Do You Ever Withhold Figure Skating Practice Ice?

I do the same thing with my own skater – ice time is withheld even if it pains me to have lost the few dollars associated with that hour of the ice. The purpose is to ingrain life principles on my skater that form part of her foundation when she finally says: “I’m done with figure skating… I’ll something else” and head on into a different competitive field.

Ah, the joys of having a teenage girl…. the drama, the mood swings, the attitude…. sorry to those of you with only boys but you can’t even imagine how evil a teen girl can be… My Ice Teen girl has had ice time withheld from her for bad behavior before as well, the plus side in our case is that we don’t pay for our ice in advance so at least I’m not loosing any money…. I feel for you Ice Mom, you are EXACTLY like me when it comes to not wasting money! Once I witnessed my daughter acting like a brat during her lesson, which is rare because she’s a bit scared of her coach, but as her punishment she missed the next week’s lessons and had to apologize to her coach. She got to go to the rink and see someone else in her lesson spot. :~) *cackles evilly* (Since we cancelled the week before with an explaination to the coach, the coach was easily able to get students to take my daughter’s normal lesson times.) At 14 I have found that the most effective punishment is to take away her phone & or internet time. That phone seems to be her whole life! Whatever did I do when I was 14? We didn’t have cell phones or internet! Wow, I think I read a lot of books!!! :~) My Ice Teen does know that her skating time is dependant on good grades & chores done as well. Luckily she has her 12 year old brother to mow the lawn, but she is stuck with cleaning litter boxes (for 3 cats!), doing the dishwasher, mopping floors, some vacuuming & dusting. Still, she does about a third of the cleaning I did at her age! I think most kids do not fully appreciate the time and money that we spend for their skating, I think there’s nothing wrong with an occasional reminder that skating is a priviledge not a right!

My suggestion would be to make your daughter pay for or at least contribute to the cost of ice time. That way, she would understand the value and get her work done to make ice time. My daughter (age 14) is aware of all of the costs of skating and contributes money she earns (babysitting, odd jobs) to the expenses. At 14, she can’t earn enough to pay for skating and I don’t expect her to since school has to be a priority. But, knowing and cotnributing to the cost makes my daughter not want to waste time. She rarely leaves the ice early, even with long sessions, and she gets there early to be on the ice right away. Don’t mean this to be preachy – just one Mom sharing strategies to another.

This is an excellent idea, Mom. I’ve toyed with it, but haven’t done it. I don’t know why I’m hesitant, but I’m working on it!

This is one of the hardest things to figure out as a parent. How to turn a child’s punishment into their problem instead of your problem.

I wouldn’t pay $11 of MY money for unused Ice time so a child could finish her chores. And I’d be on the phone telling that boyfriend to come over and mow my lawn if he would like to enjoy my daughter’s company in the future. He bears partial responsibility for being a distraction.

Taking phone and Internet works some with Ice Girl, but she’s pretty resillient. I took away texting and Facebook last year until she had some missing homework in – she lasted two weeks before I sat next to her while she completed the work.

I’m glad to hear I’m not the only mom who requrires her kid to do chores. I swear, to hear Ice Girl talk, none of her friends have to lift a finger at home. I don’t entirely believe that, but I know some of these kids don’t have to do chores at all. At our house, she has work to do. That’s just the way it is.

You know, ElizaA, you have a good point. Why should her distraction problem become my problem? Hmm. Must think. I’m pretty sure Ice Dad doesn’t want the boyfriend mowing the lawn (what if he ran over his own foot?), but this does bring up some good possibilities.

Thanks for making me think this morning!

Yes, it might be good to charge her only for instances where you can’t go to the rink. Such as not doing her homework, not doing chores, and not getting Bs in school. (Sorry, but the not getting sleep thing is just going to get worse through high school and as long as she gets up then I don’t think this is a punishable offense.) Obviously illness is not punishable. But this way she not only doesn’t skate but she has to pay for it. That’s like a double whammy and should drive home the message quite quickly. Then you don’t have to worry about charging her for ice time normally and you don’t have to be annoyed about your sunken treasure.

As for the whole boyfriend thing… good luck with that one, no advice there.

We will withhold ice time if our daughter is not been cooperative or has been disrepectful to us. If a lesson is involved and has to be canceled, the understanding is that the coach is still paid for the last minute cancellation and DD pays her coaching fee. Thankfully, so far, we have not had to initiate this policy. The threat so far is enough to change her attitude.

Great wording, invisible sunken treasure. I’m a writer. I love good wording, so thank you!

Yeah, the boyfriend. Actually, he’s not so bad. Nice kid, goofy. Good sense of humor. I told Ice Dad I’d rather describe the boyfriend as “Harvard Material,” but that’s not the case. Ice Girl went for the funny one instead.

I blame Ice Dad. The man thinks he’s a riot. What kind of role model is that for Ice Girl?
Ice Girl blames me. After all, I went for the funny one, too.

Oooh! You make her pay for the coach’s fee. Oooh. That’s an incredible deterrent.

Finally a benefit of being an adult skater lol! No one can withold my ice time! If I don’t do the chores, well, they just don’t get done. Never mind.

I don’t agree with missing lessons, unless its with enough notice that the coach can fill the slot. Just because it’s not the coach’s fault that skater didn’t do the dishes/take out the garbage/do her homework or whatever. Plus i think showing that you can compromise your policy (no chores/homework etc = no skating) in some circumstances can be good (for older skaters anyway).

But missng ice time, absolutely. Skating is such a privillige, and I know they work so hard at it, but it’s still a luxury, not a right. They can’t pay for it but they can earn it by meeting your expectations at home and schoool.

I agree, Erica. I have a very hard time canceling on Ice Coach. This is her business, she’s a professional, and I need to respect her time just like she respects my time.

However, when that homework isn’t done, it’s hard to say, “Hey! Go strap on your skates!” It’s easier to say, “You sit there until you’ve solved all of those equations.”

Icemom,
Perhaps she should be the one to make the 9pm phone call to the coach and tell her why she can’t skate? I think my daughter would be horrified if she had to do this.

Yes, I have kept India home from skating if she has been up late doing homework or if she is sick. As far as house chores are concerned I do not keep her home if she does not get her chores done. If she chooses to use her time talking on the phone or hanging out with friends instead of doing chores and she allows them to pile up than she knows that she will loose time with her friends doing house work, with some extra chores added, as a disciplinary action on my part, on a day when she wants to hang out with friends or go to a sleep over or participate in an activity after school with friends.

The only reason I keep India home from skating for staying up late doing homework is because she does not get the full benefit of her practice when she skates and she is too tired. She gets too frustrated with herself or I get so frustrated with how bad she skates that I feel like she is waisting my money being on the ice and skating bad. India and I would much rather have an extra hour of sleep than have her skate tired and cause aggrivation between our relationship.

We have had a lot of angry skating parents at our rink because of the same problem of losing money for missed contracted ice time. Our rinks solution to the problem was to change to a prepaid swipe card for contracting ice time. At the beginning of the fall/winter season you can purchase a new swipe card if you are a new member that will be loaded with 37 swipes. Each swipe is good for 50mins of ice time. You can specify if you would like the swipes to go toward 30min sessions or 50min sessions. If you use them for 30min sessions than the swipes can be used for two days a week as opposed to just one day a week. Each fall/winter season is 37 weeks long. For an additional cost you can add more swipes to your card, but you have to use all the swipes before the end of the season, they do not roll over to the summer season or the next fall/winter season. They can be used any day of the week you like and if you miss a day they do not deduct swipes from your account. This way you do not loose money for missing ice time.

Other rinks in our area have changed over to a punch card system and the punch card gives you a reduced rate for prepaying for the ice time through the punch cards. For example, a 50min session is $12 but you can buy a 10 session punch card for $90 which makes the cost per session (punch) $9.

This may be something you could suggest to the rink manager or to your figure skating club president to see if you the rink would be willing to change the way you prepay for ice. This will help the skating parents feel happier about prepaying for ice time and may encourage them to skate more sessions per month. Hope this helps! Season

You could always get your money back by adding $11 worth of chores to her list of things to do; like unloading the dishwasher, folding the laundry, bathe the dog, vaccuum, the list goes on…..Also, you could add the *new* rule “No using the cell phone or computer until your chores are done” and maybe she would get it done before talking to the bf. Kinda hard to be the phone police and it’s easier said than done, good luck!

I know I’ve mentioned this here before but it’s worth mentioning again, our ice time is not scheduled for each individual. We have ice hours and you show up when you want to skate. You must pay for a specified amount of time and if you don’t use it all up – that’s when you have a sunk cost. I always buy the minimum of 10 sessions (for 10 weeks) and then I can pay the difference at the end. Now that dd is skating more, I’ve upped it to 20 sessions for 10 weeks. Add in the rink lessons and she’s there 3 days a week (yeah, we’re low key).

I’ve homeschooled for the past 2 years. DD didn’t have to worry about grades too much. However, attitude rings true for me. If her attitude is poor, I hold the ice time away from her – she gets irate! Both DD and DS have been informed this year since they will both attend public school that they must get minimum’s of “B’s” or they won’t skate for the next session (6 weeks). I always hold it back for the following things:

illness, bad attitude, not doing their chores, not doing their school work, fighting (with me or with each other). If it’s ice coach time, I always make them go unless it’s for an illness. Then I just take something else away like the Wii or computer. Still hits them below the belt when I do that!

I like the way you think!

Now that I’m an adult, I understand exactly what you mean. Since I pay for my own ice, it’s difficult to stay home and do homework, etc… but there are times that I know I have to. I know all about sunk costs, too, lol, but that doesn’t make it any easier!

I was lucky in that I used coupons for ice time instead of contracts, so if I missed skating, I didn’t lose any money (and yes, my sister likes to go on and on about sunk costs, too, but I ignore that) and could use the coupon at a later date.

That said, there were definitely situations when my parents would withhold or threaten to withhold skating–it typically involved sleep and chores. They didn’t usually have to follow through, since a mere mention of no skating would whip me into shape.

Until I was 16 I had to be in bed eight hours before my alarm would be going off. My mom didn’t care when everyone else was going to bed; if I was really getting up at 4:30am, then yes, I had to be in bed at 8:30pm. I was the one responsible for waking my parents up for skating, so if I overslept, no one got up that morning. That was pretty solid motivation for me to go to bed when I was supposed to. At least until AP classes interfered during my junior year of HS and I regularly went skating on 3 or 4 hours of sleep…

The other issue was chores (and an occasional tendency to talk back about how I shouldn’t have to be doing chores), and my mom learned quickly that grounding didn’t much matter to me. I was perfectly happy in my room with a book, so that was no way to bring about a chance in behavior. But if chores weren’t done or I started to get a bit of an attitude, my mom would simply say that she didn’t have to take me skating the next day. Result? Instant obedience.

The general rule was also that if I didn’t go to school because of sickness, I couldn’t skate. This was the hardest to enforce for a number of reasons. One, I did so much skating in the morning that I could get my skating in and then suddenly mention that I had a fever of 101. Yes, I exploited this regularly. Two, missing synchro practice made it a huge hassle for everyone on the team, so my mom was likely to let me still go to those practices. Three, I had strep the day of my first test and my mom let me go (given that it was a test and all). I took that as an unspoken rule that I could skate no matter how sick I was.

Well… I haven’t done that just yet but it’s been threatened! Have you though about requesting her to repay you the money for each hour she misses due to not having homework or chores done? If she is anything like my children, she won’t like having to use her own money. It’s MUCH easier to spend someone elses money. LOL!

My daughter is currently driving me crazy because there are days she is so unproductive, it isn’t funny. All I seem to hear when she is out there wasting time, is a cash register ringing! Crazy… I know. I’ve now told her she will be charged for every 10 minutes she wastes either on or off the ice, once a session has started. I am hoping she will not only learn the value of money, but also see how much ice time she is wasting. I am not opposed to her stopping and taking a break…just taking a long break or talking to a friend longer then necessary.

As for if I would keep her from a practice session, the answer is yes. However, in my case, we don’t typically lose money because I don’t contract ice. We pay as we go.

I like this too! I may try this one.

It is a great idea, and I know exactly why you haven’t done it: implementation. I know how much a teen/pre-teen can fuss and feud and test a new discipline program.

I got in trouble with my parents because of a class & my homework for it so they grounded me for an entire month. On top of that they made me call my coach, my ride, and the president of the skating club and tell them why I wouldn’t be at the rink for that month. It was terribly embarrassing but now I will NEVER do what i did again! This works…very well.

Holy cow! I don’t know If I’d make Ice Girl call the president of our club, but she’d sure have to call Ice Coach!

Wouldn’t that be torture!!!!!!!! Having to call Ice Coach and explain why she can’t come to her session.

Well, my own daughter is still too young for grades or regular chores, so I don’t have any personal experience yet. But honestly, I can’t imagine not going to the paid ice for any other reason than illness or unexpected events at school or with the family. I do think, however, that school is #1 priority and being responsible everywhere (including house chores) is important too. I’m sure I will impose homework and grades standards. But: the consequences of bad grades, etc. will be (1) less time with friends on weekends, no phone, TV, etc. until grades steadily improve or any other issues resolved, and/or (2) less ice time for NEXT month/contract, but we wouldn’t skip a paid tomorrow practice.

I am 13 and in algebra hn at school
alot of my friends at school are skaters at my rink and all they talk about is skating
my mom made me stop skating for 3 months  or untill i get my agebra grade (which is currently a D) up to at least a C+.
THey know it upsets me and myy dad laughs and my mom just tells me its all my fault.
Neither of them caires about skating and they bothare always saying how much money im wasting becouse im only in pre-preliminary and will never get anywhere.
what can i say to them?
help