Toddler ballet - no parents allowed?!

The teacher of the ‘baby’ class at my DSs school is also a trained nursery teacher. RAD (royal academy of dance)will be age appropriate, it’s basically music and movement but with a clear pathway leading to early ballet steps/skills. She uses lots of props (ribbons, wands etc). Parents don’t stay and they have two senior dancers who help. Teachers will all be dbs checked. Check the qualifications of the staff and the dance school will have a safe guarding policy. If it doesn’t look elsewhere. Be warned, it can be a slippery slope…DS ended up training 15 hours a week!

I run a dance school and do not have parents stay and watch, not even the first lesson. This is because I find that the children do not cooperate in front of their parents when it is a new activity, but also the parents used to talk loudly amongst themselves and be a disruption and younger siblings would run about getting in the way. I dont take children until they are 4 and starting school though, so a bit different from age 2

Our classes all had teacher, assistant and pianist in so felt there was good safeguards there. Parents sat in room next door. The children could go out to the toilet, you either helped your own child, or if you went away, just asked another parent to , making sure your child knew who would help them.

21/2 is still quite little. My eldest goes to quite a ‘serious’ dance school and the toddler classes were stay for lesson 1 with a preference for parents to stay outside. I’m not going to bother starting my second until she’s 3 as I think they just bugger about at 2 really or are just a bit unpredictable. At least by 3 they can concentrate a bit more.

I would think she’d be too young for tap. But then again, she’s too young for ballet as well. However, if you just regard the classes as music and movement, she might enjoy them. A good teacher will come up with age-appropriate activities for toddlers.

Mine did a class with 30 mins ballet, 15 mins tap at 2 years. Although it has to be said little of it was really recognisable as such 😆 lots of skipping, moving to music and getting shoes to make a noise.

She started separate lessons at 4, took up modern as well at around 7. She's 17 now and still does tap and jazz just for fun.

My child is a professional dancer. She started dance lessons at eight and a half. She’s only ever done ballet.

Also just to add to my note above - mine started ballet at 4, then picked up tap at 7 (the dance school doesn't offer it before that age) then added jazz and lyrical a few years after that - so there seemed to be quite a set progression through the different styles at that dance school. But of course there are other ways of doing things and for some kids tap or jazz is what they love from the get go and ballet doesn't get a look in! I hope you and your dd find something she loves, I've got 3 happy dancers and it's lovely!

It's no different from a nursery school really.

The same could be said for schools, youth groups etc. You are presumably comfortable sending kids to rainbows/beavers/school/childminder etc?

How is it different?

You can always tell a dancer by the way they hold themselves.

If she's only little, definitely ballet, it's the foundation for everything and for age 2-3 will be run as a fun class with actions etc so they have fun learning about moving to music.

Plus re tap - the noise - dear God, the noise. Once they're older they can control it a bit but at that age it would just be stomping about madly. I would advise you thinking very carefully about whether you want that being 'practised' in your house!!

My dd was 6 when she stated though. .A lot later than most other kids I would say

My 4 year old is keen to start ballet and this puts me off tbh!

I spoke to a mum at a different class who took her 18 month old to a ballet class and was told she couldn't stay with her. Needless to say they didn't return!

I wouldn't at 2 personally. We did Tiny Toes which allows parents until they move up to the Twirlers class around 3.5-4.

I'm certainly not from a dance background but my understanding is they should start with ballet as that's the foundation of all dance. I've never seen anywhere offer anything else for that age!

I would start with whichever you think dd woukd enjoy most. my dd started ballet and hated it. After a while I found a new school and she started tap.....she was gong round the house "tapping " anyway. she loved it. .and later asked to do ballet. ..6 years on still loves both!

Yes it’s standard

My dd did ballet at 2. She was fine if no parents were in the class, but if it was showing week, and we were there, she would keep running back to me. A lot of the toddlers did

I seem to remember there having been dozens of threads before, all asking the same question, and all receiving the same answer. It is totally normal for parents to not sit in the classes and watch.

I think it is common but not necessarily a good thing given all the abuse allegations surrounding dance and gymnastics. People always ask why didn’t the parents better protect their kids, but in most cases parents were banned from watching or attending. I wouldn’t be comfortable with this.

My DD has been dancing 15 years and that was the set up for her first class too. We could stay for the first lesson, after that we could wait in another room if we wanted or just drop off. They had an assistant teacher to help with loo runs, shoe changes etc. Every term they had a watch week where parents were invited to stay and it was chaos compared to the normal lessons (you could hear the lesson if you waited in the adjoining room). I can quite understand why they ran lessons in this way!

Standard IME. DD danced from age 3 to age 18, don't think I ever saw her during class. There would be so many people in the room if parents were allowed. And maybe they are afraid of comments and interference? ( not you of course OP)