshake every morning,” McGovern said. “It has been a night and day difference and we would not be where we are today without that handshake. It was almost like she needed a physical expression that hyped her up for the ‘big game.' So, big thank you Steph Curry and the NBA!”
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