Did your Dc start dance after school age

[sayhellocaterpillar]

My DS wants to do dance but he is an absolute beginner. We trialed a zoom for age 4-8 and he was left behind, the kids were ace. He's 4 btw. If he can't get the routines now should he carry on or do you need to start at 18mthd or be an natural to it?

I'd let him do whatever he wanted. If he's having fun at dance, let him do it / go. If not, stop and try again later if he wants to.

I wouldn't worry about how good he is, just if he's having fun or not.

Are you judging his whole capability after 1 remote lesson in an entirely new area, and comparing it to kids who might have been doing it for ages? Also are you asking him to be the next Wayne Sleep?

DD1 started when she was four. I don’t think learning by Zoom is a true inclination of a child’s ability.

Zoom probably isn't ideal for a beginner who doesn't know the routines or any of the moves. The other kids will have an idea of what is going on which is why they look ace at 4.

In a proper lesson, the teacher would be able to see a child is struggling and also, the child will be blue to copy others.

DD does dance and one of her friends didn't start til about 6 I think. She soon caught up.

Is your DS enjoying it?

My son started ballet at 8. By 16 he had offers of scholarships to two top London ballet schools (this was quite a while ago). Starting at 4 is not going to be an issue and he'll soon catch up.

DD1 started at 8 and loved it. Turns out she was pretty good at it too but stopped aged 15 because it clashed with other hobbies.

I think there is some rule of thumb that you need to start before 9 to do sport competitively but ;
a) He is clearly less than 9 and
b) Who says he needs to be competitive ?

Dd started ballet at 5 and age 11 had also picked up jazz.
Zoom dance is hard, wait until classes are back face to face. But also age 4/5/6 they are in it for fun mostly.

It's just that when he started another sport the coach pre Covid said that the reason he struggled was that most of the others had been doing it since 18mths and so my DS wasn't conditioned for it. I think it's more his attention span is very short, he doesn't lack passion.

In the dance zoom he didn't seem to notice the other ability, but kept trying to read out their names so he was distracted . He said he enjoyed really enjoyed the class. I never know whether I'm pushing him, as with the other sport he tried I preserved with him going each week, and he was the worst in the class, but liked it. The issue was some parents made some nasty comments, we were still going up until he started school, then I decided to pause.