What Parents Can Learn from Figure Skating Coaches: Tough Love

Parents offer love to teens, while coaches offer tough love.

“The Difference between a Parent and a Coach,” Carter, Izumo, and Martin

Series: What Parents Can Learn from Figure Skating Coaches: Demonstrate | Prepare | Consequences | Respect| Tough Love | Failures are Opportunities

I’m the parent of a teen. I think everything is tough love. That’s not it, though, is it? Tough love is letting someone fail or learn a lesson the hard way.

Ice Coach wants to be a bringer of tough love. She wants Ice Girl to fall. Falling, Ice Coach says, is the only way for a kid to learn a jump. She has to go for it, go for the rotation, and yes, fall.

Ice Girl doesn’t want to fall, though. It’s holding her back. She’ll pull out of that rotation instead and two-foot the jump rather than fall. I get it. She had eight stitches two months ago. Falling can be nasty.

However, it’s good, too. A skater really learns something from a fall. First, a skater learns how to fall so it doesn’t hurt. Then a skater figures out how to save the jump and not fall. It’s that tough love thing and it’s a good way to go about learning.

It’s hard for a parent to do the tough love thing, though. I tell Ice Girl that there’s no phone calls after nine p.m. Why? I can’t have a drama swirl interfering with my sleep and her sleep. Should I maybe allow phone calls, have the drama swirl, and then put her on the ice to stumble around at 6 a.m.? That’s tough love, isn’t it?

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Yeah, except there’s a price that comes with the after-nine phone calls. Ice Girl shares her crummy attitude with me on the way to the rink, she’s late to get on the ice, and then she’s sluggish in her lesson with Ice Coach. Tough love is good, but not when it affects other people, though.

I prefer a mixture of rules and natural consequences. I have to have the nine p.m. phone rule for my own sanity. Tough love is not the solution there.

Natural consequences happens when she makes a choice and then has to live with the outcome. Here’s a good example: when Ice Girl was in preschool, one morning she decided she didn’t want to get dressed for the day. She thought that staying in her jammies would mean that she wouldn’t have to go to day care. You gotta admire that logic. However, the natural consequence of not changing into her play clothes meant that she went to day care in her jammies. Big tears. Well, that happened once.

Another natural consequence concerns her bank account. If Ice Girl chooses to blow her entire allowance on teen magazines and makeup, she won’t have any left for the teen skate or a movie. Advances on the allowance tend to ruin any natural consequences thing, so I try to avoid those.

I think that tough love is a good parenting technique, especially as a child becomes a teen. Falling or failing can deliver important life lessons. However, sometimes tough love isn’t practical. I don’t want my tough love practices to harm other people, including myself. A good mix of rules, natural consequences, and tough love works O.K. for me.

How about you? Do you practice tough love? Does your skater’s figure skating coach? Does tough love work for you? How about rules and natural consequences? How about taking away the cell phone. Yeah, that totally works for me, too.

Reference: Carter, C., Izumo, G., and Martin, J. (2004.) Stop Parenting and Start Coaching: How to Motivate, Inspire, and Connect with Your Teenager. Denver, Colo.: LifeBound. p. xii

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Do you have a question for Ice Mom or a whopper dilemma for the Advisory Board? Do you have a suggestion for a blog post you’d like to read? Please e-mail me at IceMom.Diane@gmail.com

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Photo credits:
“Tough Love” by Todd Willing: E. Bartholomew / Eric Bartholomew on Flickr.com Creative Commons
punks in love: LordKhan / Patrick on Flickr.com Creative Commons
love [trash cans]: Bombardier / Joel Bombardier on Flickr.com Creative Commons
30 Love (explored): Evil Erin / Emergency Brake on Flickr.com Creative Commons