Commandment Four: Only Positive Words at Competitions

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Oh my goodness your story had me laughing Ice Mom! I have had many experiences like this myself at competitions with my daughter. I have learned the hard way that “Ice Teens” can really have meltdowns at competitions and that as a parent it is VERY HARD to remain composed yourself! I always try to be supportive at competitions, my Ice Teen gets VERY VERY nervous – so I try to joke around, keep things light & positive. But it sometimes can be very hard to remain so bright and happy when your child begins to have that “Competition Meltdown”. My daughter turns into a completely different person! It was not quite as bad when she was younger… It probably would have helped had we lived in an area with frequent competitions but we have to travel out of town for almost everything, so she usually doesn’t compete that often. My daughter’s Pre-Comp meltdown usually starts about a week prior to the Comp. She begins to skate worse, programs go downhill, etc. Then at the comp it’s a total “cr@p-shoot” – pardon my language! Sometimes she will have it kind of together and skate fairly well, other times she gets so nervous that she pretty much bombs most of the program. This craziness only began when she was about 12, prior to that she always skated great at competitions, would usually do even better than in practice! She has a enormous collection of 1st place medals from her younger days to prove it! Unfortunately Regionals has proved to be her undoing, she had heard about girls going to Regionals for so many years, I think she built it up in her mind too much. She has been 3 times and has skated worse each time. After last years fiasco she said that she never wanted to do Regionals again! And I have to say I was in agreement, after seeing your child have a complete breakdown over a competition you really aren’t anxious to take them back again any time soon! Some teens just aren’t cut out for competitions. For now we are just sticking with local things & maybe one out of town (small!) competition a year. So in conclusion, I DO find it easy to be supportive at competitions & it’s easy to say positive things…… the hard part is remaining composed when your kid starts to loose it! The PSA needs to release an article on what to do when nerves take your child over!

Oh, yeah. When my kid starts to act like the worst kind of brat, I’m no longer positive. I want to send her rear end to the car and make her sit by herself. Good thing I have Ice Coach! Whatever she charges me for competition days is totally worth it.

It’s good to know, SuperSkater, that I’m not the only one with a teen toddler. In Ice Girl’s defense, she’s a good kid 99% of the time. It’s those nerves.

She competed over the weekend (clean program, second place). I told Ice Coach I was going to replace Ice Girl’s water with a margarita. Half joking. No, really, Ice Girl. It’s Gatorade…

Haha, yes, I have said the same thing to my friends “Is it legal to give my daughter a Valium before she competes?” “It’s a vitamin, really…” :~) And same with my Ice Girl, good 99% of the time! Congrats on the competition this past weekend, yay!

Thanks! She did well. I’m just relieved she conquered her nerves and didn’t fall apart on the ice.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who wants to slip my kid something on competition days. Not that I would. I mean, Ice Coach would kill me.

While I haven’t dealt with a nervous teen, I have delt with a nervous mother (she was competing in adult nationals in Lake Placid). I walked her through some of the stage fright tricks I learned in Toastmasters. Having a case of nerves activates the flight or fight response in the body. It is a physical response to stress and hence there are physical exercises that can be done to calm the person down. I taught some of these to my mom and use them myself to calm myself down prior to skating or public speaking. At my mom’s competition I sat with her and walked her through the exercises each time she started to freak out.

1) Deep breathing. When you get nervous you breath very shallow. Do deep breathing exercises where you inflate the belly instead of the chest cavity. Stand up or lie prone while doing these. That way you physically have room in the body to breath properly. Concentrate on deep slow breathing. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Try to pause between each in and out. Breath in, pause, breath out, pause, etc.

2) Physical movement. Do something. I pace and stretch a lot. Practice yoga postures with breathing. Stand up, stretch the arms to the sky, breath in, bend over at the waist, reach for the toes and breath out. Rinse and repeat.

Both of these things activate the parasympathetic nervous system and calm the body down. If your kid doesn’t listen have the coach try. If you practice them along with your kid you will both calm down. It works I promise.

Hey, Silver Blades. These are great techniques.

Would you want to guest post about calming nerves? I know I’d love to read what you’d have to say!

Oh gosh, jumping bean sometimes starts with the nerves days before…today, the doubles were missing, totally MIA all morning. She skates juv for the first time in competition on Thursday. They miraculously came back this afternoon…oye it is going to be a long few days.

I was lucky that my kids didn’t have melt downs at competitions. Still, competitions are incredibly stressful for parents. I often used deep breathing, like Silver Blades recommends. Other times, I had the best luck just withdrawing into myself. Of course, I’ve always liked meditation, so I find comfort by going within. And – sometimes even that didn’t work and I just had to survive until the competition was over!

http://RaisingFigureSkaters.com

Sure. I’ll dig out my old TM speech on calming techniques and put something together. Give me a week to get my ducks in a row.

Yes, I’ve learned that Little Miss Horrible can rear her head the entire week leading up to a competition. There are more practices, just trying to perfect that one element, the anxiety – both good and bad, the fact that there is a lot of preparation as a family leading up to the competition and there’s nothing like a tween being the center of attention to bring out the Diva Daughter.

I draw some firm lines, don’t allow for nasties to others, but yes, I’ve learned to swallow my tongue a bit so that we wouldn’t have to make our own trips to the ER for nasal hairbrush removal.

However, we are getting into our own routine the day before competition and day of, right down to the speech from mom that goes something like,

“You’ve done all the work you can do, you’ve given yourself this deadline to up your game and you’ve met it wonderfully, you’ve already succeeded, the competition is just the icing on the cake, people love to see you skate and have fun, the judges are here because they honestly love watching kids skate and are on the side of the skaters, every one of you out there is your own gift to the audience, go be beautiful and courageous.”

I may have been ready to pummel her 10 minutes ago in the dressing room, but that’s the speech I always give. Because it’s the truth.

I’ll also admit to always purchasing some consolation bling – a charm or a hair doodad. It makes getting off the ice after the tough skates a little easier to handle.

I really like how you’ve set a routine, right down to your awesome speech. The speech is terrific.

Wonderful! I’m looking forward to it!

Ok, so this morning, (yes 2 days prior to first competition at juv level), we had an altercation about underwear. You can see the lines of them in her unitard (which we picked up this week)- I took her EVERYWHERE in the mall trying to find better ones that don’t show, but could only find a thong…this is not going over well with the 9 yo girl- it feels funny etc. We tried no undergarment…also didn’t go well…omg, she dug her heels in. I finally let her come to the rink with the panties that showed a little…I hope the coaches let it go as seriously I couldn’t tell from the hockey box and her mood will be ruined by forcing the issue….I lost it with her today and I totally shouldn’t have but honestly she made a HUGE deal about UNDERWEAR!! SIGH…..

I don’t have any anecdotes here but just wanted to say how much I giggled when I saw that you almost put the brush up ice girl’s nose. All I could think of was that it was lucky she wasn’t bending over when you had that thought!!! I think I’ll remember this thought and your story whenever I do finally have this moment! That way I can giggle my way out of it.

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[...] a little. I’ll go first. For more commandments in this IceMom.net series: I / II / III / IV / V / VI / VII / VIII / IX / X The Coach-Mom. Like most figure skating parents, when my daughter [...]

[...] commandments in this IceMom.net series: I / II / III / IV / V / VI / VII / VIII / IX / [...]

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