Some skaters, they live for skating, and they are home-schooled. I'm very lucky my parents let me go to school and have a normal life.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My parents told me, 'Skating is a privilege, not a right, and school always comes first.'
My parents are very good parents and have already said that they will look after me until the end of my skating career.
Skating takes up 70 percent of my time, school about 25 percent. Having fun and talking to my friends, 5 percent. It's hard. I envy other kids a lot of things, but I get a guilt trip when I'm not training.
When my parents were paying for my sport, it wasn't just me out on the ice. Pretty much every dollar my mom made teaching went into my skating.
I just motor through school in the morning and then go skating.
My parents never pressured me to skate. They always said I could quit if I wanted to. They only expected me to skate when they had already paid for the expensive lessons. But, otherwise they said I could do what I wanted to do.
I actually have an ice-skating background. I skated until I was 15, for about eight years. It was hardcore skating for about eight hours a day.
Growing up as an athlete, I started skating very young. My parents didn't know anything about the sport, so they went with the flow. I had two great coaches who gave great advice and gave guidelines for my parents. My parents let the coaches dictate what was going on on the ice.
My parents were of the opinion, because they had started skating very young, that you should have something that you do that you care about, because it structures your life as you're growing up.
Skating was something I really wanted to do; my parents knew nothing about it. They said they'd support me as long as I was trying my hardest and enjoying it.