How to Respond to Figure Skating Poor Sportsmanship

What to say to parents of Ice Trolls: Unfortunately if Ice Troll's parent was witness and didn't do anything to correct this behavior, then saying anything to them will do no good because obviously their child is perfect and should have gotten first place. The best thing to do would be to walk away with your skater as soon as the taunting starts to happen.

What to say to Ice Trolls: If you say anything to Ice Troll, then Troll Parent may come down on you and your child and make a scene, again because their child is perfect or because they don't see anything wrong with their child's behavior. Or Ice Troll will talk back to you because she obviously is not being parented very well. My sarcastic side comes out in situations like this and I'm usually quick on my feet and a little impulsive as mama bear surfaces. So, loudly enough for everyone close by, especially Troll Parent, to hear, I would have said something to my child like “It's amazing that a 2 year old could have placed third in this event. Or “Oh that poor girl can't read and doesn't understand that she ONLY got third”, and then walked away with my child in tow.” Then I would have found someplace quiet and away from it all to tell my child that this skater couldn't deal with getting 3rd so she had to make others feel bad in order to make herself feel better. After that, all you can do is tell your skater how well she skated and how proud you are of her.

What to say to the shared coach of Nice Kid and Ice Troll? I would tell shared coach about the incident, because her skater's behavior could reflect poorly on her. People who don't know her but realize she's Ice Troll's coach could assume that she condones or encourages such behavior. Then tell shared coach that you want to avoid contact between your daughter and that other child as much as possible. Personally I would probably look for another coach just to put some distance between my child and this brat.

More advice for Coach- Mom: Unfortunately this behavior is being accepted by Troll Mom and there isn't anything you can do to change that. And your daughter will have to deal with girls like this, especially in junior high and high school. It's awful that she's had to deal with someone like this already. All I can say is do your best to get your daughter to understand that these girls and their opinions are insignificant. It's scary what these girls can do. This year a 15 year old girl in Massachusetts committed suicide after having been tormented by “Mean Girls”. There are 6 teenagers and 3 youthful offenders now facing criminal charges for their part in this, but it won't bring the girl back. In this cyber-age, we have to do our utmost to make our children strong enough to deal with the verbal abuse, and it is abuse, that they will most likely have to endure at some point.

At our rink behavior like that from the skater and the parent could be reported to the skating club as behavior un becoming of a club representative. The club board would bring the skater and the parent in for a meeting to discuss the situation and ultimatly their membership could be placed on probation. If the behavior continued then they would be reported to USFS as members NOT in good standing making competing impossible at sanctioned events.
Our club is extremely serious about fostering respect and friendship between all club members and it works because we have the most supportive group of young skaters I have ever seen! Some of our skaters travel to competitions just to be the cheering section even when they are not competing. One of my favorite things to hear a skater say when friends end up in a competitive group together at a competition is “Hey Mary we are skating TOGETHER at Liberty next week, Good Luck!!! We try not to use the phrase “I'm competing AGAINST you” It sets up a skater for negative feelings and thats where the ugliness starts.

This year a 15 year old girl in Massachusetts committed suicide after having been tormented by “Mean Girls”. There are 6 teenagers and 3 youthful offenders now facing criminal charges for their part in this, but it won't bring the girl back. In this cyber-age, we have to do our utmost to make our children strong enough to deal with the verbal abuse, and it is abuse, that they will most likely have to endure at some point.

You bet, Lynne. We all need to be vigilant against this behavior.

Really, we need to make sure not to be bystanders, either. If something like this occurs in our hearing, should we do something? Bystanders give a passive nod to the aggressors. I'd like to see parents come to the defense of other kids, too.

I really like the stance your club has taken to squash that kind of behavior. It takes a really strong board to do that and a club culture that doesn't support nonsense.

Our club has put members on probation before, but I don't think we've ever taken away their good standing. It's something to discuss, though.

[...] Ice Mom: How to Respond to Figure Skating Poor Sportsmanship [...]

Say to the skater, “Sweetheart, I'm sorry, you only got third place, didn't you know?” Turn to the coach or the mom, and say, sarcastically, “you must be so proud.” I think they'll get the message.

Yikes. I too would be so shocked it would be unlikely that I would have the presence of mind to respond with anything coherent. This is what I would have thought to say after the fact:
To the Troll mom: “I am sure you don't condone this unsportmanlike behavior in your daughter!” :
To the Ice Troll: Nothing. She will hear what you said to her mother…
To the Coach: Please teach and then demand good sportmanship from your students at practice & competitions. In other sports, players are asked to leave the game for unsportmanlike conduct. Figure skating is no different. Self control, respect for yourself and others is a large part of what I expect my child to learn through sports.
Use it as a teaching moment for your child: “do you see how unattractive that behavior is” etc.

The coaches at our rink also try to remind the kids that they are representing our club and are skating as a team. After my daughter competes her coach makes sure my daughter congratulates the other skaters no matter if she got first or last place. One of my favorite methods for dealing with bad attitudes Is something we learned from spending two years at a co-op preschool. Basically if someone is practicing poor sportsmanship or says something mean to her she'll usually come up to me first and then I will remind her that if it really bothers her she should tell that person how she feels. It usually goes something like this “so&so, I didn't like how you where acting and you really hurt my feelings when you said that.” and “it's not about how you place, it's about having fun and skating your best.” No matter how mean and nasty, everyone gets a little thrown off when they're called out. Luckily my daughter is very outgoing and also very confident so talking to someone who hurts her feelings comes easy for her. Plus the beauty of this method is that the parents are usually taken aback by another kid standing up for themselves and in turn the ultra competitive parent may think their child should be just as good at sportsmanship.

I've never seen this, so I'd probably need to pick my jaw off the ground first…

That being said, I just presented this to my 7 year old daughter and asked her what she thinks should happen. Her response: “There is always someone better than you mom, even if you are first. It doesn't matter. You just try your best and it's all about doing YOUR best. I think the mean girl should be told that. She's not the best, and she never will be, cause there is always someone better.”

I'm very proud to say that both of my daughter's have been taught this by their coach. They are only concerned about how well they did, and not anyone else's performance. My 4 year old's primary concern is NOT getting the blue ribbon, cause that's for boys.

Both girls started skating very young and typically skate against kids that are older, sometimes significantly so. I'm thrilled that they've learned to compete against themselves. I know this will change one day, but for now, I'm eating it up.

<Personally I would probably look for another coach just to put some distance between my child and this brat.>

Look for another coach? Why should the coach be punished because of one of her skaters? Obviously the coach is not the one initiating the 3rd place girl's behavior, why should she lose a serious student because of it? Moving to another coach for the sole purpose of avoiding the brat does not solve the situation, because the coach is not putting the girls together, the fact that the girls are at the same ice rink is putting them together.
If you were in this situation and tried to solve it by moving away from the coach, it will only reflect badly on you and other coaches won't respect you. Then where would you be?

Sorry to fire off at you, but frankly it just shocked me.

You're lucky that your club places a high value on good sportsmanship. What a great atmosphere that must be for all the skaters.

Maybe this particular coach's students don't intermingle, but my son congregates with his coach's other students at competitions and they watch each other compete and cheer each other on and try and cheer each other up when a skate doesn't go well. That camaraderie is something my son misses when he's the only one of his coach's students at a competition.

I don't know anything about this coach, so this is a general statement. It has been my experience that coaches who have toxic students/team members tend to attract more of the same because they tolerate this behavior. They don't encourage the behavior, but they also do nothing to stop it. I've seen it in skating, soccer, basketball and baseball over the years. Maybe the coach was unaware of this behavior and has since spoken with Ice Troll and Troll parents and made it clear to them that this sort of behavior is unacceptable

You are so right about not being a bystander. It's all too easy to walk away or turn a blind eye when it's happening to someone you don't know.

You know, I'm with Lynne on this one. Of course, I don't know the coach, either, but Ice Girl was on a synchro team last year that had some toxic elements. I will say that the coach did say something to a girl and made her apologize to Ice Girl at one point.

However, on the whole, I think that the coach sets the tone for the team. What she'll tolerate and what she won't sends a message to the skaters.

I think it's the same in this situation. The coach might be completely unaware of her Ice Troll student's behavior toward this skater, but I'm sure she suspects that this kid has bullying issues.

The coach sets the tone and the example. I'd approach her and find out what she's going to do to make sure that her students understand that poor sports won't be tolerated. If an unhealthy undercurrent continues, she's aware of it, and she doesn't explain to her skaters how she doesn't support it, then, yeah. I'd switch, too.

She could say to the kid/parent, “My skaters support one another. That's how things are done here in our club.” or she could say “That's not the kind of attitude I tolerate in my skaters. My expectation is that skaters will support one another.”

It's hard for the coach, too, I imagine. Maybe her experiences haven't prepared her to deal with this, either.

I'd forgotten about my co-worker. She's my Tact Guru because, well, sometimes I have none. In situations like these, she would say:

I'm surprised to hear you say that. -pause- -pause- -pause-

That pause business really brings the rudeness back to the speaker. If the speaker doesn't catch on, she says something like:

That's just not how we do things here. Here at ***, we support one another. -pause- -pause-

She's very polite, but very direct and has a way of making people who disappoint her squirm. I'm taking notes, I tell you.

I am with Xan….. and I am sure Ice Mom knows what I would do, she has sat with me in the stands.

SynchroMom…I thought we agreed not to talk about slashing tires…

Just joking! We never really slashed tires. Our husbands won't let us have sharp implements.

Spoilsports!

I like your clubs approach to poor sportsmanship and the way that your club supports each skater when they compete. I will pass this along to coach-mom. Hope this will help her an her daughter in the future. Season

I'm glad you asked your daughters for their thoughts on the matter. I think that it is awesome that your daughters coach is instilling good sportsmanship in her skaters and not breading competitive bad attitudes. I've been blessed to have a coach for my daughter that also teaches good sportsmanship and I have also reinforced what my daughters coach has been taught. Hopefully, if more coaches and parents teach good sportsmanship we can out number the trolls and change their behavior or get them out of skating all together.

I feel that everyone should get involved when bullies are attacking their victims. I think the more people standby and watch the bullies attack, the more the bullies attack other people. It is important to teach our skaters to be able to standup to ice trolls and bullies they encounter in school or other social setting. Bullies should not be tolerated in any social situation. They need to be dealt with when they are behaving badly so they know what they are doing is wrong.

In defense of the coach that teaches coach-moms daughter, I do not think the coach has been made aware of the ice trolls behavior at competition. This coach teaches a lot of skaters and she is very nice. My daughter has taken lessons from her during the summer to improve one of her jumps. The coach is a very serious coach and she does not condone any playing around from her skaters and encourages her skaters to help each other when they are having problems with a jump or skating skills. I think if she knew what had happened she would not allow the ice troll to continue to behave this way. The coach is also the skating director of the arena that the nice girl and ice troll skate at and I know that she would not want to get a bad reputation for the arena.

I really don't think that this coach is aware of how the ice troll behaved at competition. She has a lot of high level skaters and I don't think that the coach was in the area when nice girl was being bullied. She was most likely attending to the other skaters that she had at the competition.

Thank you for all your responses. I hope that by talking about this matter we can help to bring resolution to this problem. I feel that this type of behavior begins at home and that if more parents would get involved in stopping this type of behavior, not only from other skaters that express this behavior but especially when our own children act this way, then we can make skating a happier and healthier sport for everyone.
Please encourage your skaters to stand up for themselves when they are being bullied and to help other skaters that are victims of this type of abuse. Try to enforce the rules and regulations of your figure skating club when you have a greivence and let all the members know that your figure skating club has a policy that addresses this type of behavior. If we encourage all the skaters at the rink to have fun and support each other when they skate well and when they are having a bad day then they will learn how to be not only better skaters but also better people. Thank you, Season

what i would say
to that ice troll: “Just becuase you cant deal with being in 3rd place I dont want to hear about it! Niether dose my child! And if you put that medal in her face again im gonna snach it out of your hand so fast you gonna have ribbon burn!”

what i would say
to that ice trolls parent: “Control your child next time! Oh and you might want to look at her hand, I think she got ribbon burn.” then you turn around and walk away!

it might not be like that but i would definetly have something to say!

what i would say
to that ice troll: “Just becuase you cant deal with being in 3rd place I dont want to hear about it! Niether dose my child! And if you put that medal in her face again im gonna snach it out of your hand so fast you gonna have ribbon burn!”

what i would say
to that ice trolls parent: “Control your child next time! Oh and you might want to look at her hand, I think she got ribbon burn.” then you turn around and walk away!

it might not be like that but i would definetly have something to say!