When does my daughter need skates with picks?

Once she starts learning to bunny hop and waltz jump, she should really have picks. My youngest daughter did master these skills on a hockey blade but had some serious re-adjustment when she switched to blades with picks. That said, I still think it's best to learn to skate without picks first.

Particularly with a young skater, you want to make sure they're having fun and the possibility of tripping over picks seems to pose a much greater than necessary risk for the first year or two. I'm sure some figure skating coaches would disagree. There will certainly be some lost time as they adjust to the new type of blade when you make the change.

I would have made the argument that they have to learn to stroke properly when using a hockey blade because they don't have picks. And that is probably true. However, even after my daughters had learned to stroke properly on hockey blades, they resorted to pushing with their picks after they switched blades (at least for a few months).