To discourage child from doing something he really wants to do because he will be rubbish at it?

[WallisFrizz]

DS is Y1. They are having a school talent competition. He wants to enter...playing “air trombone”.

He is adamant he wants to do this and I have seen his act...it will not end well for him. I tried to tell him this and he looked crushed.

Should I just let him get on with it?

If he was at my school he'd probably get put through to the 'final' performance as it's something completely different. So many magic tricks and 'Let it Go' renditions. I'm predicting this year will be full of that song from the Greatest Showman.....

Both my DDs have done various bad 'dance' and 'gynnastics' turns in school talent shows, leading me to worry for them but having seen the finalists at a sports day or similar I was reassured that everyone was as 'lacking polish' as another and have since just left them to it.

If you're worried he'll get laughed at, cater for that by making it funny. Loved whereismum's suggestions! It'll be a riot! He'll love it!
Can we all come and cheer him on?

He loves the music from The Greatest Showman but has no desire to sing. Thankfully he has no interest in The Floss either.

My daughter was your son in year 1 she embraced everything with gusto & I sometimes cringed but always encouraged, she's now 10 (yr5) and the most confident child and is just about to do a stand up routine for her school talent show!! I hope he's amazing!!!

Parents don’t get to watch, that was part of the problem, if he wasn’t well received, I wouldn’t be around to give him a big hug.

It could be the making of him. Someone I know once went in for the school talent show (at a specialist music school with very talented students some of whom you may have heard of) and burped Bohemian Rhapsody (or maybe it was Killer Queen) . It went down a storm apparently and did her reputation the world of good

Backing music,get them both a pair of those massive glasses if you can and get them to practice together and I bet they'll go down a bomb they're mates will think they are legends.

The PP's suggestion of Baker Street's solo part would be amazing- it's not the whole song (you could edit the length and keep some percussion in for his little chum!) so he doesn't need to keep the tempo going for ages, and the teachers will think it's amazingly retro.

It'll be an audience of his peers then, with equally small children doing their best at something in their own acts, and teachers who are there to encourage and support them. It'll be fine, I think you're ascribing concerns that won't arise until they're older.

Yes, I'd encourage him- get him a real trombone, get him together with a friend or two and backing track, get him a funky outfit etc.

How about him and a friend do a Blues Brothers track and mime to it?

Two little kids won the talent contest at dd's school doing a mime act to a rock song wearing little leather jackets and guitars.

What about the Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines? That's got a great trombone bit.

Or Coronation street (but perhaps it was an episode of the Goodies that made me think that is trombone).

He will probably have fun!

Or In The Mood, of course!

Actually, when I was in high school, a high school in our area had an air band CONTEST for the students. Seriously. This was Grade 10-12 students (15-17/18) and they had an air band CONTEST.

I doubt anyone will make fun of your son.

I thought he was Y1 at high school and was sharing your concerns . . . a 5-yr-old on air trombone with support on air drums sounds fab

Well done for changing your mind As long as your child is confident he'll enjoy himself.

I learned one of my best life lessons from a colleague's little boy when he was around that age:
Our infant school sports day always opens with a line of children cartwheeling down the 100m track.
After school one day this little boy told his mum that he'd been to the 'cartwheel audition' on the field that afternoon.
Colleague knew her son couldn't turn a cartwheel to save his life. She said 'Did you? What happened?'
He looked at her indignantly and said, 'I did one and Miss X said 'thank you' and sent me back inside!'
Colleague looked sympathetic and said she was sorry and did he feel okay.
He shrugged and said 'Yep. It's her loss!'

Air trombone!
m.youtube.com/watch?v=X_Mc_K6WQ44

At our cho talent show last week one year. 1 crosses her eyes. No one could see ( or notice) what she was doing. Another tried to do gangnam style, the only clue was the music. Another did an improvised dance , reallly badly. Two tried to kick a football between them.
Out of the whole school the only one with an actual talent was a girl doing gymnastics on year 5.
Everyone had fun except The older kids got a bit bored.
It’s more enthusiasm than anything.

I know you don’t want him to get hurt, but they see things from a different perspective.

It's more about having fun at that age so glad he's going for it.

I just remember DS at that age injured his foot at school doing a handstand. I was puzzled as he never does any gymnastics and he explained he had been teaching a group of y2 girls at lunch how to do gymnastics.

They’ll all be shit don’t worry about it. At the same age my dd sang a tuneless rendition of ‘you canny shove your granny off a bus’. Nobody made fun of her —despite the shitness—

Air band would go down a storm at my school, suggest he gets a mate to join them on the air guitar and he might even win!

At least he’s not going to stand there doing the floss for three minutes like every blooming kid in our school “talent” show

Air trombone it’s so specific!

Your son is awesome.