The drama-free rink

I'm not really the one to write about this, because drama seems to follow me around like toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my shoe.  But I believe in the drama-free rink, even if just as a goal to strive for.

The first lesson, of course, is that you cannot turn off human nature. You will have cliques, and you will gossip. Any activity in which milestones and competition figures centrally will generate strong emotion.  Not everyone believes in the drama free rink.

But there are steps you can take.

Do your job
If you're a skater, show up for lessons. Follow rink rules, etiquette, and common sense. Take care of your stuff. Respect your coach and the others on the ice. If you're a coach, show up for lessons on time. Insist on proper work ethic and demeanor from your skaters. Respect other coaches' and skaters' space.

Be a grown up
No arguing in the lobby, or worse, on the ice. If you have a problem with someone take it OUTSIDE the rink. Maintain proper lines of authority--I don't care how hip you think you are, or how invested your coaching is in being the hip young coach. You are the coach not the buddy. This means a coach should NEVER talk about other coaches to students or parents.

Don't gossip
Okay, okay, I know this is completely unrealistic, but try to follow the old Talmudic proscription, which I will amend here. Do not pass on speculative chatter about anyone. The ONLY gossip you should engage in is unassailable, confirmable facts. If you are in possession of an unassailable fact that could harm the subject but is not material to their position at the rink, do not pass it on. No one needs to know that the Skating Director's mother committed suicide, or that Coach A had an abortion, or that Coach B is on medication. Stop talking about the rink to the person who shared this information with you.

If you don't actually know the person being discussed, personally (like they know you well enough to remember your name), you shouldn't even be doing that, because really if you don't them, why do you care?

There are lots of other things to talk about--gardening, work, the price of gas.

Make yourself be nice.
Congratulate the skater who just landed an axel for the first time. Applaud all the skaters, not just your skater and her cohort. Make sure your skater does this too.


Don't interfere with, but don't be put off by, natural alliances
Kids, and moms, and gosh, coaches too I guess! develop their own friendships. Not all friendship groups are "cliques" in the destructive sense of the word. But a close-knit group is not an excuse either for them to disparage outsiders, or for outsiders to disparage and ignore them. Just because four moms (or skaters) are tight, doesn't mean you can't interact with them. Just because you have a tight knit group doesn't mean you get to be rude or dismissive of others at the rink.

Keep it in perspective
It's just skating. Even (especially?) at the elite levels. It isn't world peace, it isn't children starving in the ghetto.

How drama-free is your rink? What do you think helps keep it that way?

Go away, mom!

From the keyword search: "When parents interfering is crossing the line." I know this one, sadly, from the inside out, because I was That Mom. Here are the warning signs:

•  Coach is letting all your calls go to voice mail.

•  You call the coach more often than you call your mother.

•  Coach is suddenly doing about-faces when she sees you in the lobby.

•  Kid stops skating the second you show your face inside the rink door.

•  You research skating techniques so you can drill the coach on the latest discussions about skid or no skid on double axels.

•  You're thinking of getting certified as a judge.

•  You try to join USFS and ISI as a professional member.

•  You know the IJS long program rules for your daughter's current skating level.

•  You are convinced that your daughter's poor rank at the latest non-qualifying competition is due to dishonest judges, club favoritism, incompetent coaching or all three.

•  You're considering calling Brian Orser about coaching your Intermediate skater, who has never made it out of a qualifying round.

•  You're considering hiring a sport psychologist for your Intermediate skater.

•  You make your skater review everything she did wrong in practice or, worse, the competition, on the car ride home.

•  You bought K-picks for your 8 year old.

When did you know you had crossed the line?

When should you say something? (and a prize)

We've all witnessed it:

The mom standing in the door, "coaching"

The mom pushing her kid to finish her ISI tests, so she can compete at US Nationals (true story)

The new skater who wears her tights OVER her spanky pants

The beginner tot in the freestyle blades

The beginner in "we found them in granny's garage" four sizes too big and with blades so rusty they're black

And then there's the bad behavior: The mom screaming at, or worse, hitting her skater because of an error, or getting off the ice early, or losing her guards, or whatever; the monitor who breaks the rules for her kids, or her coach's other students; the overheard conversation of a coach telling some clueless mom a pack of myths and lies; the dad explaining that "only girls figure skate; men play hockey."

It's an enormous social gaffe in our culture to "get involved" but it's painful to watch especially newbies to the sport having to figure all this stuff out for themselves, or to have to tolerate bad behavior, knowing that these idiots are modeling this behavior for our children, or knowing that they're being fed a line of hooey.

I can't tell you how many comments I've gotten on this blog that start "I wish someone had told me...." I've said it often myself. It was one of the reasons I started the blog. 

The problem is, that the classy moms, the ones from whom you'd get really good information, stay out it, while the evil moms feed you horse hockey ("Coach Mine only works with the best students, and if you're not with Coach Mine, clearly he doesn't think you're up to snuff", or like the coach I overheard telling her very very talented student that ISI tests were the way to get to USFS Nationals.)

And I confess, I don't have the solution. I see a lot of well-meaning mothers offering bad advice, like  Mom A with an advanced little one (skater about 7, working on PreJuv test) telling a beginner 7 year old's Mom B that she needed to get "good" skates, rather than the perfectly acceptable beginner skates that she already had. She then showed her the freestyle blade, explaining that this was a "proper" figure skate. And yes, I stepped in, and yes, I got reprimanded for it–by Mom A's coach. (!! She claimed I was trying to solicit that skater, rather than that I was trying to correct misinformation. My guess is Coach had sent Mom A, in fact, to solicit Mom B.)

So this is the minefield we're all skating through.

A coach hearing another coach lie to skaters has literally no recourse. If you say something to the coach, they can make your life miserable; if you say something to the mom, you're tampering. You can't file a grievance with the PSA unless a child is in risk of harm, or the situation directly affects you. Otherwise they'll just laugh you out of court.

A mom on the skate-tying thread was thankful for a more experienced mother stepping in over aging out of mom's help, but another mother would have been offended (as in fact, several people in that thread clearly were, and I'm not even confronting them directly!).

So I'll open it up to you–what advice do you wish you'd gotten from a trustworthy mom? Did you ever get unsolicited advice that you needed, or had someone step in to help? Have you been the victim of bad information, or had an intercession that annoyed you? Tell us your stories.

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Oh, did I say prize?  On Valentine's Day I'll select from the comments using the widget at random.org. Winner will get a "Yes I'm THAT Mom" t-shirt (designed by @rinksidedamned from Why Me, St. Lidwina).

SkateMoms Chat!

Got an issue? Got a story? Got an idea to make skating better for you and your kids?

Join me and @RinkSideDamned (aka St. Lidwina) for the first ever #skatemoms chat on Twitter, Sunday July 10 at 8 p.m. Central Time.

We'll do the chat every Sunday at 8, talking about specific topics (How do you choose skates? How do you handle vacations? How do I tell my coach his breath is bad? Where do I hide the bodies?) or, like this first one, in Open Forum-- anything goes-- just to get to know each other.

We want to know what you want to talk about, so bring your ideas, and tell your friends. We'll parse them all out and create a calendar. I hope we'll be able to get some guests, like Rainbo Sportshop to talk about skates, or perhaps even some skaters and their moms who've "been there."

If you're not on Twitter, now's the time! You don't have to tweet, or follow anyone, or pay any attention to the whole rigamarole--just give yourself a name, and you can join us. Don't want to join? You can still follow the chat by going to Tweetchat.com and enter the hashtag #skatemoms. Even if you're not signed in through a Twitter account you can still read the conversation.

So put the date and time in your calendar-- Sunday, July 10, 8 p.m. Central Time (so sorry, UK, we had to balance the followers in Oz with the followers in Middle Earth, and there seemed to be more down there.)