My Daughter Quit Skating

Two weeks ago Wed night, my daughter came to me and said she wanted to talk with me.  I said OK though I had a lot to do.  But I thought it was very important to listen what she wanted to say.  Normally, she did not open up herself to me.  I would like her to change that.  I would like her know that she can tell me anything.

She told me she quit skating.  She asked my opinion of her quit.  My feelings were complicated.  I wanted her to quit for so long.  I used to beg her to quit because our financial could not afford to have full spear training schedule for her.  I could not take out second mortgage like most other competitive skaters’ parents did.  I could not quit my job.  If I quit, we definitely had no money for her to train.  But she never wanted to quit.  So I was glad to see that she finally saw the point.  But I was puzzled by her abrutly change.  She told me she felt it was time for her to focus on her academy. She is in 8th grade now.  She wanted to go to good college.  She wanted to be a sport med doctor.  She also said she wanted to have normal school life.  With skating, she could not do anything other than skating.  She could not watch TV; she could not sleep over; she could not take vacation, etc.  But boy, she had been skating since she was 6 years old.  It was almost half of her life.  Well, she is still young.  She has time to think.  But now, I need to help her to get ready for transition.

I had to transfer her from online school to our school district public school.  Nowadays, enrollment to public school is not that easy.  We could not register before our school board approved our residency.  Good thing is our school board lady who is dealing with documents are very efficient.  Student counselor of Middle school she is going to is very nice.  So within one week, we got all paper work and registration ready.  She is going to start her 1st day in public school tomorrow.

I am nervous.  I don’t know what to expect.  But soon, I will know…