She is a nice sensitive kid who is decent to other kids, even the ones that annoy everyone else.

She is very athletic and she works very hard, so she is doing a nice job of passing her tests and landing her jumps.

There are a couple of girls (sisters) who she has been skating with for several years (from LTS). They were always very nice and friendly and encouraging of her until she started catching up and at times passing them out in skills (or doing better in competitions).

Now they kind of shun and taunt her. The one girl will tell her how her sister can do this that and the other thing and saying to her that YOU cannot (often what the sister 'can' do is seriously exaggerated anyway buy my dd believes it and feels bad).

She is 9 and these girls are 11 and 12. How should I instruct her to respond?

This has been said many times before: refocus your daughter on her own accomplishments so that she doesn't feel the need to be jealous or feel put down. Self-confidence is the most important thing in dealing with these conflicts. Girls are mean, especially at the middle school age.

Your daughter seems to have a lot of these personality conflicts. I wonder if you could encourage her to find other friends if it always involves the same girls. I tend to rush my kids out of a particular non-skating activity so that they can't hang out with two girls who are just like this. It's fine for them to *think* they're still friends, but it's a lot less stressful because they don't have anything to gossip or attack each other about if they don't spend much alone time together, lol.

Truthfully, your daughter should learn to walk away if these kids pick on her all the time. She's a glutton for punishment if she keeps hanging out with them. The only way they'll become "friends" is if the three of them find someone else to pick on, but you really don't want your daughter doing that, so try to get her to let go of them and hang out with more positive people. If it's happening on the ice, put a stop to it - ice time's expensive and nitpickers on the ice are hazards!

As to the tricky "they're exaggerating" situation - saying anything about it will be relayed to the other girls as "you're lying" and the conflict will escalate. These girls are competing in a way that's really not healthy and you don't want your daughter to think that's appropriate so don't address that issue.

The core problem is that these girls feel intimidated by your DD for some reason. Their self-confidence must be low, so they're acting out by bragging and trying to make your daughter feel bad about herself. It's really a bad situation. YOu could play therapist and try complimenting them often so that they feel better about themselves and hopefully) lay off your DD.

You could role play with your DD and encourage her to say things like "That's great that you landed that jump! I want to watch it next time we're on the ice together. I can't wait to learn that jump." If your DD can say it quickly and believably enough, the put downs won't get out of their mouths. This puts the burden of proof on the others for exaggerating and defuses the situation so it's not competitive. Don't let your DD give in and start putting herself down.



Give it a try.

Side comment: The parents of every set of 11-year old twins who skate just wondered THEIR daughters were who you were describing.

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Actually, she doesn't ever have personality conflicts- she gets along with everyone, this is the first she's really dealt with anything like this with other kids. Are you mixing me up with someone else? The girls that are saying things to her are not twins, sorry, they are 11 and 12- I mispoke now that I reread!

I have told her to just walk away (or skate away I guess I mean- LOL)! And I do tell her she only needs to worry about herself, but I can see how it might be hard under the circumstances.

Your DD is at about the same level as girls 2-3 years older than her, these girls feel threatened by a her accomplishments. This is their way of trying to feel less threatened, while a poor technique it is typical of the age group. I have see this sort of thing frequently at the rink. Usually the best way to handle it is to either do as Isk8NYC suggested or completely ignore it. If it doesn't get a rise out of DD then the girls will usually give up after a while. If it becomes more of an issue let the coach know so that he/she can take some subtle action like shooing them all off to work rather than hanging around "chatting".

Thanks. I don't think she does let them know it bothers her, even though it does. I did let her coach know that it was happening.

I dont know, my kids have had alot of support from older kids.Even ones they skate against.Maybe your daughter is acting like she is better than they are, and they dont like it.or maybe they pick up a vibe from her.
I really would worry less about these kind of things and just move on. She has to learn that their are mean people in life no matter what. Maybe she should look for something she likes in their skating and mention it to them the next time this comes up.

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http://www.youtube.com/user/alaskanmom

She has plenty of other friends at the rink that are also older than her and that don't do this, so no, I don't think it is her. And in fairness, it is really only one of these sisters that actually mouths off to her all the time (and to other kids too, not just her). It bothers her because they used to be friendly with her, so it hurts her feelings. I only mention it because she did and it makes her feel badly that a girl she thought was her friend is doing this.

When we encountered this:

1. On the ice, naturally, there is absolutely no chatting or socializing; the coaches do not permit it. So, the chance of it happening there are minimal at best. If it is happening, then, simply a smile and a "hey, I've got to get back to work before my coach catches me chatting!" a wave and skating away. If the kid is really working hard, then, the odds of them being able to catch her at rest are very low.

2. Off the ice, we invested in a cheap MP3 player (later a small iPod) - and once off the ice, the earphones went IN and thus our skaters could stay "oblivious" to rink gossip. Before practice, the same iPod served double duty as a training and warmup device for off-ice.

It helped on many fronts: the music became part of the ritual of warmup and cool down; it kept them out of rink politics; and it is an excellent prep for competitions and tests where the ability to focus and relax is critical. Yes, dressing room chat is good, but, being able to have a polite way to zone out is often useful in an unpleasant atmosphere.

Other than that, don't respond; if these girls do this to others as well, which is likely, then, their behaviour will be known. If your kid stays out of it, she'll get respect from others and more to the point, not be tainted with their nonsense. Just don't let her become part of the "new clique" that can form, the "anti those girls who are nasty" club who then go out of their way to "get even" with the "nasty girls".

Good ideas, thanks Sk8tmum!!

A poison mouth preteen at one of our clubs drove away all of the just-wanna-skate-and-have-fun recreational skaters which are the ones that support clubs because they skate for a number of years. Eventually the poison mouth pushed it too far, and got caught more publicly. The mom said she knew nothing about it, which might have been true as this preteen knew just what knife to twist with what particular girl and it was all very quiet. Unfortunately the club suffered greatly with registration problems because the skaters left and never returned.

Headphones are a good idea, getting down to business is a good idea and a lot of openness is a very very good idea. Showing up fully dressed and just needing to put skates on, on an outside bench can also be a good idea "oh I'm so late, I don't have time to go down to the dressing room, I'll just put my skates on here"

I love Sk8mum's suggestions. And as for your daughter's reactions to these girls, I think she just needs to understand that they feel threatened by her progress and she needs to (a) be nice and non-threatening to them and (b) never let them think their taunting is affecting her.
She can act impressed and complimentary whenever she is told what the other girl's sister can do, and she can laugh when taunted, as though it is a joke she is in on. "You guys crack me up!" is always a great response. Then put on the earphones.

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"You don't have to put an age limit on your dreams." - Dara Torres, 41, after her 2nd medal at the 2008 Olympics

I agree totally with this because people get jealous and start to act this way. I would tell your daughter to ignore and not respond to it because making her be serious with the earphones and other such is just avoiding the problem which will show the mean girls that she is scared of them and does feel threatened by thier comments.

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2010 Skating Goals

1) Land Double Axel
2) Pass Junior Moves at the end of January
3) Pass Novice Free at the end of January
4) Pass Senior moves by september
5) Consistant double flips and double lutzs
6) Learn a new cool spin!

I love the headphones suggestion.

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Thank you. This has spilt over to other areas of life: exam preparation, stressful days, etc. They have playlists for "studying" for "exam nerves" for "pumping up" and "cooling down". Although I'm not a huge fan of electronic gadgetry, I do believe strongly in the benefits of music and sound in mental preparation and emotional resiliency. I should have also mentioned that the music they use in the dressing room is selected to support their training and the mental preparation ... and always includes the freeskate program to help them visualize.

I also use it myself at the arena, as a way to avoid "parents I don't want to have to deal with" - the dreading skating parents that we've discussed in other threads!

With the prevalence of headphones on kids, no-one finds it odd that they wear them; it's a modern version of what I did as a kid - the vacant stare as someone tried to talk to me while I was reading a book!

I think that wearing headphones and other such is good in mental visualisation and other such no doubt and it is good to avoid people that you dont want to talk to but when it comes to an actual problem that you are having with someone I just think that you would be seen as a coward to the girls that are being mean to you. I think her daughter should be strong and let these girls know that thier snide and rude remarks dont get to her.

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2010 Skating Goals

1) Land Double Axel
2) Pass Junior Moves at the end of January
3) Pass Novice Free at the end of January
4) Pass Senior moves by september
5) Consistant double flips and double lutzs
6) Learn a new cool spin!

She can use both approaches - tune them out with headphones and ignore inappropriate comments on the ice as well. There's nothing wrong with making yourself unavailable if you want some peace and quiet.

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blades, gary, Lucy, Emily, take care of Aiden and Sami. Sami is my sweetest heart, and always will be, forever. RIP Cubby Boy, my hero dog.

Exactly!!! I just think if you make yourself avaliable too much thats not good.

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2010 Skating Goals

1) Land Double Axel
2) Pass Junior Moves at the end of January
3) Pass Novice Free at the end of January
4) Pass Senior moves by september
5) Consistant double flips and double lutzs
6) Learn a new cool spin!