Sitting on the cold, hard bleachers in an even colder ice rink, one figure skater’s dad reached his breaking point. He’d been watching his nine-year-old repeatedly attempt to land an axel jump and decided he could do a better job, so he laced up his skates, glided onto the ice and leapt into the air. He broke his leg.
Although getting out on the ice is not a requirement of skater parents, they do have to dedicate a huge portion of their lives to the sport, and not everyone is cut out for it. Kori Ade, an Olympic figure skating coach, said: “If you don’t have a parent who’s extraordinarily invested, you won’t make it to the top.”
There is such a thing as too much investment, however. It is these parents that Ade worries about most. The trope of the “tiger mom”, a parent who is obsessed with pushing their child to attain high levels of success, might be exaggerated on-screen in Dance Moms or Heated Rivalry, but every sport has its fair share of overbearing parents, and figure skating is no exception.
Some show up day after day to the rink, “watching like a hawk, which demoralizes the kid”, according to Ade, who is best known for coaching the 2014 Olympic bronze medalist Jason Brown and the Olympian Mariah Bell. Others send her “non-stop texts” at night, asking for updates on how their child trained that day and what they need to work on.
Ade has found that giving these backseat coaches a task can foster the best environment for success and keep parents in line. One of the most important jobs is ensuring their child does not rely on vending machine snacks. Urging parents to spend a little more on fresh, nutritious food is usually pretty easy. “No parent is spending $40,000 on a kid who will resist feeding them cheese versus Cheez-Its,” she said.
Sometimes the problem is not what they eat but whether they are eating at all. In a sport so tied up in aesthetics, Ade said that cases of skaters suffering from eating disorders were “not rare”. “I’ve seen kids come in as grapes and leave as raisins,” she said.
Ten years ago, she began to be concerned with a girl who would only eat lettuce with lemon juice. When Ade brought up concerns about the girl’s eating habits to her mother, she put her hand in Ade’s face and snapped: “Stay in your lane. Do what you’re hired to do.” Ade said that she had to back out of coaching the girl. “None of us have to take on the tiger moms,” she said.
“I’ve seen kids come in as grapes and leave as raisins.”
Audrey Weisiger, an Olympic figure skating coach, said that at her rink in Fairfax, Virginia, they have a policy that prohibits parents from coaching on the sidelines. A few who did not comply had been asked to leave, she said. Other parents technically adhere to the rule but still try to play coach. Some sit in the corner “gesturing with their fingers” during lessons and then, as soon as it’s over, pounce on the coach for training notes.
“You have the parent that is perhaps not even just living their lives through their child, but they’re so anxious for their child’s sake that they can’t help themselves,” she said. “They’re addicted to this part of their involvement with their child, whether it’s skating or school or their piano lesson. It’s as much about them as it is about their kid.” One mother told Weisiger that she expected her daughter to compete at a national level, go to Harvard, become a doctor and become a concert pianist who played at Carnegie Hall. She recalled telling the mother: “Well, something’s gonna give.”
Some of these helicopter parents get so wrapped up in training it becomes “we” not “you”. “I worry when I hear a parent saying, well, ‘We didn’t do this’ and ‘We didn’t land our jump’,” Weisiger said. “I was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you were out there skating.’”
“You have the parent that is perhaps not even just living their lives through their child, but they’re so anxious for their child’s sake that they can’t help themselves.”
Scott Hamilton, a 1984 Olympic gold medal-winning figure skater, said that he had seen the “we” phenomenon plenty of times. “Parents need to love their children unconditionally and be available for emotional and psychological support. Not being a coach above the coach, or feeling like their identity is on the ice with their child,” he said. “There is so much about skating that is more about an open hand versus a clenched fist. We have to take things as they come and trust our coaches to do their job.”
When children reach middle-school age (11 to 14), it becomes obvious when parents are pushing for success but the child’s heart is not in it, Weisiger said. She recalled one teen who was “unhappy on the ice” but her mother said: “We’re not gonna let her quit. We’re so far into it.”
For the Olympian Alysa Liu, burnout hit when she was 16. In 2022 she won a medal at the World Figure Skating Championships and competed in the Beijing Winter Olympics. That same year, she retired. When announcing her retirement, she said that she began skating when she was five years old and her life had revolved around the sport since. “My only goal was to go to the Olympics. I’m only 16. I want to do other stuff,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Hamilton said there was not a “one size fits all” approach to skating. “My parents sacrificed a great deal to support my skating since my childhood illness prevented me from growing and skating started to make me well … They did the best they could and were never ‘conditional’ in their love or support.”
Training does not come cheap if you want to make it to the top. Beginner learn-to-skate lessons cost about $17 per class and private lessons can cost as much as $50 per half-hour, Ade said. The investment only multiplies from there. From as young as ten, training for competitions could cost as much as $25,000 to $50,000 per year. The equipment and logistical components also quickly add up. A pair of skates go for over $1,000, Weisiger said. Families then need to consider the cost of hotel stays, costumes and transportation. All in, “it’s like college tuition,” Ade said.
Some parents think it is worth the money. Liu’s dad certainly did. Her father, Arthur Liu, estimated that he spent somewhere between $500,000 to $1 million on her skating career, he told 60 Minutes this month. “I spared no money, not time,” he said. “I just saw the talent.” Liu rejected claims that he was a “tiger dad”, instead calling himself “laissez-faire”.
After a two-year break, Liu came out of retirement. Last year she became the world champion and will compete for Team USA in the Winter Olympics. Speaking to 60 Minutes, she recalled telling her dad when she made her comeback: “He’s a great father. I just didn’t want him to be as invested in it as he was before.”
Becoming a figure skating champion does not happen overnight. It requires years of discipline, tens of thousands of dollars and, perhaps most importantly, a balanced relationship with both coaches and parents. Weisiger said: “It’s almost like a chemical reaction when everything clicks.”
Kelly Rissman is a U.S. reporter for The Times of London