Ask the Ice Moms: Synchronized Skating Drama

Today’s question comes from a frustrated parent of a first-year synchronized skater. First-year synchro skater joined a team of girls who had been skating together for a long time. They needed first-year synchro skater to have enough girls to compete. Here’s what the mom wrote:

My question is about synchro drama. My daughter was on a synchro team over the winter and one skater unloaded on her and left my daughter in tears.

We had just a week left in the season and I didn’t want my daughter to quit because life at the rink would be unbearable. However, I was determined to sit in on every synchro meeting, practice, and hair/makeup session. My kid told me no. Instead, she wanted to walk in with her head held high because she did nothing wrong. She said she refused to be a victim.

I’m proud of her. Actually, I’m stunned at her courage, but I know that this isn’t a problem just on our team. I know it’s not limited to synchro, either, because many high school team sports have these same issues. It even happens in the rink locker rooms. The problem is different from the ice troll, who is aggressive on the ice. This is social aggression.

So, moms: how do you deal with social aggression either on the synchro team or elsewhere?

I had a lot of interest on this topic, even from readers’ comments and e-mails.

Mommia, parent of figure skater/synchro skater Queen Lucy:

[Ice Mom is paraphrasing several e-mails] To combat synchro drama, this team did the following:

• They had a parent monitor all ice times. The monitor enforced the rules, kept skaters on track, discouraged rudeness to teammates and coach, and made sure the skaters wore the proper attire.
• All families had to read a code of conduct and agree to the principles before their skaters could get on the ice.
• Rule infractions meant that skaters would be taken off the ice for the rest of the practice.
• Behavior contracts must be enforced consistently.

Who wants to be on a team where there are known issues, and where the team is not progressing much and being held back by those issues?

Kates, a former synchro skater:

One general trend I noticed is that the returning skaters never liked the new skaters.  For any girl dealing with this, I can almost promise that it will pass.  I’m not sure if it’s because the older skaters felt threatened, because the newer girls didn’t have as strong skating skills, or because it’s hard to introduce new girls into a tight group of friends, but in my experience, it always passed.  Once the returning skaters got to know the new girls, the animosity would start to diminish.  The more you get to know someone, the harder it is to hate them.  I remember when one girl first made our team and didn’t get the best of receptions.  This girl was very outgoing and had a strong personality (as did her parents), so there was a bias against her from the start.  She also had to work a bit more to keep up with the rest of us, and I remember being annoyed when I got stuck next to her in a block and she would trip on her brackets.  But by the time the first competition was over (bus trips are wonderful bonding experiences). she’d worked her way into a good group of friends.  She was funny and willing to laugh at herself, and that ultimately made her a lot of friends.  That doesn’t mean that it was okay for everyone to gossip about her and glare at her the first three months of practice, but given some time, it did work out.

The best advice I can give is to just avoid gossiping.  Don’t do it.  When you need to vent, do so to a parent or spouse (if you’re the parent), but make it a person who isn’t involved.  So many times the problems would start because Mary tells Jane that she doesn’t like Jill, but Maggie and Elizabeth are in the locker room and overhear, and they’re good friends with Jill, so they run and tell Jill, who tells her parents, and then her parents start to tell other parents that Mary’s a brat.  It’s a slippery slope, and you don’t know who’s listening or who is friends with whom, so really, don’t say anything mean.  When you hear other people gossiping, don’t join in.  If you don’t feel comfortable speaking out against it, then at least remain silent.  This was easy for me since I was terribly shy and didn’t speak much to begin with, and I think I managed to slip by a lot of the drama because of that.

For parents, the only thing I can recommend is keeping some distance from the sport.  My parents were always pretty removed from my skating, and by staying away from it, they managed to avoid the drama.  Obviously not all parents can do this, since volunteers are essential to running the team, so that might not be the best advice to give.

I loved a lot of the time I spent in synchro.  I loved the feeling of doing footwork in perfect unison with 19 other girls, I loved the inside jokes, and I loved getting a huge goodbye hug from the entire team when I graduated.

But I really did NOT love the drama.

Allison Scott, parent of an Olympian and blogger at Life on the Edge

“Always forgive your enemies-nothing annoys them so much.” – Oscar Wilde

L.B., parent of a synchro skater/figure skater

Congratulations to your daughter for keeping her head together in such a difficult situation.  Tempers flare with synchro skaters especially during stressful times.  It is how the skaters deal with their tempers or attitudes that is important.  Unfortunately there is always someone on the team that has a hard time keeping their actions in check.  Our rink has a synchro committee that deals with everything related to synchro skating.  The committee is made up of parents that are interested in serving on a committee and everyone is welcome.  Skater relations is one of the committees jobs.  If there is a problem between skaters, parents, or coaches that cannot be resolved directly, the committee will step in and talk with the individuals involved.  This process will usually put issues to rest.  It helps to have a plan of action in place before the skating season begins.  Our team has a meeting at the beginning of the season and everyone knows what will happen if there are problems.  It helps the families to know that benching of the skater is always a possibility.  This can mean for a practice or for a competition.  Our team tries to handle the situation as quickly as possible to prevent issues.

SeasonedSk8rmom, adult figure skater, adult synchro skater, parent of a synchro skater

I think socialization issues on a team should be handled by the individual skaters involved. I know sometimes, especially with teen girls, they can be very viscious when it comes to the mind games they play, socially. I think that young teens need to work through these experiences themselves.

If the situation becomes too out of control than the coach of the team should be made aware of the problem and have the coach step in and address the problem. If the coach is unwilling to handle the matter than the parents should try to set up a meeting to have the individuals involved talk to each other and set some guidelines as to how they should treat each other with respect. If parents get too involved than it tends to make the matter worse.

These are great socialization experiences for our children and it will help them learn how to address matters with people they have conflict with as adults. This is also one of the reasons team skating is good for skaters who have difficulty with socialization.

I know that it can be painful at the time that the skaters are going through these problems but a lot of times the girls end up becoming close friends or move on to different teams. Sometimes if the coach gets involved they can see who the trouble maker is and this will affect the coaches decision regarding accepting the trouble maker back on the team for the next season. The coach wants a team that will be good socially as well as athletically because this will make the team work better together and they will be more successful on the ice.

I think that your daughter handled the matter correctly and she should be proud of herself.

S.F., parent of a figure skater

I spoke with my ice girl and she suggested that the skaters need to solve the problem on their own. If the situation interferes with practice on competitions, then parents/coaches need to become involved. My daughter feels that this skater did the right thing by not allowing the other skaters to think that she was a victim.

J.C.U., adult skater, figure skating coach, and figure skating parent

Coming from a mother of a daughter, there is always drama with girls. It doesn’t matter if it’s skating, soccer, cheer or dance. The coach, student advisor or whoever is in charge needs to say strongly: zero tolerance of this behavior. As the parent, a conversation with the person in charge to make sure they are aware of the drama is necessary as is accepting that there are always more than two sides of the story. Give it another 10+ years…

S.L., parent of a figure skater/synchro skater

If this behavior is taking place during ice time, does this rink have Rules of Conduct? At [our club], each skater signs one when they apply for the club. Expectations are in our handbook. We have had to put a couple skaters on “probation” after meeting with their parents from bad behaviors on the ice. We give a verbal warning, a written warning, then they can not skate/coach for a certain time. Now, does this happen often or do all behaviors get “called out”? Unfortunately not, because so few members/coaches feel comfortable reporting a problem. Our monitors (when we have 1) have the authority to pull a skater to the door(or their coach) and communicate with them about an unacceptable behavior (I have done it often). We are very sensitive to the age group, if they are young we approach their coach. If they are old enough to have a non-threatening conversation (I use a light/kidding approach) we will talk to them. Example: when one of the teenagers were skating very close to other skaters and stopping, or she would miss a jump then stamp her skate, she was approached with this behavior (she had others:-) and told she will be watched. This got as far as a written warning but no farther, because she finally “got it.” Another threatened a skater, they were both addressed as were there parents. They all got together and worked it out. Usually the skater won’t identify that they are a bully and have to be brought to their attention or it will not change. I know synchro is over but chances are this synchro skater will still have to skate with this person right? Check the club’s behavior guidelines.

Well, parents? What do you think? What would you advise this parent and synchro skater to do? Have you had similar drama? How did you handle it?

Do you have a question for Ice Mom or the Advisory Board? Is there a topic you’d like to see on this blog? Are you an expert and want to participate in the Wednesday Ask the Expert feature? Great! E-mail me at icemom.diane@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

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