Coaches: how can you tell.....

[mskater93]

6-7 hours should be plenty at that age and skating level with 2 hours of off ice. Make sure they are a constructive 6-7 hours on the ice, though. A skater should not be "babysat" at all times on the ice (ie receive a lesson) but the practice time outside of lessons should be structured (ie, specific skills to be practiced and limits on # of attempts per skill per session and focal points for those skills. Maybe at the age of 7 even a time break down of 20 minutes on moves, 20 minutes on spins, 20 minutes on jumps).

[Tammi]

Maybe at the age of 7 even a time break down of 20 minutes on moves, 20 minutes on spins, 20 minutes on jumps).

Working off of this comment, what I've seen a lot of the younger kids doing, is writing in a "skate" journal. It can be a simple spiral bound notebook, or maybe a fun thing that your skater creates and puts her own personal stamp on. The coach makes note of what they'd like their skater to be working on while not in a lesson and the kids bring their notebooks and keep them on the boards. When they finish a task, they skate over, check it off and move to the next thing. At the end of the session, they can even take a few minutes and write down how they felt skating that day. If nothing else, it's fun to look back on and it teaches organizational and time management skills. Both of which are very valuable in every phase of life .

sk8temom, when you mentioned that your skater could be on the ice every day, that was us 10 years ago. My skater fell in love and we would go from town to town on the weekends, just to find him public skating time. We tried to keep balance though and he always attended school full time and was involved with team sports. That presented it's own challenges though and our time management skills had to be really good and of course things like nutrition and proper rest became even more important.

If you really are interested in a "guide" book, you can look at this site, http://www.usfigureskating.org/Programs.asp?id=306 . It's the basic skills page of USFS, but it does address new skating parents concerns. There's a link for a survival guide that you can purchase. I don't know what's included, but it's only $5 for the 3 volume set.

[penguin girl]

It sounds like you have a good coach. As for time on the ice, that's a hard one. My child is 6 and spends about 3-4 hours a week on the ice, although would like to do more. But at my child's age, she gets easily frustrated and mentally fatigued so I try to keep the sessions short, but well-spaced out. I also try to emphasize play on the ice, rather than just working on the stuff that the coach has taught. It's really important to experiment and play on their own at this age. They learn their center of balance and how to rotate by just playing around.