Unmotivated elite skaters, Part 2: Now what?

So you've figured out why your skater doesn't want to skate anymore. What do you do about ?

First, be aware that somewhere between the ages of 12 and 16, and around the Intermediate and Novice levels, a lot of skaters do just decide they want to move on to other things. Some of them decide they don't want to compete anymore. This is fine. And you can take it slow; for advanced skaters it's a bad idea to just allow them to cut it off, especially for adolescents, who are discovering all the amazing possibilities open to them, but may lack the judgment to make good choices. If your high level skater wants to quit, make her step it down gradually, just in case she changes her mind.

Here are some of the issues we identified yesterday:

Family issues
You want to make sure your kid hates going to the rink? Have screaming fights with your soon-to-be-ex in the lobby. Yes, he's a pig who sleeps with everything with a pulse, but really, your child's friends and the coaching staff don't need to know this. Kids can feel either responsible for family dissolution and job pressures, or like they should be doing something to help. Reassure them that family issues will not be allowed to interfere with skating. And then make sure that this is true.

Problems at school
Academic and social issues at school can affect a teen's entire life. If the issues are academic, this is the more important problem to fix than the lack of motivation in skating. Improving academics, or at least helping a child get her academics under control, will probably fix her skating motivation as well, by removing the anxiety she's likely to be feeling. But school comes first.

If the school problems are social, skating itself is the fix. Skating rink social circles tend to be non-tangent to school cliques, so a kid who is having social difficulties at school has an alternative place where she can feel comfortable socially.

Social problems: rink
In other words, bullying. If your skater is being bullied (and trust me, skater grrls invented the concept), you need to help her develop alternate social circles that obviate the bully. You can also try moving some practices, lessons or classes to another facility, even over the skater's objection. Let the coach know your suspicions. If it's overt, complain to the skating director. Do not confront the bullies or their coach on your child's behalf.

"Stuck"
If the lack of motivation is due to skating issues, try mixing it up. Add a hip hop class for off-ice. Find a rink with interesting specialty classes for skaters at your child's level. Suggest she try something new like ice dance or adagio (which can be done in same-sex couples), or something like Theater on Ice or Artistry in Motion. Especially if the skater is not going to Sectionals or Nationals, this is a great time of year to try new and different skating-related activities.  If you can afford it, look into the winter skating camps-- there are amazing weeklong programs at Sun Valley, Lake Placid and Ice Castle taught by authentic icons of skating like Dorothy Hamill.

While I am leary of encouraging parents to get involved in skills issues, you might try asking the coach if there are particular skills or skating issues (like the ability, for instance, to skate a clean program) that your skater might be feeling discouraged about. Talk to the coach about how you can help the skater get past this. Maybe there are new skills that she or he can add that have less emotion tied to them. Can't get the double axel? Maybe it's time to start working on butterflies as a "reward" during lessons and practice, or some of the older figures skills, like using your blade to draw a tulip or a star.

Coaching issues
This is where your observation of the coach is important. If you observe any dynamic with the coach that you think is off, ask the skater in a non-confrontational way. "Do you feel like your coach is helping you with your goals" not "Wow, I can't believe your coach is ignoring you like that." "I had no idea how much the coach has to actually touch you to help you with those positions" not "I'm calling child protective services on that pervert."  Let the skater tell you if there is a problem. Please note that a coach touching a student is rarely because the coach is a criminal; this does not mean that all skaters are, or need to be, comfortable with a coach who handles them.

As everyone knows, switching coaches is extremely fraught, especially at poorly run rinks, so tread carefully around coaching issues. Keep lines of communication open, and never make accusations you aren't willing to go to court over.

Drugs and alcohol
I have observed many young teens who start losing interest in skating because they are developing drug or alcohol problems. If you suspect this, keep your child skating with a whip and a chair if need be, and talk to your school counselor about how to address a problem like this. If this is an issue, you will also see symptoms in your child's academic and social spheres as well. (In fact, you're liable to see it there first. Skating can be an island of sanity for a child who is dealing with such problems.)

Saving face
The other thing you can try doing with a competitive skater who is unmotivated, of course, is nothing.  That's right. Because losing motivation, and therefore not working, has its own guaranteed outcome-- lack of skating success. And frankly, you can't make the skater want to succeed. If she's going to sabotage her skating, then she's the one who suffers, if that's what it is.

Which brings me to the final point.

It's possible that the unmotivated skater does not want to disappoint you. She's done skating, but is afraid of your reaction. So she stops working, making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What did you do to help with a skater losing motiviation?

Unmotivated elite skaters, part 1: Why?

A few months ago, we talked about how to motivate recreational skaters.  But how do you motivate an unmotivated competitive skater, especially when you know s/he doesn't really want to quit?

This is especially critical at this time of year, when 1,500 elite-level singles skaters start competing for just 360 spots at Sectionals, and only about 130 spots at Nationals/Junior Nationals.

That's 1370 mighty disappointed kids.

Of course, most of those kids understand that they really don't have a realistic chance even at final round at Regionals, let alone making it to Nationals. But even if you just count those with "a shot," say the top 30-35%, that's still a few hundred really sad kids who didn't land the double axel when it counted. And face it, sometimes kids (and coaches) are delusional, and even a predictable loss comes as a shock and a giant demotivator.

If there isn't an obvious issue like disappointment over competition results, you need to look a little deeper.

The first thing to do is identify why a formerly enthusiastic and currently ambitious skater stops working. Is there an injury that they haven't fessed up about? Are there social problems at the rink or school, or personality (or more ominous) issues with the coach? Are there family issues that you as the parent don't realize your skater is concerned about, including money, stability, etc.

Coaching issues are a little harder. First, tell the coach about difficulties you're having getting your skater to the rink. It's possible that she's giving you grief, but then is fine once she's at the rink. The proper solution to this is the patented parental eye roll when she starts up.

If that's not it, then drop in at lessons and practices unannounced (because you are totally not hanging out watching every single practice and lesson for your high level skater, right? RIGHT?) and observe the coaching and on-ice dynamics. Does your skater appear distracted?  Is she using her practice time poorly (i.e. hanging out at the boards, getting on and off the ice, poorly organized approach)? Does she appear isolated from other skaters? Do skaters seem to be interfering with her practice patterns, beyond the general chaos that is a freestyle session? Is her coach focused on her (and she on the coach?) Observe in as non-judgmental a way as possible, and then ask neutral questions about what you think you're seeing.

All well and good to figure out why your skater is unmotivated. What do you do about it? Tomorrow, we'll explore some of the things you can do to help your skater overcome her loss of skating mojo.

How did your skater show a loss of motivation?

Are the good skaters mean?

As a follow up to the "Snotty Skater Girls" post, I think it's important to wonder why some skaters seem so mean.

It's a trope of the sport, ubiquitous in skating movies--the coach who sabotages the competition, the mother who destroys reputations through gossip, the "in" clique who haze new members and cruelly exclude all but the anointed ones.

Sadly, it's not entirely fiction. I'm particularly touchy about it because at the rink where my daughter grew up there was a so-called "top skaters" clique who in fact played all the 7th grade psychological games well into high school and beyond. It worked because of one skater whom everyone, including, oddly, the management, were afraid to offend. (We're talking about a little girl here. I'm not kidding.) Unfortunately this skater is now a coach and is encouraging the same behavior from her students. However, Synchro to the rescue--she doesn't have nearly the impact she used to have, because there are now Synchro teams which form instant "in groups" of their own.

But does skating have to be like this? And even more--is skating like this?

And I don't think it is. I truly believe that people are nice, and in fact what I've observed is that the really focused kids, both the competitive ones, and the ones just skating because they love it,  are actually really nice, and so are their parents.

There's a difference between "mean" and "focused"
The focused kids won't talk to you on the ice, and will skate with that "snotty skater girl" posture. They'll huff and puff if you get in their way. They may even kick the boards every now and then.

But they'll come up with the extra quarter you need at the concession stand. Their parents will be at the boards or in the stands with an eagle eye on the coach and touchy about every broken rule that gets in their skater's way, but they'll always be the first to volunteer, or introduce themselves to the new family.

Think about a business context--who's going to get ahead? The guy who makes fun of everyone, or the guy who brings coffee for the receptionist every day and always cleans up the kitchenette?

How does mom contribute?
I'm not sure that I think that parents can have more than marginal impact on the formation of cliques, but they can model proper behavior--helping newbies, volunteering, leaving the attitude at home. (People who know me are rolling their eyes, because I'm not best known for leaving the attitude at home). You're not there all the time, and it's hard to remember how important acceptance, even by (mostly  by) the mean girls can be to a 12 year old.

In the worst cases parents can exacerbate the problem by forming their own mirror-clique and never talking to other parents. You'll often see parents who only talk to "their" coaches parents.

Coaches can have an impact.  Allowing destructive behavior from your students--encouraging ice hogging, segregating them in the lobby and locker room, having a lot of exclusive events that you let everyone know about, "but you can't go, it's just for my students" are all ways that coaches foment this destructive behavior. In fact, I've even seen management play into this, through what I call "management by cronyism."

And all for what?
I am a firm believer in speaking truth to power. (You may have noticed this.) I have no problem pissing people off over stuff that matters--safety rules ignored, unfair judging, biased assignments, bad management. But making people hate you just so you can claim to be the "top clique" has never made any sense to me. People who derive their sense of importance (especially adults) from how many people they can exclude are just sad.

What's your experience? Do you have destructive cliques at your rink?

Skating party etiquette

I love skating parties, for birthdays, holidays, and family get-togethers. Skating parties work great for mixed-age groups, and provide ready-made activity, which if I recall from kids skating parties is an enormous boon.

However, they come with their very own set of management and etiquette issues. Here's some things to keep in mind.

The guest list
Dry-land parties are easy--you invite your friends, go somewhere out of sight (i.e. away from school or office) and don't worry too much about the peripheral social circle. But if you have a skating party at your regular rink, you come up against the problem of the "skating friends." Some of these people are actual friends and some of them are just training mates, or even more casual in their acquaintance. Problem is, your kid spends a LOT of time with them.

There are a couple of solutions:

Don't hold the party at the home rink. That way people aren't there to get their feelings hurt. And it's simple courtesy to not talk about parties around people who may not have been invited, so it's a good teaching moment for younger kids too.

Invite only, and ALL skating friends (for instance everyone who takes from your coach) Then have a smaller, close friends party or sleepover for just 5 or 6 non-skating very close friends.  These friends might or might not also come to the skating party. This commits you to two parties, of course, but it avoids the hurt feelings at the rink.

Invite who you want, and hold it where you want
Don't worry about the people whose feelings are hurt because a casual acquaintance has a party without them.  If you accommodate them in this, they're just going to find something else to complain about.

 The Synchro Team
If your child is on a synchro team, and you have a skating party, the issues get stickier. You don't want the party to become an unscheduled team practice; you don't want the team to overwhelm the non-team members who are also there. Plus, your kid may not get along with everyone, and may not want them at her party.

If you invite half the team, you have to invite the whole team
This is a common grade-school rule to keep kids from feeling left out of birthday parties. If half or more of the class is invited, you have to just invite the rest, because there's no way some child is not going to feel really bad about being left out (especially if it's 20 out of 24 being invited).

No synchro skating
You really have to have a no-synchro rule so the team doesn't take over the ice, but if a lot of the team is there, schedule some time for them to do a short exhibition (if you're renting the ice. If you're on public, no exhibition).


Non skaters
You don't have to avoid non-skaters at the party. Hire a pro to teach willing beginners some basics (including adults), and have plenty of engaging off-ice activities so that the ones who really don't want to skate can feel included in the festivities. If there are some very young children, have pushers or cones available.

Show offs
There are going to be some very good skaters at any skating party. You want to police them as little as possible, but gently make sure they're not making the lower level and non-skaters feel inadequate, or hot dogging around on the ice. You can also ask them to do very short, prepared exhibition numbers (again, if you've rented the ice; this won't work on public); this is especially nice if the birthday child is one of the show-offs.  You could even set up an impromptu exhibition with the non- and lower skaters, asking the Pro you've hired (for her full rate, please), to put together a little group number with anyone interested.

Parents
Yes. Lots and lots of parents on the ice. More so than regular parties, skating parties are better with lots of adults.

Even if they are non-skaters, or beginners, adult presence on the ice will ipso facto keep the show-offs and the hot doggers at bay.  You'll also want some parents in the party room and in the lobby at all times for the non-skaters, bathroom breaks, and bumps and bruises.

How much skating
Time on the ice is generally spelled out in the rental agreement. Most rinks have party packages that include a set number of pre-paid rental skates, a certain amount of ice time or public skate passes, possibly a pro, and a party room.  Make sure you leave enough off-ice time for cake and presents!

Renting vs. public
Facilities with multiple ice surfaces, especially if they have "studio" (small) ice, often have very reasonable rentals. This is the best way to do an ice-skating party. You have lots of control because your group is the only one on the ice.  This is the best way to do larger parties, say more than 12 families/kids involved. For smaller groups, public skating can work just fine. Some of the best party fun happens on weekend public when there are 4 or 5 or 6 party groups there all at once, and they find each other--you'll get all the skating birthday girls bonding.

How many is too many?
The number of people on the ice, at a well-run facility, is going to be limited by the rental agreement. For a studio-sized rink this is generally 40 to 60 people. If you're doing a party for 60 people, you're crazy, but that's just my opinion.  Groups of 6 to 8 kids, with fewer adults supervising, can do well on a public session, and it's also a lot cheaper.

This is a great time of year for family skating--think about making it a party. Bet you didn't know Grandma could spin like that!

Modeling good behavior

Kids will copy what they see. It's worse if you then talk about it in front of them. Here are some rink behaviors to avoid.

The behavior: Disrespecting the coaching staff. If there is constant public questioning of the knowledge, authority and motives of the coaching staff, the skaters will learn that they do not need to respect the coaches. This is not the same thing as legitimate questions about rink management issues such as scheduling, special favors, inappropriate behavior, etc. This is about going to a different coach if your skater doesn't pass the class coach, or fighting with coaches in the lobby, or telling all and sundry gossip about the coaches, or stating that if you don't get your way, you'll just go to a different rink (if you threaten this, please follow through).
The lesson to the kids: there's no difference between legitimate questioning of authority and simple rudeness.

The behavior: Showing up late. Parents, here's a clue. You don't have to sign up for classes and lessons that you're going to be chronically late for. Find a time that works. If there isn't a time that works, tell the coach the problem and see what accommodations they can make. If the coach can't or won't extend the lesson, that's not their fault, don't complain about it. And don't expect the coach to suddenly back track and start a group lesson from scratch. Coaches, here's a clue for you. Parents don't care that your pay and benefits suck. They expect you on the ice at the start of class, participating in the teaching. And hey, how about actually teaching the class, even if it isn't full of your students? A word of two or praise every couple of weeks will not ruin the child's technique, either.
The lesson to the kids: my needs are more important than anyone else's.

The behavior: Ignoring the rules. Except for your skaters. It's okay for them to make it up as they go along, because they're the top group. Make sure they understand this, so they can lord it over the other skaters.
The lesson to the kids: see "showing up late."

The behavior: Encouraging cliques. This is not the same as friendships, or tight knit groups of friends. These are exclusive, based on exterior measures like who your coach is or how expensive your car is or what skating pants you wear. You can tell it's a clique if they girls (it's almost always girls) refuse to make friends with someone they might ordinarily actually have a lot in common with (like, um, everyone in the rink). The best way to encourage cliques is to put all the girls in the clique in hard-to-find matching outfits, to talk about parties that only they are invited to (or better yet, to hold the parties at the rink, but make it clear that it's exclusive) and to only talk to the coaches and parents in that group. (I see both coaches and parents encouraging this most destructive of all destructive rink behaviors).
The lesson to the kids: some people are better than others. It is okay to treat the lesser people badly.

The behavior: Never volunteering. Public institutions like schools, sports clubs and programs, and other youth activities survive on the efforts of the participants. In case you hadn't noticed, we do not live in a society neither government (because it can't afford it because people think taxes are a waste of money) nor private owners (because it undermines profits) provide enough resources. The wonderful American character of giving makes up for this. It is your obligation to participate.
The lesson to the kids: I don't have to give back; I get what I want without any more effort than is easy for me to provide. See also "showing up late."

Staying at a rink that you apparently hate. Vote with your feet, folks. After you've brought legitimate complaints to the coaches and management that can do something about it, you have to make a decision. If you can live with it, shut up; continuing complaints just make the kids think it's alright to be angry and disruptive. If you can't live with it, you're going to have to find another rink. If you can't find another rink, you're going to have to live with it.
The lesson to the kids: we are powerless to make change, and we have to participate no matter how unhappy we are.

The behavior (management side): Never responding to legitimate complaints. If you keep hearing the same complaint over and over, there's probably something to it. It's your duty to weed out the crackpots and whiners and actually listen to what's being said, and then either take steps to correct it, or communicate reasons that you can't, or at the very least acknowledge that the complaint has been heard.
The lesson to the kids: we can do whatever we want, because the people in authority don't care about us. They have favorites, and it's not us, so screw them.

As adults, sadly in some cases, we are in charge. The kids, for all their eye rolling and complaining, copy us. Let's make sure they're copying the things worth passing on.

Mean girls

Ice rinks, populated as they are by pre- and adolescent girls, can be veritable petri dishes of social experience. Popular media depict this as poisonous, with films like Prancer (otherwise pretty good at showing what a rink is like), with its rich-girls/poor girls divide, or Ice Princess, with the unethical coach who recommends that the inexperienced skater wear brand new skates for the first time during a competition.

I polled my skating friends to find out what their experiences were with cliques, positive and negative, and what types of cliques they had encountered—parents, kids, coaches.

Some respondents seemed to pride themselves on being set apart, defined by some special characteristic: “we’re poor but still competing and it pisses people off;” “all of my skaters are really good friends, but they don’t seem to get along with other coaches’ skaters.”

A coach from out of state mentions that there are certain coaches who will only talk amongst themselves, not only about skating, but about anything, setting themselves apart as though even acknowledging someone else diminishes their own expertise somehow.

Every parent I asked this acknowledged that there are parent cliques, but they were universally reluctant to talk about it (which just really made me want to know why.)

T, who grew up at the rink where she now coaches feels that the cliquishness of the current atmosphere is new:

Cliques didn't really exist in my generation of skating. I can prove it with pictures (NB: She can, I’ve seen them, plus they are ALL still friends). Where you will now see several small sized groups of skaters together, my clique was larger and more inclusive of a broader range of skaters.

I grew up in a different era of skating – it didn’t matter who your coach was; we were all always there at the same time, and thus, got to know each other pretty well.

My story sounds like a fairytale in a sport considered bitchy and elite. Aside from the day-to-day drama that pre-teens/teenagers produce, it was really quite picturesque. The beauty of kids of multiple ages and different coaching backgrounds all pooled together as one group that dominated the rink made it fun for everyone. Sure, we had our scoffs and irritations with one another, but at the end of the day or at graduation time, we were still happy for each other and grateful for the memories we made together.

B, another skater who grew up a couple of skating generations after her had a very different experience at the same rink:

I hated how cliquish the rink was, with people basing their opinion of you on stupid sh*t like what coach you had. [Those girls] were always so mean to me even though I just wanted to be friends. And I absorbed this model in an attempt to fit in, being mean to other people for no reason.

In life there are going to be people you get along with and people you don't. Coaches and parents can really have an effect on this; I’ve known of coaches and parents hinting to kids that they shouldn't hang out with other coaches’ students; in fact I think coaches and parents have more to do with cliques forming than kids do. There are a lot of people who are my friends now who were really mean to me as a kid. Now we’re older we realize that it didn't matter who your coach was. Kids are just dumb; they’ll follow the lead of the adults.

R, from the same generation as B, didn’t even want to teach at their childhood rink, and never bothered to apply for a position there; “It’s too weird over there” she told me. B has this same attitude. “I can’t stand the idea of going back and just getting sucked into it again.”

What can you do about cliques?
First of all, do your research. If you’re new to a rink, or just starting to consider private lessons, observe the dynamics for a while. Learn which coaches discourage their skaters from getting involved in the culture of the rink—those kids will be on practice ice, but you’ll never see them in class. People don’t know who their parents are. The parents never volunteer at shows or competitions, and sometimes the skaters don’t even participate in shows or competitions.

Avoid parent gossip like plague, especially from parents you don’t know very well. (Really, what’s the agenda here?) Let your children choose their friendships themselves and then befriend those parents. You’ll find more in common than if you choose your social circle based on who the coach is.

You’ll naturally gravitate towards the families that share your coach, but they’re not the only ones in the rink, and judging a family’s suitability by coaching choice or competitive stature is simply absurd. Skaters have widely varying goals, all valid. The goals of a recreational skater are no less important than the goals of a competitive skater. While shared goals are a way for friendships to start, they are not the only way. Every time I hear a coach tell me that ice show solos aren’t important, or are “good enough for that skater, but my skater has more important goals” I see red. In the universe of a recreational skater, competing at Nationals is by definition unimportant. They aren’t going to do it; it’s not important to them. There is nothing in figure skating inherently more “important” than something else. Goals are personal, not universal.

(Whoa, off the topic there a little, sorry.)

Friendships are a personal choice
Any coach who tells you not to talk to other parents, coaches, skaters, or administrators is to be avoided, and in fact should be questioned. If a coach suggests in any way, “don’t let Susie talk to Jenny,” or if a parent says that her skater only socializes with Coach's other students (or worse, with no one at the rink) make them tell you why. The only way to stop this kind of poisonous behavior is to call them on it. If you’ve been at the rink a while and your skater only seems to know skaters who work with the same coach, see if you can figure out why this is. That’s how the poisonous cliques, and in fact all prejudices, start—with limited experience of the “other.”

Not all friendship groups are cliques, and not all cliques are exclusive or destructive. You don’t want to discourage close friendships, and while I think T’s idyllic experience is sadly a thing of the past, I still maintain that an ice rink is a great place to grow up.

Let me know your experience with cliques, good and bad, and how you handled it, in the comments.

Tears in the dressing room

Put thirty-nine teenage girls in two small dressing rooms and I will bet you even money that at least one of them will be in tears before the night is out. And that she will end up in mom's arms sobbing that someone is just a b*tch, or that the girls are so mean. I know this because I've been that mom.

But here's the hard truth, mom. You cannot do anything about this, and neither can anyone else. I know this because I've also been the coach that the mom comes to, asking me to intervene. To make the girls include everyone, to find her daughter friends.

A rink or a club or a school can make all the inclusivity rules they want (my kid's grade school had the rule "if you invite half the class, you have to invite the whole class" for instance, although the high school kids were on their own), but they cannot actually make the other kids talk to your child, and they cannot control what the kids arrange on their own time outside the purview of the program.

But there is something you can do. You can encourage your daughter (I don't know if this happens with boys-- anyone?) to stand up for herself. Shy children are sometimes perceived as stuck up or even mean. They need to reach inside themselves and find a way to be included that doesn't violate their own sense of self. If your daughter has been left out of Secret Santa, she needs to go to the most popular girl in the room and for heaven's sake just tell her "I feel so bad I didn't know you were doing this, and I did not get a present for anyone. Is there someone who got left out?"

Because contrary to the popular culture trope of "mean girls," the thing about the popular girls is they want everyone to love them, including the geeks, the unattractive, the shy and the stuck up ones. Popular girls are equality opportunity goddesses. Appear to worship her, acknowledge her primacy, and she's yours. If they think they've left someone out of their magic circle, they'll do what they can to include them, for the adoration alone.

But mom, you cannot do this. Your daughter has to do it. You can tell her what to do, but she has to take that step. You can't fix this. I can't fix this. Your daughter isn't 6 anymore.

The good news is, she won't be 14 forever either.


*(If your daughter has actually been mean and has been left out for that reason, or because you have antagonized everyone yourself, the two of you need to face up to that and change your behavior. Just saying.)