"I'm a perfectionist," Olive explains. "If I write the letter a and it has a squiggly line at the end, I have to erase it and redo it." And she'd rather skate alone than for a crowd. "I skate better when nobody's watching. If someone's watching I get worried that I have to be amazing."
"People don't realize how self-critical kids are," says Richard Ginsburg, director of the Sports Psychology program at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-author of the guide for parents Whose Game Is It, Anyway? But when adults compensate with lavish compliments, Olive grows suspicious. "There's a difference between soft praise and accurate praise," says Ginsburg. "Saying, 'Everything is wonderful,' doesn't teach a kid anything. You need to balance accurate praise with constructive criticism." He recommends that coaches maintain a five-to-one ratio of positive to negative comments.
"When I'm making different mistakes, I stop and think, 'I didn't swing my arms back,' or whatever it was," says Olive. "But I get really mad at myself if I can't figure out what I'm messing up." Olive's method typifies the mastery approach, says Amanda Durik, assistant professor of psychology at Northern Illinois University. She's breaking down a task and refining its components. She understands that failure is a part of learning. But if she can't figure out how to improve, she feels frustrated.
Whereas a focus on winning can produce anxiety, an emphasis on skills, preparation and enjoyment boosts self-esteem, says Ronald Smith, a sports psychologist and director of the clinical psychology program at the University of Washington. He promotes the mastery mindset by teaching coaches how to emphasize positive over negative feedback and individual improvement over competition with others. In a recent study, Little League dropout rates plummeted after coaches learned the method. Olive herself is naturally inclined to learn new tricks, and doesn't much care to beat out other kids. And yet she can't escape the reality of competitions, where her analytical approach to the sport doesn't guarantee wins.
Girls who stick with skating through adolescence become known for it around school. Competitions are a time to live up to that public image—and to their sense of themselves as skaters first and foremost. Tatyana Rosalia, 14, the skater with whom Halasa has worked the longest, arrives to rehearsal sleepy from a late-night math study session but rosy-cheeked, with her brown curls pulled into a tight ponytail.
Tatyana says the worst accusation a coach can lay on her is that she doesn't care. She doesn't want Halasa to be mad at her, and she worries about disappointing her parents and herself. When she does well, she attributes her success to hard work. When she falls, she doesn't blame her nerves or the Fates, but wonders if she didn't practice enough. She replays her mistakes in her mind, thinking, "If only I had crossed my arms tighter, I could have gotten the jump." She's tough on herself off the ice too. She finished second in her ninth grade class and sinks into a blue mood if she gets anything less than a 90 on a test.
"More face energy!" Halasa yells as Tatyana runs through her routine. "If you touch the judges emotionally, they will give you the benefit of the doubt technically," she explains. Tatyana circles back and begins again. For the second time that day, she falls during her camel spin and flashes sad green eyes Halasa's way.
Though she's critical of herself, Tatyana doesn't respond well to harsh criticism from others. If someone yells at her, she shuts down. "You have to tell her how great she is, and then she'll give you 100 percent," says Tatyana's mother. While coaching young divers, Ginsburg concluded that girls need to be enjoying themselves and getting along well with everyone before they can do their best. If a boy flopped in the water, Ginsburg could yell, "What are you doing?" It would register as affectionate concern and push him to try harder. "I couldn't say that to the girls, though. They would cry or get sulky."
Parents feel that their children's performances reflect on them, says Ginsburg, and sidelines are emotional zones. The ideal parent knows her child's personality and is aware of how motivational styles change as she grows older. An adolescent reads her coaches' and parents' reactions more accurately and is more affected by failure than a younger child, who may be more interested in ice cream than in winning. And a "good" skating mom recognizes that her own history of achievement colors her perceptions of her child's triumphs and struggles.
All skating parents sacrifice time with spouses and friends to accommodate their children's early-bird schedules, but few are as dogged as Tatyana's mother. An emigree from Russia who arrived in the U.S. when she was 19, Tanya spent years rising at 3:00 a.m. to accompany Tatyana on the two-hour subway ride from their apartment in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to the Sky Rink in Chelsea. Tatyana's father, a onetime driver of a Mister Softee truck, now shuttles Tatyana to practice in the family's recently acquired car. He likes to remind her, "I'm the one who got you into this. And don't you do bad, or I'll stop driving you!" Sometimes he jokes, "So, are you getting better or worse?" Both comments stimulate Tatyana's teenage eye-roll reflex.
Tags:
adolescence,
athleticism,
blue eye shadow,
cajoling,
chelsea piers,
child athlete,
competition,
cutouts,
doe eyes,
favorite song,
figure skating,
girls,
grace on the ice,
harsh light,
jonbenet,
kitchen table,
left knee,
marnie,
metal braces,
mother father,
parents,
payoffs,
skating institute,
sky rink,
young athletes
