I probably could explain to her now that had all this feedback. Thanks!

I reckon you might be pushing your daughter too hard. Having to do this lesson, and that lesson and that lesson, and this lesson...and that. From the way you're responding to people .... eg...the 'young man' statement, and your above statement etc, I think it's time for re-evaluation of thinking and attitude toward people.

If a 6 year old stops talking to the coach, it's really up to the parent to chat with the daughter first to see what's up. If the parent doesn't even bother, then there really is an issue with the parent.

I'm sorry, but sounds to me like you're just pushing her too hard making her do things you want her to do no matter what she wants. It's not a good way of developing a child's joy in sports, music or any other venture.

Way to take responsibility. I feel sorry for your kid, you're one of those people who act like victims about everything and make drama when there isn't any, and so she'll likely turn out just like you. Because we really need more people like that in this world.

Listen: the coach is BUSY, I am sure. This may be hard to understand for someone like you, but while I am sure he enjoyed coaching your daughter and may still want to coach her, his entire schedule and life cannot revolve around YOUR schedule. You two had a lesson time agreed upon, and then the directors of the club decided that the ice your daughter was on would be dedicated to something else. You're really having a hard time accepting this, I assume because you feel your child is more important than whoever it is that they gave the ice to instead. Doing waltz jumps at 6 is the norm, as someone else said. Your kid isn't some prodigy (yet, at least) who deserves everyone clear the ice for her. She is young, small, and a complete beginner. Elite skaters usually have seniority over ice time, so if they decided your kid couldn't be on that ice anymore, then that's normal and completely acceptable. The coach then offered you to reschedule your lessons to another time- which showed HIS initiative. Then, YOU declined, saying there was no room in the schedule. YOU declined, so he went away because that was the only other time he could give you and you did not want it.

So, then, as a responsible parent, you should have gone to your daughter, and posed the situation to her: "listen, your ice time has to be changed because the club is re-arranging their schedule around, and your coach can only take you at such and such time, but if we do that then you will not have time for *insert one of the many activities you're making your child do here*. Would you rather drop *insert activity here* and keep taking from this coach, or would you rather keep *insert activity here* and we look for another coach that could take you at another time?" Then, you have let her voice her opinion on the coach, the way she wants to spend her time, AND let her know why you may be looking for another coach. I find it sad that you actually have kept your daughter in the dark about why she isn't taking from this coach anymore, probably making her feel horribly bad and worthless because she must think she isn't good enough and the coach doesn't want her anymore, just because you felt it wasn't your duty to tell her. For all you know, the fact that you've made her feel this way is the reason she wants to quit skating- it must not be fun to see the coach everyday, if she thinks he no longer wants her because she's not good enough. And you've let her think that, or anything else she could think up in her little 6 year-old head. How in the world anyone with a minimal amount of brain cells managed to convince themselves it wasn't their duty to tell their 6 year old that her schedule was being changed and that another coach might have to be found because the one they had before couldn't accomodate the new time is beyond me. There is something seriously amiss in this, and I hope for you that you figure out what it is so that it doesn't happen again in the future, because if it keeps happening this way, your kid is going to have some SERIOUS trust issues when she grows up.

All this coming from someone too young to even think about having any kids. If I can think this way, I don't know why a MOTHER can't. Blaffes me.

PS: I was just as offended about the coughing up the water on the backstroke comment as JPs1andonly was. I think that's a horrible thing to say about your child. Absolutely repulsive. Also, if you concede that she's "probably tired" from all of her activities, then how is it relaxation? I think they key is in what you said right after: "it's relaxation for me, as well". If she's tired, then perhaps she could stay home and play with her friends, or watch a little TV a couple of times a week. I know it won't be quite as fun for you, but maybe you should think of her? Just a thought. If you run her ragged, her schoolwork may decline, and on top of that, it's pretty much a guarantee that as soon as she's old enough, she will quit everything and it will all have been for nothing. Pick ONE thing she loves and stick with it- it's a good life lesson. You can't be good at everything, and you can't spread yourself too think and involve yourself in everything you have interest in. No one succeeds that way, and letting her think otherwise may make her develop poor time management and goal setting habits, which aren't good for anyone. Just things to think about. Obviously it's your kid, you'll raise her however you want to. But you made all this stuff public on a forum, so I don't feel bad commenting on it.

I'm still figuring out why in the world the coach should have to tell the kid that her mother doesn't want to/can't reschedule the lesson... Why is it his problem? It was your decision, not his!

My girls have been in a lot of activities when they were younger - girl scouts, gymnastics, skating, and dance. Gymnastics got to be a part time (20 hrs/week) 'job' for my then 10 yr old, and she decided she wanted to quit, so she could have more time to be with her school friends. Two months later, she made her first synchro team So much for extra time! Girl Scouts ended when I stopped being the troop leader, dance fizzled out when more ice time was needed. Now, at age 15, she's gearing up for a junior synchro team.

My younger one follwed sister to gymnastics, girl scouts, and skating, but got more involved in dance. She stopped skating last year, and she didn't really enjoy gymnastics once she made it on the competitive team, so she quit right before her sister did. But now she dances 4 days a week, and spends a lot of weekends practicing all of her dances at the studio.

So, when they are young, I think it's great to let them try different activities. But I think the kids should have a say in what they want to do - we do a lot of 'would you like to try this, it involves...and 'you'd be expected to...' before a new activity is added to the busy schedule.

One of my first policies was that if I paid for a certain activity for a certain length of time, they were expected to stay with it for that time period!

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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.

As a parent of a young skater it can be very difficult to stay grounded when people (usually those who know nothing about skating) are telling you your daughter could be the next Michelle Kwan. Trust me, it happens a lot to a lot of parents. If I had a dollar for everytime someone said it to me I would be rich. The reality is is that they don't know what they're talking about. Your daughter may turn out to be extremely talented, but she has a long way to go before that determination can be made. She also has a lot of work to do. Learning a waltz jump is fun, but there is technique that must be learned and practiced and practiced before the next trick is learned. It requires dedication to go out and freeze while practicing edges and cross overs hour after hour.

Your daughter can skate well enough to go skating with friends etc. If she wants to quit, let her, if she wants to take the next step the commitment needs to come from her. When ever my daughter asks about another activity we go through her schedule and I ask her what she would like to give up. When she asks for a new skating dress or toy, I tell her how many lessons it is worth and she makes a decision which she would like. When we had to make a decision last year about whether change coaches or change rinks I explained the situation to her, I told her we could make the decision together or if she preferred I would make it for her. We made the decision together. At the time she had just turned 5.

I'll stop now except to say two things:
A happy well adjusted child is way more important than skating or dance or piano...
Read Stardust Skies posts again. For someone fairly young without kids she is very wise.

Not too many senior electrical engineers on this board. If she turns out like me, I'm sure many would be proud of her!!

ummm....don't be too shocked to find out that there are. In fact, there are doctors and lawyers here as well. Shock of the day...you aren't the only one.

I would assume most peopel are talking about your attitude.

If I wanted to be really snarky, I could make some lovely comments about where you live, but I'll bite my tongue.

Stick a fork in me, I'm done with this thread and I hope Alicia gets exactly what she wants.

Let's keep this thread on a helpful note and not turn it into a personal attack on anyone or anyplace. I think Alicia's gotten some good feedback and suggestions. She needs to digest it and decide how she'll address these issues with her daughter.

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Are you sure about that? Or rather, how do you know that?

Because if there were, they would be trying to solve the problem. I really didn't post to have my family skills psychoanalyzed.

It's a simple item where I would like some advice or opinions as I do not figure skate or have ever participated in figure skating. I love skating with my daughter but I wear hockey skates. The only reason I enroled her in this is for a winter activity that allows her to be able to skate with the family and friends. She took it to the next level.

Ok.... that's fair enough I guess. But being a senior electronic engineer (yourself, that is), the problem should be easily solved. The first step is to ask your daughter why she doesn't talk to the coach. Actually, I know that you want the best for your daughter....or want to see good things in her. And that's really great actually. The main question is how come there was no discussion between the daughter and yourself. Then you can work from there.

Master's degree enroute to a Ph.D. here. Academic tug-of-war is not only *completely* pointless to this conversation, you're gonna lose.

Ease off on the personal attacks everyone, please. Otherwise, I think there's been a lot of good advice here: it's time for the kid to have a little more input in her activities if she's so tired and unhappy and burning out. And yeah, high-level amateur skating looks so effortless that everyone assumes that if a kid lands a waltz jump, she'll be the next champion. Her and every other little pint-sized jumper. Don't worry about what the grandparents think about her talent; they love her and will think she's a prodigy at whatever she does. That's just grandparents.

Alicia, have you explained the coaching situation to your daughter yet? Has her attitude toward her old coach changed?

I really didn't know the whole situation myself until I posted on this board!!

Yup, and as a coach myself, I would like to second the earlier opinions to let your daughter know yourself that the reason she's no longer taking private lessons is due simply to a change in the ice schedule of the rink. There's no reason I can see that a 6-year-old should take the issue personally if she knows the facts that your schedule just no longer jives with that of the rink. Is it possible that your daughter could be mirroring any possible displeasure you've expressed regarding the coach's lack of action in convincing the rink not to cancel that ice time?

I've worked with quite a few parents who are in similar situations to yourself. Sometimes they become too busy for a particular time slot, and in other cases, the rink changes its available ice time. In each case, I always ask parents when they would like a new lesson during the few other slots available during the week. There are parents who are either too busy or too inflexible to reschedule the lesson, and a couple have ended up calling the rink to voice their displeasure over the lack of ice time. Unfortunately, what they usually find out is that a private lesson for a basic skills skater--or even having 3 or 4 private lessons on the ice simultaneously--doesn't get first priority when the rink schedules its ice time. Private basic skills lessons just are not enough of a profit generator nor a priority for the rink.

My suggestion is that if you--and your daughter--are serious about continuing private lessons, then you need a schedule that's a little more flexible to lessons at various times. Given your current busy schedule, I'm guessing you may need to prioritize. Is skating important enough so that you can adjust your schedule to accommodate it? If not, it seems that your daughter's private lesson coach has become a scapegoat for you to use so that you don't blame yourself for not being able to fit this activity into your daughter's schedule. Try not to blame yourself for being too busy for private lessons. Let your daughter focus on synchro or her other activities, whatever she enjoys. If skating is as important as it is, perhaps she can back out of dancing. The important thing to remember is that a devoted 6 year old will tell you if she wants private lessons. Some of my own students regularly push their parents for privates. Follow your daughter's heart.

In terms of working with your daughter's coach, the more flexibility you can offer him, the more flexibility that coach can also show you--it's a mutual relationship. The skaters I work with long-term are those who show me that they understand that the parent-coach relationship requires two-way communication and understanding. Things happen--special events may be scheduled, your child may have a birthday party to attend, your family may travel away from the area. Instead of viewing skating as an activity that can only be scheduled during your free time--and focusing on your daughter's coach's failure to create ice time during times that best befit you--try working with the coach to find successful alternate times that suit both you and him, even if they aren't your first choice. From experience, being flexible and supportive of one another is an easy way to ensure a symbiotic parent-coach-student relationship. Coaches typically don't enjoy working with parents who fail to understand the mutuality of this relationship, especially if the skater at hand is a basic skills skater.

No, what you're failing to understand is that THE PROBLEM is stemming from your "family skills", so to speak. You didn't tell your daughter why she wasn't having lessons with her coach anymore. She's probably hurt and very, very confused. It's likely she won't trust another coach not to let her down in the future, even if you tell her now, because the feelings you inflicted on her are already there. It doesn't take an engineer to figure that out, but it does take some decent knowledge of psychology, and incidentally, science-oriented people usually lack in the psychology department, and vice-versa. So while I know nothing about science, I thought I'd tell you what I do know about psychology and family dynamics. I knew you would take it personally- how can you not? However, you asked for help, and if you went past your original feeling of being offended or bothered by my post, you'd see there is logic in there. The reason I talked about your parenting skills is because that is the stem of the problem, and if you had just casually in ten seconds told your daughter right when it happened that her schedule was changed and you and her coach couldn't find a time to reschedule her lessons, this all would've never happened. Good time to use the expression "doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out".

Now excuse me, but I have my own coach to go and try to ignore at the rink.

I forgot to add earlier that my boyfriend has nearly completed a PhD in Engineering from one of the top U.S. universities. I have a master's in education from that same university. We'd be the first to tell you that an engineer usually doesn't have the interpersonal skills necessary to solve human relation problems!

Yeah, and I forgot to tell you I have a file full of resumes from MSc's and PHD's asking me for a job!!

How on earth does this relate to solving the skating problem at hand? I was simply making a point that from my own experience, engineers can't necessarily solve human relation problems like the one you're facing at the rink just because they're good at solving math and physics-based problems.

If you're going to quote me, I'd appreciate it if you did it correctly. I did not put a smiley face at the end of my statement regarding my boyfriend, which could easily come across as bragging. I mentioned our backgrounds so that the others reading this post would understand why I made the comment I did regarding engineers--and that is, not to criticize them, but to relay our own personal experiences. Your post above makes it appear that I'm bragging about credentials the same way you openly share your file full of resumes of people asking you for a job--a fact that I can't make relevant to this thread for the life of me.

I'm now turning to the skating-related threads, which are, after all, the entire purpose of this forum.

Ok, the problem is obviously that you're just piling too much on your child... so I'd say lay off a bit and listen to what she has to say, her likes/dislikes... problem solved.

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Oops, I just found out that I can google myself. I shall post no more on this thread!!

Alicia....you sure don't sound too modest, and things like that. I mean, if you're well educated, then ok....but no need to make some statement over it. Since a lot of people on these boards are also well educated. But even then, even if we haven't got the same education as others, no need to use education level and job status to pit against others.

Alicia doesn't want advice or even opinions. It's clear because the ONLY stuff she replies to is stuff that she can use to piss everyone off even more with her misplaced arrogance and even more misplaced stupidity. I think that Alicia is some mutant version of a troll, personally. I shall make no more posts in reply to her ever, as they were clearly a royal waste of time. Oh well.

As a mom of a 6 year old, I would love to be snarky...........

But I will not............................