To be sad at my dd decision to quit?

[GemJem]

My dd has been doing ballet lessons since she was 4 years old. She is now 17 and an amazing ballet dancer. it's a great way of her keeping fit and socialising. Yesterday out of the blue she tells me she doesn't want to do classes anymore we were only discussing her next performance on Wednesday where she had one of the lead roles. She says she just doesn't want to go anymore. Part of me thinks it's just run its course in which case I can only support her decision. Another part of me think that it's influence from her new ' friends' she's met at college. They didn't seem very supportive about her hobby and would often suggest doing things on days they new she had dance classes/ performances. I'm sad to think she is being encouraged away from it as she loves ballet and always had. This is so sudden and she's adamant she's not going back. I'm so proud of all she's achieved but I don't want to become pushy as she is old enough to make her own decisions. I just hope this is her choice.

dancingfeet- I don't think anyone is suggesting that dance should be ditched at 17/18 as a hobby, and yes a brilliant for of exercise at any age.

I am suggesting that when kids dance we create an artificial situation, one that is going to end at 18 anyway.
It's easy to fill a theatre with 1000 appreciative close relatives to watch a child dance show/ Less likely to fill a theatre to watch a bunch of 25 year old amateur dancers.

It's this situation that ends at 18. Either kids go on to dance professionally, or it becomes a hobby for fitness.

And that's emotional and a little sad, and perhaps why the OP feels as she does. But this is a time that the whole ethos of children dancing comes to an end.

My Db was in the top 20 nationally at a sport when he decided he didn't want to play any more. He was about 16. My parents said he could stop all tournaments but he was committed to a team for a season so he had to play that out. (Which he did with fairly bad grace!)

I think he has had the odd pang but doesn't regret it at all. He spent his sixth form years getting drunk with his friends which seemed a pretty bad replacement in my parents' eyes but he seemed happy enough. (And to be fair did get 4 As at A level.) It never featured in his career plans though as he knew he wasn't good enough.

I think he just got fed up of the pressure to keep going and going in the ranking list (with national rankings you have to "run very fast just to stay still" and wanted to stop.

Funnily enough I also played and was much less good. I carried on to university, represented my university at it, met Dh playing and carried on playing competitively well into my 20s. I was never going to make the national team so there just wasn't the pressure which meant I could enjoy playing and enjoy the social side of playing.

DD2 still has ballet lessons and enjoys them, though I suspect it will come to a natural end soon as she wants to go on to university in just over a year to read Physics - a world away!

Mind you, I'm surprised your DD hasn't either made the decision not to do it as a career before now or been actively auditioning for full time dance training - how did she think she was going to teach by staying in a part time school? Or was she auditioning this year and has suddenly changed tack? If this is the case she does need to think about what else she will do. DD1 is lucky enough to be at full time dance school now in London on a DaDa (which took a lot of auditions over a couple of years and a fair few rejections) and my impression is most of her contemporaries there will work in the industry first and then teach. Most teachers seem to have such experience behind them. So I wonder if you've been a little naive thinking this will be her career as if that was the case she'd either be somewhere full time already (many go at 16; DD1 at 18 was one of the oldest) or be very actively applying.

DD2 did realise about a year ago that she had to either decide to go for the dance all out, or concentrate on the university path - and she chose the latter. To make the former your career you need to be living and breathing it in every single spare hour and this will impact on A levels. DD1 is bright but got fairly mediocre A levels as they were always last after dance, and socialising with friends virtually didn't figure - it was always endless dance commitments. DD2 decided instead to pare down the dance.

In short, your DD needs to honour her commitments and see the term out. Dance is also a great thing to do for stress relief and as a nice active hobby. But it sounds as though, whether you realised it or not, the decision not to make it a career was made some time ago, when it stopped being the only thing she lived and breathed for.

Id be inclined to emphasis to her that she can carry on the dancing bit without going on to be a teacher.
Ask her to carry on going just until the summer, and to look at it as a hobby/way of keeping fit, rather than as a profession and to see how she goes.

It does seem so sudden to just stop like she is.

The best thing is that, having stuck with it from 2-17, she'll have incredible posture and core strength and grace which will really help her in adult life. And if she does return to it, she'll have a deep knowledge and get back to it quickly.
I'd encourage her to stick with the lead role she's just been given and then allow her to move on to explore other things. It's normal at her age.

Also to say that it is a great hobby for a teenager especially.

My DD decided dancing was always going to be just a hobby from the age of 14 or so, but still she does 18 hours of dance a week and has just taken her Advanced RAD exam. No intention of it becoming a career for her.

For the posters saying she won't peruse a career as she hasn't been spotted by Royal ballet, please don't assume this it's very rude of you as you do not know our personal circumstances. I am not having a debate as to weather or not she's a good enough dancer! She will be phoning her teacher later today.

gemjem- but if she is considering pursuing a career then why does she want to give up?

Dancers wishing to pursue a career normally eat breathe and live dance in their whole being.

That's the thing skerry that's why I'm concerned that she's being influenced by her new friends. She's wanted to be a dance teacher for many years.

To say she's not been picked up by royal ballet is mince! That's like saying as I'm a good singer but haven't been picked up by a record label I should just give up! I sang loads as a kid and want to get back to it since life got in the way.

I suggest reasoning with her. Speak with her teacher but ask your daughter to meet you half way. Suggest she maybe wants to take a break for a period of a month and see how she feels at the end of that about if she misses it enough to go back to it or if she really wants to leave that part of her life behind her. The time frame allows there to be boundaries but also allows you to speak about it without it becoming like you're forcing her one way or another.

Good luck!

GemJem:

Friends suggest outings - that's what friends do. The decision is totally hers.

perhaps give her some breathing space op.
suggest she doesn't decide anything just yet
no point rushing into decisions
she must have had Off days in the past

I have just come home from the most amazing dance 'competition' with all styles and ages. There were more 17+ year old (most of them 40+) dancers than school aged. Some were great, others not quite so much technique there, but every person dancing had an amazing time, did their best and you could see their love of it. The largest team groups who received the best support were the adult Jazz, Hip Hop and Contemporary troupes. Some of these adults had to previously stop dancing late teens due to other commitments and work then returned to it when it suited them whilst others have only been dancing a very short time.

Stopping dancing as a 17/18 year old doesn't mean the end of dancing altogether- an interlude or a pause until the time is right to continue dancing again. I would be sad if my mad keen dancing daughter stopped, but everything she would have done to that point will be of huge benefit to her in so many ways and still give her the opportunity to continue in the future if and when the time was right for her.
Good Luck to your daughter with her choices and stopping now is not necessarily the end just a pause.

As another mother of a dancing 17 year old. I feel your pain..
I think Dancinfeet has given the right advice.

I can't imagine that your daughter means to give up before her performance, as most dancers have such a strong sense of team work and commitment.

I'm clutching at straws here a bit, but I wonder if you could encourage dd to invite some of her college friends to the performance? It may give her a fresh perspective when her friends all admire her skills and talent?

Is she struggling with her college work at all? A levels (if this is what she's doing) are a lot of hard work and time consuming too, and maybe this is adding to her decision to stop dance. if so, is there any support you could arrange for her?

As others have said, it is a time when many young people do leave dance, as you will already know. Alternatively, they go on to full time dance training (not usually the Royal Ballet though!). What, if any, were her original plans to study full time post 18? was she going to take the DDI route to train to teach ballet or a full time course? Maybe she could explore different routes still connected to ballet, that may re incentivise her...

How long has she thought about giving up the ballet? Encourage her not to make a hasty decision. Maybe she'll change her mind again? If you have to give a terms notice, then perhaps you could encourage her to see the next term out and see whether she still feels the same?

Ultimately, I guess you have no alternative but to accept her decision after you've talked through all the possibilities with her and fully explored her reasons for stopping.

2babas2cats I don't think the singing analogy is a good one.

Some singers have never done more than practice in their bedroom before being spotted and catapulted into success.

That can't happen with ballet.
Dance needs vocational training. And many years of it. There is a lot to be learned.
People can be born naturally good singers ( and practice makes you better ) but will never become a prima ballerina from just doing a few moves in front of your bedroom mirror.

I feel for you op
My DS played a sport at County level from the age of 10-17. We travelled all round the country with him, and sometimes out of the country.
DS stopped enjoying it and it became a chore for him so he decided to stop when he was 17. I was disappointed as he may have gone further on and made it his career but if he wasn't enjoying it what's the point?
He still plays for fun and his mate in the county team now plays for England......
The main thing is that your DD is happy in her decision.

I don't understand why you're keen for her to become a dance teacher - a low pay and insecure job.

Thank you 2babas

Not knocking dance teachers - DD's is talented and amazing - but it's not an easy or well paid job.

I think it is very, very normal (and healthy) at this age to re-evaluate your career plans to see if they still hold up in the cold light of the almost grown-up day. If, as you say, she has had these plans for a long time, then they were conceived when she was still quite a child and had little idea of what an adult working life might look like. That way of thinking was completely different from the kind of thinking she needs to do no: hard practical thinking about employment opportunities and working conditions and qualifications for alternative careers.

Of course she can carry on doing it as a hobby, but it may be that she feels she needs to distance herself a bit from her old dreams to concentrate at the moment.

At a similar age, and under similar circumstances, my dn gave up the sport he had practised since childhood- because it was distracting him from concentrating on his new plans and the work he had to do for them.

Ds (about to turn 17) has gone through a period of breaking away from his longstanding plan of being a policeman and is now coming back to it. He needed to step away and look at it to know if this is something his almost-grown-up self actually wants. It will probably (for various reasons) involve a change of college and an extra year, but he is young and he can afford that.

Dd otoh has stuck to her dreams of going into acting and has in fact been accepted by drama school. But she is very realistic about the industry and has gained additional training which will make it easy for her to fill in with casual work.

In any case, it must be about their dreams and not about the void it will leave in your life.

I think it is quite common to change your mind about what you want to do in life on your teens and twenties. Friendships can be part of that but that's not always a bad thing, they can bring a fresh perspective from parents.

It's quite a specific situation where you have strong artistic dreams which are coupled with a great deal of parental involvement. I am quite familiar with this: my db was going to be a musician (did 1st year at conservatoire and then had to drop out), my dn has just started at conservatoire, I have been very involved in dd's acting over the years. Given how much it takes of you as a parent, it is difficult not to get caught up in it to the point where you feel almost bereaved if they decide to drop out and turn to accountancy. But I think you have to fight that- it puts a lot of pressure on them.

I agree with Barbarian it's pretty common to change your mind and things and hobbies in your teens and twenties.

Watching small children do ballet is cute and there will always be a big audience of parents and family members. For older ones, if it's not their career, they have to transition into it being something enjoyable for them, rather than necessarily the reward of the performance. She's probably clocked that most people at a dance show are there to see the 4-10 year olds.

She's meeting new friends, her social life has rocketed in importance and wants the time to explore - a very time-consuming hobby might seem like a barrier to her. Probably a lot of her ballet friends have dropped out over the years as well.

She needs to find out how she is going to include dance or maybe another form of exercise in her adult life, if at all.

I had an all-consuming hobby as a child, it was never going to be my career. I dropped it at 17, went back at 25, enjoyed it but by then I'd also developed a whole raft of other new interests I hadn't had before. I don't do the hobby now plus it was horses and I developed an allergy but have very happy memories of it and don't consider it a waste.

She might enjoy stepping away from it for a while, finding a different teacher or class, trying a different form of dance or exercise - the world is her oyster.

OP, try to look at it this way:

if she is going to pursue it purely as a hobby/exercise, then it really won't matter if she drops it for a while and takes it up again later

and if she is going to pursue it as a career, with all the uncertainties and sacrifices that entails, then she really, really needs to know that this is the one thing she wants more than anything else