As parents, we want what’s best for our children. The best education, the best coaches, the best opportunities to get them to be the best version of themselves. There’s really no argument there.
We give so much of ourselves for our children, like when we sign them up for camps and sports, drive hours for games and tournaments, all those late nights and early mornings so they can follow their dreams.
We give what we can when we can to make our children happy, to help them reach their goals. It’s just what we do as parents.
If you watched the recent Winter Olympics, you likely know Alysa Liu, who won the gold medal for Team USA in figure skating. Liu was the first American woman to take home the gold since 2002. That’s impressive by any standard, but what’s more impressive is the story of how Liu got there.
Liu, now 20, was the U.S. National Champion at age 13 and 14, and a World bronze medalist at age 15. During the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing she finished sixth. And then, at age 16, she retired.
She said she had enough of other people making her decisions, and Liu decided she needed to step away from skating and start making her own choices.
She enrolled in college at UCLA, where she’s currently a psychology major. She went on what she says was her first real vacation. She started doing what she wanted, eating what she wanted, being who she wanted.
I cannot imagine what some of the reactions of those in her inner orbit must have been. For an athlete at this caliber, at age 16, at what was considered the peak of her career, just to call it quits? That’s something.
Fast forward a couple years and Liu found herself on a ski trip with friends, when she felt that familiar rush of adrenaline as she raced down the mountain. That’s what prompted her to call up her skating coach and have a conversation about a possible return to the sport. But under one condition: It would be on her terms.
She would decide what songs she would skate to, what she would wear for her competitions, and what she would eat. There would be no strict diets, no strict schedules, she wanted to maintain her life on her terms.
At her return in the U.S. Championships in 2025, she took silver. At the 2025 World Championship, she took gold. And then she added the Olympic gold in Milan.
Sure, maybe you first noticed her striped hair. Or the fact she has a piercing in her mouth. Or the fact she decided to give it all up when she was just 16. Those things alone are enough to make some parents uncomfortable. But there’s no denying the look of pure joy and confidence she exudes when she steps out onto the ice, knowing it’s on her terms.
It’s natural as parents to want to push our children to succeed, to reach their goals, to be the best they can be. We want great things from our kids, but at what cost? Sometimes we can push too much, whether it’s in sports or in the classroom because we don’t want them to waste their potential or miss out on opportunities.
Except pressure at any age is real, burnout is real. And when our kids say, “I don’t want to play this sport anymore,” or “I don’t want to be part of this activity anymore,” it can be easy to take that personally.
We as parents need to remember we can teach our kids to work hard and be the best they can be. But we also need to teach them to follow their hearts. Sometimes, the latter is the hardest lesson to learn.
Liu proved to the world that sometimes it’s the kids who know best. After all, it’s really about them reaching goals on their terms, their own timelines, not us as parents.
Our worth is never tied to achievement. And we need to remember that goes for our kids as well.
Rachel Brougham is the former assistant editor of the Petoskey News-Review. You can email her at racheldbrougham@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Olympian shows us that sometimes kids know best | Opinion
Reporting by Rachel Brougham, Community Columnist / The Petoskey News-Review
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