At What Point is Figure Skating a Skater’s only Activity?

I might be crazy I guess, by I discussed it with my daughter- even at 8, she didn’t WANT to do other sports enough to want to skate less. At 10, there is no way. We did have to give up synchro, because now she is competing Juv FS and it is a big commitment – at least to be successful. Part of the reason we did give up synchro is to allow a social life and a list a little down time. And when she was on synchro, I’d be annoyed at the parents that signed their kids up for so many things, and they missed practice. It definitely showed on the team. Skating (or any other dedicated sport) isn’t for everyone and it doesn’t HAVE to be. It is up to each set of parents and the athletes IMO.

Let the kid decide. It’s their life, and they can decide what activities they want to do. Outline all the realistic stuff- i.e. they can’t do five sports and be a totally committed Juvenile skater at the same time. 8 is old enough to make decisions.

You say 3 hours in the early stage. Me? I’m lucky to have 4.5 hours right now. I did once-a-week group lessons for a year and a half. That’s *one hour* of skating, per week, from October ’08 to March ’10. I begged to do public skate but Mom always had an excuse. It’s been a long, hard road to gain the ice time I have now. And I’m no recreational skater. I’m working on double flips and plan to test through Senior and become a coach, with maybe a few regionals thrown in. On 4.5 hours of ice time a week.

My mother is constantly telling me I need something other than skating in my life, which makes me very angry because I do not want anything else to do if I can’t do more skating. She’s always trying to get me to do piano lessons or other sports. This is after she tells me she has no time or money for more skating, so obviously she does if she’s considering other sports, she just doesn’t want to use it on skating.

I think this sort of thing totally depends on the kid and the family. If the kid really wants to skate, then they will understand not having or doing other things. But if they do want to do multiple things, the should be up front with coaches and such in the beginning. I think at the group lesson stage that the kid should be ok trying lots of things, especially if they are really young (maybe not even in school yet) because they have time, curiosity, and a wandering attention span. Even through the 6-7 year old phase being involved in multiple activities shouldn’t be too bad, as long as they get to have friends and do school. But once you hit 3rd grade, that is when the homework starts getting more intense, and probably time to focus on a few things instead of trying lots of stuff. By that age they probably know what they like to do, or they are probably old enough to realize if they really like an activity and want to pursue it. I don’t think this is always the case, sometimes kids don’t know what they want until they are older, but I think kids are able to commit themselves to things that they really like to do, even at a young age.

That is sooooooo unfair. I’m still in group lessons, but a summer program, starting in January, will let me skate around 5 hrs per week. You are doing so well!
Happy Skating!

I think mostly it should be up to the kid. Some kids will want to commit to one sport, and some will want to try a little bit of everything (possibly only until they find their true passion). Probably after the age of 6-7 or so it can be explained to the kid that if they do lots of different stuff, they won’t have time to get too far in any. But I’d let them choose: do they want variety or get far in one activity. However, in team sports, I think it is fair if the coach says that those who want to be on this particular team, must commit. At least for one season. I personally definitely would not sign my dauther up for two team sports unless it is very clear that their practices/games/performances will never ever conflict. Skipping an occasional class is another story: there is no harm to the others there, and this happens often for us.

My Ice Girl loves to be totally involved in everything going on. She is 8. I also have 3 other children oldest being 11. Ice Dad and I have a very busy schedule getting all the kids from A to B. Each child chooses their primary winter and summer sport. They also participate in school teams – volleyball, basketball, clubs and so on. We try to be clear as the kids choose that their chosen sport must come first. We also make sure that other coaches are notified and we promptly produce their schedules so there are few if any surprises. We let the kids know that if the secondary coaches choose not to take them on a team due to conflicts, there is nothing that we can do. The kids are well informed and choose their sports / activities accordingly, so if they decide that they don’t like how the season is going, they have to finish it out but have the opportunity next year to choose differently and we will support that equally. As for Ice Girl, she often chooses skating and almost never wants to skip / cancel a skate to do something else. I give her the choice for class trips, class parties, school events, etc. and although it is close to never, when she does choose to cancel, she often regrets it. As for Ice Coach – she is awesome and fully supports Ice Girl when she wants to cancel. She feels that it is good to be able to choose as this is how lessons can be better learned. Also, Ice Girl skates a lot – I am sure you all know what that means – special seat for my tush, blankets, mittens and kleenex onboard at all times with schedule by my side . . . so if she misses, we don’t get concerned but on the other side of it, I have found myself suggesting that perhaps she not skip one as there is a test next week and so on. Ultimately, I let Ice Girl choose and Ice Coach supports it.

I also think age doesn’t apply other than they should be able to choose more accurately at the age of 14 compared to 8.

Hope this helps.

Coming from a purely physical point of view, it is important for a child to move in a variety of ways to create a healthy body. Muscle patterns and strength is balanced if a child uses his/her body in a free and natural way. Active outside play is great for this. Unfortunately in our society, children are scheduled from sun up to sundown with little time to just be kids.

As a Youth Fitness Trainer and Skater’s mom, I am often torn because I know what is good for a child, and specializing in one sport at age 8 is not it. It really isn’t great for 14 year olds either. One problem with specializing in one sport at an early age is that the body is required to do repetitive movements which lead to muscular imbalances and the possibility of overuse injuries. Skating in particular is asymmetrical. In jumps, one leg is used to push off from the ground and another one is used to land. Rotation of the body is one directional unless you are one of the rare few who have time to practice in both directions. Things like one footed movements during footwork step sequences are rewarded with more points (meaning that the one foot gets more practice than the other). My 14 year old son has one calf muscle that is larger than the other. Ice Dancers also have this, so it isn’t limited to freestyle skaters.

On the other hand, if you want to be a high level skater, you need to specialize early and with intensity. Skating requires repetition of jumps, moves, spins to create muscle memory. Without it, you will not be a high level skater. I’ve read that it takes about 3000 repetitions to ingrain the movement in your memory. Talk about repetition huh?! All those repetitions take time on the ice and off the ice. That in itself limits the ability to play other sports. However there are high level skaters who enjoyed a few sports and were probably more injury protected because of it.

Who’s decision should it be. The child’s decision. Of course when the child is 8, you still have the final say, but they probably have a preference, and you can figure it out. If they want to do other sports, let them.

I know of a few cases where the child got to 14 and said adios to skating because they wanted to play other sports, and they were forced (by their coach) to specialize in skating when younger. Well, no one can force a 14 year old, they exert their own wills. I also know of a skater who loves playing other sports. He decided that he wants to keep skating, but not as competitively as before, he’s just doing it a few days a week, and playing multiple sports a year.

Then there is the mom who wants her child to do more than just skate (her child is really good and I bet it drives her coach crazy) so they don’t spend their life in the rink, and I guess the skater is fine with it, she’s not passionate to the extreme about skating. Maybe she will be at some point, but it’ll be her decision.

If the child wants to specialize, while not the same as a variety of natural movement, cross training can be done off the ice in the form of dance, Pilates, Gyrotonic, and Physical Training, or just running and playing outside (great!!). You can make sure that the Physical Training does not take the same form as the movements on the ice do. Find a trainer that will work on agility, balancing the imbalances, not just work on things like plyometrics (the kids jump 50-60 times a session, they don’t need more impact). Send your child out to play, they are only kids for such a short time and our westernized societies are so un-playful. Let them be kids while they can.

Then there is the whole “mental” and psycological side of specializing in one sport. Yikes!

Ice Mom, enjoy your time off with your family! We’ll be here when you get back!

I’d say it depends on the level of dedication and how many kids are in the family, plus the family’s budget. My mom let my sister and I participate in two activities when we were elementary school age, one physical (like a sport, like skating) and one other (like art classes or piano lessons). Often it was only one activity simply because we didn’t have another activity we wanted to do. My sister is two years older than me, we’re currently 15 and 17. Starting when she was in kindergarten, we took gymnastics classes at a community center. We did that until I was in kindergarten, and throughout that year. I took dance for a year when I was in first grade, and during that year, I also started piano lessons. My sister took private art lessons for three years or so, starting when I was in dance. I did gymnastics for the year I was in second grade, and my sister started skating lessons that year. I quit gymnastics only because I wanted to skate instead, so starting in fall of 2005, my 3rd grade year and my sister’s 5th grade year, I was in skating lessons, private and group, and piano lessons. My sister was in skating lessons, private and group, and art lessons. We continued that for around a year, but then I decided to do orchestra through school and didn’t like piano any more, and quit piano lessons. My sister’s art teacher moved that year also, so by the time I was in 4th grade and she was in 6th grade, we were both doing skating as our only activity. As we both got into middle school, we were in photography club, and sister cities club, and newspaper club, and so on, so we had other things beside just skating after school. I did the middle school musical all 3 years, but that was before school for practices, so the only times I had to miss it for skating were when I had a solo in the holiday show and needed to skate one morning per week to get ready for it (and our practices were every three days, so I only missed like two musical practices), or missing skating for the musical for the dress rehearsal and the performance.

For me at least, the point at which skating is my only activity is when I started high school in the fall. I would have liked to do the fall play, or the musical (it was Footloose, I wanted to do it!), or do track, or cross country, but there’s no way. It’s not a matter of missing skating for it. It’s that my high school is so demanding for it’s athletics and activities that practices are every day after school for multiple hours. My friend was at school from 7am until 8pm some days, because she would have show choir before school and then musical practice after school. There’s no way I would be able to do school activities and skating both, because the activities are super demanding. Skating is my only activity now, except a ballet class for skating at the rink on Saturday mornings, and except coaching LTS classes.