I know there is nothing we can do about it, I just want to vent my anger here a bit. There was a sweet little kid (9 or 10 years old boy) practicing on the ice. His mother was constantly yelling at him while he's practicing. "You're not trying...", "The reason why you can't do it, it's because you're not trying hard enough...". On and on for more than an hour.

During ice-cut, she had him doing a spiral (well, beginner position, if you know what I mean) on the floor with skate guards on. And of course, it's not humanly possible. But guess what. She was doing it with her sneakers on and said to her son, "See, I can do it and I am fat. You can't do it because you're not trying". (I want to laugh out loud on that one. But I just turned away and laugh with other skaters.)

She constantly gave him advice on what to do and how to do it. And of course, her advice was totally wrong. He was doing back crossover. Can you believe what she said? She said, "you can't do it because you bend your ankle". Now, how can you skate without bending your knees and ankles?

The boy was crying on the ice while he's forced to practice. How humiliating. Has she got no shamed? After more than an hour of this drama. She asked the boy to do waltz jumps. That poor thing. He's already exhausted and where in the world could he possibly get any strength left to do 10 minutes of waltz jumps? And of course, her words of wisdom was "if you're not falling, you're not trying hard enough....".

Can you believe this? It made us so mad and I wanna go over and slap her silly.

We're just shaking our heads. It's like watching a train wreck right in front of you in full speed.

Oh well. I just feel so sorry for the boy. He's gonna love figure skating now, for sure.

Venting over.

I apologize in advance if this offends anyone, for I've nothing against people of size per se, but has anyone here besides me ever noticed that a lot of pushy skating moms are fat, while their skating kids are skinny?

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Actually, I've noticed a lot of "fat moms" in both skating and gymnastics. Don't know about them being pushy or not. I just happened to notice it when the TV cameras show somebody's mom in the audience.

BTW, I am fat. No offense taken.

Some clubs and/or rinks have a "no parents coaching from the sidelines" policy, which I applaud loudly while standing on tip-toes and cheering! If the child has a coach, I'd say it was the coach's place to ask the mom to back off, or at least explain that the things she's telling him are wrong. If he doesn't have a coach (or group lesson teacher), unfortunately the poor thing is probably out of luck!

I'd be very kind & encouraging to him, & try to make him feel he's not all alone out there.

We had the skate mom from h*** in our area for awhile--very talented child, very pushy mom, very verbally abusive, sometimes throwing things or slapping at the child. The mom was actually banned from several rinks in the area. They've now moved away, but I know the girl is still skating. I felt so awful for her, we all tried to pay her lots of compliments & cheer her up, she would get so upset.

It's so tough. I personally wish parents were not allowed near the ice during practice time. (or at least within communicating distance)

I'm sure there must be skinny moms who are pushy.

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This mom sounds awful, I feel very sorry for her kid who has to put up with her. Give him a lot of compliments for his skating, maybe that will shut the mom up.

When I teach at my local rink, we tell parents to stay out of the hockey boxes and go sit in the bleachers (behind the Plexiglas) because parents hanging around so close while we're trying to teach is highly distracting.

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Look at the good poem I found!:

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/A...e/skatemom.htm

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That's a great poem! I'm taking it to the rink tomorrow.

I feel so bad for this boy, he will never want to compete with his mom around. Maybe, his coach shoould talk to his mom about the way she is acting and telling her son what to do. Maybe someone should mention something to his coach about what she is doing when the coach is not around. He will not like skating soon. And he will start rebel on his mother.

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cml

Our coaches only pay attention to the kids they are in lessons with, and the rest just fool around most of the time. If a few of the parents didn't try to keep the kids moving and away from hanging around the boards, they would only skate 30 minutes out of 2 hours. I wish the coaches were stricter, but they feel the kids are there for "fun". After 10 years rinkside I've never seen one of these "pushy" parents. I have, however, seen a lot of parents freaked out over coaching bills.

There's a fine line between a parent helping and hurting a young athlete. Motivation can be applied positively or negatively. In my experience at rinkside, most parents are encouraging and will only challenge their children, but there are always a few.

I know one boy that skates at a fairly high competitive level. His mother is a nightmare at rinkside. However, she doesn't know how to skate. The boy will practice hard at her direction to a point, then will ignore her rantings and do what he wants. He knows she can't reach him on the ice. She'll blast him when he finally gets off the ice, but he's learned to just walk away and ignore her. My guess is that in a few years she won't be hearing from him on Mother's Day.

I have to laugh at a few parents sometimes, particularly those who've never strapped on a pair of skates. One mother (yes, this one was fat) who has never skated signed her daughter up for a synchro team. Within a few weeks, the mother was trying to tell the team coach how to fix problems with a travelling circle.

My suggestion to all parents of skaters is "go try it yourself". Until you've been on the ice and tried a few moves, don't think you know how it should be done.

Black Sheep, the poem was beautiful. I've already forwarded it to several skating mom's I know.

I wonder if my mom will feel that way? Of course, I'm 49 and only been skating for 1-1/2 years. My mom's never seen me skate.

The poem is sweet, Black sheep! Thanks for posting the link!

There's usually someone at every rink who qualifies as a skating parent from...you know where! The rink management should talk to her about disturbing the recreational environment. We adults hate to see that kind of behavior but worse than that is how it ruins things for our kids. The rink is paradise for my daughter. She's not there to hear some parent going off on their child.

Maybe it would help if that mom could be distracted from her fixation on her child. If I'm getting irritated, (Oh yes, my angel has her days where she pushes my buttons) I know it's time to refresh those old friendships with my fellow moms, read my book or take a walk. It's hazardous to just sit and watch every single move and every minute of every lesson. You lose perspective and it's hard to see anything but dramatic, sudden progress.

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Babyskater's Mom

Hehe. The lady who wrote that poem used to have a son skate out of my club. He doesn't skate anymore...but he went to nationals a couple times. That poem has been in every single Carnival program since I can remember!!!


Kortney

I don't think they start off fat; in fact, some of them have a go at skating as an adult in their early days and pack in. No, the fat layer builds up gradually over all those long years of early mornings, sitting in freezing cold rinks watching their offspring practise - they need the insulation....

Maybe a high-up skater (eg. one who is skating at a higher level than her son) should go and strike up a casual conversation with the mother (when she's not yelling at her son), and remark what a good skater he is/what good technique he has (especially on something she's been berating him for, if she's the one who's wrong). If she hears it from a skater she knows to be high level, maybe she'll believe it, that in fact her son must be doing it right. (eg. "Is that your son in the blue? I've seen him before, he's getting very good isn't he? Those crossovers are really coming along, he's getting very good ankle bend. It took me ages to achieve that.") You get the drift. That might work, or make her realise she's wrong without someone shouting at her and possibly making it worse, or making her think they're interfering.

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"It’s never too late to skate at any age." - Alexei Mishin.

I shall quote a T-shirt I once owned:

If more mothers skated, there'd be fewer skating mothers!

Oh, and I'm extremely fat and I skate, and I nag my husband! Mind you, he nags me.....

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Mrs Redboots
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I love my computer because my friends live in it!
Ice dancers have lovely big curves!

LOL! I'm both kinds of "skating mother" - the mother of a skater, and a mother who skates! I completely agree, though (and wish I had one of those T-shirts myself). We have a couple of moms at our rink who coach their kids relentlessly, but have never skated themselves. I know my perspective is very different than theirs. They don't realize that something that "looks" so easy can, in fact, be very difficult. I KNOW how hard it is to do things, so I never cease to be amazed by my daughter's accomplishments. (But that doesn't mean I don't get on her case when she's doing more socializing than skating! )

Poor thing. Good thing she's not at my rink because I'd walk right up to her and tell her what I think, I blame this habit on my pushy little German mother. :-)

We don't have really have any skate mom's from hell but there is one VERY talented child skater whose mother is also VERY talented and coaches and when she tries to coach her own kid...sometimes it's pretty embarassing but nothing abusive or destructive and she seems to catch on because she'll just abort the lesson and leave her kid alone.

THEN we have the skate moms who coach their little ones and give TERRIBLE advice and skate around with the Barbie boom box...oy..don't get me started.

I have noticed and inordinate amount of fat skate moms too and I think it is in part because they spend so much time on their childs interest and not enough time focusing on their own needs but I do see more and more mothers AND fathers learning to skate in their 30's and 40's because their kids want to skate and I LOVE that!!

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Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold.
Maurice Setter

My niece is very fortunate, her mom just let's her do her thing.

My niece doesn't want her to watch when she has lessons which she honors. On the other hand, my niece thinks its cool that while she is having her lesson at one end of the rink that I am at the other end practicing. We do this quite a bit since she comes to my rink every other week to have a lesson with my coach.

I have seen a few "skate moms" at my rink and the only word I have for it, "embarasing".

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!

I don't give my rink management credit for many things, but one of the most ingenious things they have done thusfar is put a division of the Buffalo Athletic Club on the second floor of the facility. There are big windows on either side where you can watch either the Olympic Rink or Rink 2 (there are 4 total) depending on what machine you're working out on. Three or four of the moms get their kids on the ice at 6:30am, then go and work out for an hour. This way they can keep tabs on their kid and do something constructive as well instead of gossiping or politicking.

Burn fat instead of gossiping! I love it.

Jocelyn

Well, I'm not a skating mom, but I am a fat skating wife! Whenever dear hubby and I practice together I always remind him to bend his knees! He skates about on stork-stiff legs and I'm just worried he's going to hurt himself. Especially because he's somewhat of a daredevil and he practices elements he hasn't really learned, for example, forward outside spirals. Did you know that falling from that position makes a really, really loud thump and a huge bruise on your hip? He does!

Jocelyn, what a terrific idea for your rink. I'd go to the gym every day if I could watch skaters train while I'm working out! Instead, at the college's fieldhouse I get the track team practicing and then I feel like a complete dolt plodding along and getting passed, so I go home.

Back to the original post:

You know what? I read that here's a boy about 9 or 10 doing waltz jumps, really, truly and this is harsh, he's not going anywhere in skating but would probably be a recreational skater if allowed to be.

Someone, preferably a board member who has seen the mothers behaviour, should talk to the child's coach and get a feel of the coach/parent/skater relationship. The coach should tell the mother to back off and then the board can back up the coach by having a "no coaching over the boards" policy.

We had one of these this year and that's how it worked, the parents are intense and involved in all their children's activities. The child is very talented. We had to be extremely blunt - with the coach too.

However, not allowing coaching from the boards is not the same as show and tell. We have a number of skaters who go over to the rink entrance, where parents usually hang out and will show off for mom or dad "look what I just learned". That's different and it's really precious, they're all excited.

Don't even get me started on this subject. The thread will turn into 4 pages just from my post alone. I can say, though, from personal experience over many years that the most horrid of skating parents come in all shapes & sizes. Beware!