Kind of interesting to read this thread because I felt like I was in the minority on another board when I argued it was a BAD BAD idea for parents to coach their kids. Everywhere I've been, that is the general consensus, but in this discussion it was like I was not a supportive parent because I don't point out her flaws when she skates.

j

I think it is a bad idea if the parent doesn't skate or study the sport.

This is so true! I hate hearing parents yelling to their kid "You're doing it wrong" but they don't know the difference between a flip and a lutz.....poor kids!!!

We had one guy that would "advise" from the hockey box...he would yell at everyone! I told him (after months of being polite) to bug off and stop talking to me. Everything he said ran counter to the way my coach was teaching. He would have the little girls in tears! I would take them to the other side of the arena and we'd skate there.

Sorry for the side-rant....this was a big issue for a long time at my rink. Hence the new rules! (only skaters in the box, no blocking/standing in the doorway).

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

As a coach, I agree that it's not really beneficial for parents to coach their kids. I haven't had too much of this happening with my students because I think they understand that at the rate their paying me, I know more about the sport than most parents (especially those who don't skate) and putting in their two sense is kind of a waste of money. I mean, why are you paying me then if you plan on standing in the doorway shouting directions to your kid? Thank God my skaters' parents get it - I'm the coach, let me do my job. I wouldn't try and discipline or parent your child...

I used to teach at a rink where this one mother would literally sit in the stands and "coach" (if you wanna call it that...) her daughter when her child's coach wasn't there. This mother would literally yell at the top of her lungs, "That sucked!", "Get you leg up higher!", or "Do it again. Why aren't you landing that?!" This poor girl actually broke her foot right before a competition, competed in one of her events, and pulled out of her other one. And her mother was actually mad! I mean, her kid's skating on a broken foot - most parents would never have even thought to let their kid skate, but this woman was something else! (BTW, the girl was too afraid to tell her mom how much pain she was in, plus her mom used to throw up how much $ she spent on coaches, ice time, competition fees, etc. and the girl felt bad. Too bad she wasted more money when her kid withdrew at the actual competition...) Needless to say, the kid cracked under competition/test pressure all the time and eventually ended up quitting not long after...

If we're talking about professional coaches actually giving their child lessons, my old coach does this and I've known several others who have done the same thing as well. (I'm not sure how I'd feel about giving my own kid lessons, but I'm waaaay too young for kids now anyway, so maybe my opinion will change down the road...) What I have noticed, however, is that it seems that there is a certain comfort level that gets broken down between a parent-coach and a skater vs. a coach-coach and a skater. The skaters I know who are coached by their parents tend to be a little more mouthy, stubborn, and whiny because I think they feel they can get away with it more. They're supposed to have this sympathetic parental figure (off-ice) and probably expect much of the same on ice ("Oh, you don't want to practice that because you're tired? Well, okay, honey..."). FYI: I've never had a parent coach me and I know that I would be way to scared of the consequences if I acted that way to my coach. I think that for the parent-coaches who can step outside that role, like my old coach can, it sometimes causes frustration and little spats between the parent and child. On the other hand, I know a girl whose mother (ex-Olympian) coaches her and she's done wonderfully making it all the way through Regionals, Sectionals, etc. and placed quite well. Unfortunately, I've also been witness to some of their on-ice fights (yelling, swearing, one of them actually leaving the ice during a lesson, etc.). At the same time, I think that it would almost be easier to relate to your own child - you know their personality, what makes them tick, what sets a fire under them, and so on. I guess the parent-coach job has both its ups and downs...

Seemed like there's enough interest in this topic to start a new thread, rather than hijacking the other one about Coaching Peers.

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I'm a former competitor and a skating coach. I've had all of my own children in my classes and also given them private lessons. It's no picnic. There's a boundary that keeps my kids focused with other coaches that absolutely disappears when it's "just Mom."

I've had them throw tantrums about jump checks, start crying about mohawks, and get frustrated about spin entries.
With me, no one else. (Lucky me!)

I know what people mean about keeping a young skater focused and correcting things during practices. If it's a little thing, don't worry about it very much. The coach will correct it at the lesson or the skater will learn to correct it him/herself. Major things - they should stop practicing that element until the next lesson. Most kids don't really know HOW to manage a practice.

The "DIY" lesson is the most important thing a parent and coach can teach their kids. Let them make a few mistakes - foot too low, bent vs. straight knee, whatever. Teaching them to practice on their own is SO important to their overall lives. It's a footnote to finishing homework, studying for school/job tests, learning new things from what they read, and figuring out how to solve problems without frustration. Start early with this lesson.

Here's a suggestion: TOGETHER, (at first) make a list of what the skater needs to practice, along with the cues.

For example:
xxx Jump - check out the landing quickly and keep that back arm up. (10x)
xxx MITF - watch the pattern and the axis. Practice on a hockey line first, then do the full pattern. (3 patterns)
xxx Spin - more SNAP the entrance. Do 10 of these.
At least ten tango stops.
Forward Crossovers - push under and point the toe on both sides. (3 sets on the hockey circles)

Just for fun: try doing a Back Inside spiral with your head down.

Have the skater take the list on the ice for his/her reference. The trick is to get the skater to do it themselves and run their practices. (I know this doesn't really work with very young kids.)

After they get off the ice, have them take a few minutes to check off what was practiced, make notes for the next lesson, and give the kid a hug for a job well done. After lessons, they write down what they have to practice in a small journal book that they keep in their skate bags. (It's a nice gift for students as well as your children.)

Good luck.

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Isk8NYC, the journal is a great idea. I keep one and tell the other kids to keep one. Especially the newer skaters-I find it helps with motivation when you can look back and see your progress!!!

I used to drag my daughter to the rink...she'd try to bail and I'd say "too bad, you're skating!" Mostly because we committed to the lesson and the coach depends on that $$.

I would also yell at her: talk at the boards, don't stand there talking!

There is one mom who only gives advice/suggestions: that spin was better, what was your free leg doing? try to smile more, etc. She was echoing the coach. All that she said was positive, even the negatives: I've seen you do better but I've seen you do much worse.

Her child is responsible for working on things, she has a list and a workout log. The mom usually sits in the lobby. She only comes down when it is time to go, or her daughter needs something.

What a contrast to some of the other kid/mom teams I've seen

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Skate@Delaware
Ah, show skating!!! I do it for the glitter!

I think it's a bad idea even if the parent does skate.

I still remember a HORRIBLE experience on the ice, my daughter and I and another parent skater and her daughter working on moves. THe mother was very experienced and probably right but she was constantly on her daughter about every single thing she did wrong and she was in tears. And it was horrible for us to watch.

Kids are very sensitive to criticism from their parents, and in the pre teen and teen years you are already in a constant battle on every issue and you want to add coaching to that? Not me, thank you very much.

I think a parent is not a coach and a coach is not a parent and a child needs support and unconditional love from their parent, not skating critique.

j

Totally agree. My parents are musicians, as am I, and they never gave me or my siblings lessons. They always found trusted colleagues to do it. I've done the same with my kids (except that we did do Suzuki violin, which includes pretty heavy parental involvement). When you get technical criticism from a teacher, you tend to hear what's wrong and what you need to do to improve much more easily than you can when it comes from a parent, when the criticism is apt to sound personal even when it's not meant that way. In other words, if my piano teacher told me I was playing something wrong, I would try to fix it, but if my mother did, I would cry. The parent-as-teacher thing can work for some, but for most it's way better to have somebody else take that role with your kid.

Yesterday I overheard a father say to his young (8 or 10ish) son, "Quitter. Quitter. That's what you want to be? Quitter?"

The meanness and the edge in his voice took my breath away. I thought about how different it would sound if the father said, "Hey, you won't improve if you quit. Don't go to sleep tonight thinking that you've quit. Give yourself that chance to get better."

And yet that's sooo typical and recognizable!


The other extreme would be a mother at our rink with a girl who skates with a different club. This kid is trying to learn hydroblades - has been for all of this year, from what I can tell. She can't do it. So what does mom do? Mom has hockey skates on and just takes the kid under the armpits, holding her up as the sits down. So what does the child do? Obviously, lean on mother's hands - putting the weight FAR too far behind. What this mom is doing is actually keeping the child from learning the hydroblades. Anyway they're like that all practice long, not just with the hydroblades. And with even the most horrendous "spirals" this kid does (barely lifting the free leg off the ice, when she's actually capable of doing a backward bielman!) the mom is like all OOHHH and AHHH and GREAT. The only thing she seems to think skating is about, is fooling around on the ice having fun. And this kid is like 7 or so, not 3! There's like zero understanding with this mom that skating is a sport and the ice rink isn't a playground (that's not to say there's no room for some fooling around and fun occasionally, but not ALL the time!)

The other morning I overheard a Skating Dad instruct his 7-year-old daughter as to exactly what she was to do in her warm-up, and that she was not to play, and very nearly asked him why he employed a coach if he knew so much what the child should do.

However, I didn't feel it was my business to interfere between father and daughter, but I did speak to her coach when I got a chance. She knows all about this particular dad, of course..... and apparently he does try not to be too awful.

Mind you, we had one skating dad who was appalling, and the child in question used to look at his father for approval whenever he did as his coach asked, not at the coach. Everybody felt sorry for the child, but I think we were all relieved when Dad reckoned he could get better coaching elsewhere.

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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!

Telling your kid what she needs to practice on is different than telling her how to do it, especially at 7yo. My dd just turned 10, and still comes to me with 15 mins left in a session "I'm done, I don't have anything to practice" Oh? So everything is perfect now?!?! ...so yes, I will tell her what she needs to practice on. And no, she is not allowed to play on FS, she can do that on public sessions. Not only is playing on a fs session a waste of money, it is also not courteous to those who actually ARE there to practice, not play. Now that she is older, she is better about using her practice time wisely.

That being said, I guess I have a very unique relationship with her coach. She tells me what to watch for, what she needs to practice, what she has told my dd about an element ("remind her to do this..."). My dd can develop a bad habit in a blink, and if I see she is starting one, I will bring it to her attention. I don't tell her how to fix it, just that she is doing it. Then, I tell the coach about it at the next lesson. I don't see that as coaching, but I know others do. I see myself as her eyes and ears when she is not there. If her coach actually tells me to watch for something, and what to remind her about, I will do whatever she says...and I also try not to be too awful! There have been a few times when I offered up my own advice to my dd, and the coach called me on it. I learned my lesson. As long as our coach is OK with our "team" approach, and all is going well, whatever you want to call it, it works for all of us.

My dd also asks me to watch her, to count revolutions on spins, watch her jump positions ("were my legs crossed?"), watch her landings for cheats, whatever. I do not always sit right there with her, only if she asks. Lately, I have been right there with her, because she has started landing her Axel, and she wants me there to watch her landings for cheats. She also has a brand new program, and sometimes needs help remembering what comes next! As soon as she feels comfortable, I will go back out to my nice warm spot and watch. Believe me, I prefer it there!

I think it depends on the parent and the kid. I've seen some coaches teach their children quite well - basically sharing the joy of doing something they both loved and enjoying the time they spent together. I've also seen coaches who, while perfectly good at coaching other people's offspring, are terrible with their own. I've also seen kids who will listen and learn perfectly well from other coaches but who totally tune out their own parents. There's even one skater who refused to skate on club ice when her mother was teaching someone else. She skates quite happily at another rink with another coach, though.

Once in a blue moon my dd will ask me to count revolutions. But mostly she says "I'm not going to ask you what you think, you'll just say it was wonderful" and you know what - that's fine with me. I'll be the one who says it was wonderful. Although the other day she did her program (which is newish anyway) after not having done it for a week and she fell on just about every jump, didn't finish her spins, footwork was scratchy - but she held her ending pose beautifully and I said "The ending was beautiful!" and she just laughed.

Our former coach has children that skate and when one of them became an adolescent it was not pretty. She has sent her away to other coaches and has an arrangement with another coach mom that they put each other's kids on the ice for competitions and that works well.

j

Yes, but saying "Have you done your camel spin", or "Go and run through your programme and I'll watch" (rather than sitting and reading or chatting with the other mothers, which is what most of the parents do) is very different to instructing your child, as you lace up her boots, as to exactly what she is to do when she gets on the ice and the order in which she is to practice specific elements.

And, indeed, I'm quite sure you don't tell your skater that if she doesn't work hard, Skater X will place ahead of her in the upcoming competition, and that Skater X can do this, that or the other element and why can't your skater..... which I gather the coach has specifically forbidden the father in question to do, as the skater was focussing more on what Skater X was doing than on what she was!

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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!

I think it really depends on the relationship between the parent and child.

My own experience when I was a young child was my mom was a well known and excellent music teacher, but she claimed she would not teach her own kids. Hence, I started piano with another teacher. Unfortunately, every time I practiced at home (daily) my mom would yell and scream at me for everything I did wrong, and I quit after 6 months because it was not only no fun, it was torture. About a year later, I agreed to take violin lessons if my mom would let me practice by myself, and leave the teaching to my teacher. It didn't happen. After a month, I quit because my mom not only broke her promise, she yelled at the teacher about the way she was teaching me.

OTOH, my older sister loved any attention from my mom, and stuck with it. As an adult, she was a member of a bluegrass band in Pennsylvania, and continued to work with mom for the rest of her life.

Again, I think it depends on the child. Some children, like I was, want to be independent and not subject to their parents' constant criticism. Some children, like my sister, thrive on any attention they get from their parents, and my mom was nicer to her because she made my mom feel needed.

Sometimes it can work and be a good thing. Many times I wish I had been more like my older sister.

I have no intention of coaching my child in any athletic pursuit (well, maybe t-ball or little kid soccer -- that's more "herding" than coaching, LOL!). Or teaching him more than basics (like how to read music) on any instrument. If he asks me a question, I'll answer to the best of my knowledge, but let him know that if his coach says something different, to follow the coach's advice.

It will be harder for me if my kids take up dancing, acting or singing. I know that, though, and will do my best to let the kids' teachers and directors help them. That being said, I know good dancing/acting/singing from bad and will never placed them with a teacher that teaches bad technique.

Yes, there's a big difference there! I know that there are *certain* things that she needs to practice, but I don't care what order she does them, just as long as they get done.

I watched a parent do this exact same thing to her daughter, and I swore then and there I would NEVER compare my dd to anyone else. There are many at our rink that are so worried about "who is passing up whom"...stupid thing to do, I say. Every child progresses at their own pace. My dd has passed some up (and this has caused no small amount of grief at our rink, mostly from the same parent mentioned above), and she has also been passed up. I neither crow nor complain either way. A while back, my dd was working on her Axel, and a fellow skater said "Just think about landing it before Skater X!" I told her that we do not participate in any races. If the kids are saying this, imagine what flies around in the bleachers. Another reason why I don't sit with the other mothers...

Just my 2 cents...

Part of the problem is the parent knowing when it is time to stop coaching their skater....getting them used to the ice is one thing but there is a time to let the professionals take over. If parents would take a real interest in communicating with a professional coach, the parent can be helpful during the practice sessions, by following up on what the coach is trying to achieve.....maybe.

I'll have to think about this one a bit. My son and I usually skate on the same f/s sessions. I don't think that I am saying much about his freestyle skating except to occasionally ask him whether he's practiced certain elements, or ask him what he thinks about what he's doing. It's a little more interactive with respect to dance, as we are still at about the same level and take lessons from the same coach..."interactive" here, though, means that it's at least as likely to be him commenting on my skating as vice versa. In fact, it's more usually the case that I have to shoo him off when he wants to critique my skating than the other way around. Guess I'll discuss it with him today...

(However, I agree that the coach should coach and the parent should parent--just not sure how much is in the latter portfolio...)

Rob