Shall I push my daughter to keep up her dancing?

[Greenginghamdress]

Hi all.

Hoping for quick advice as the class is tonight! My daughter has attended dancing for just over a year. She's made friends and seems to enjoy it.
Her interest has been tailing off the last few weeks though and today she has told me she doesn't want to go anymore. Apparently she doesn't like the teacher and it's too strict? It doesn't seem to be.

I have noticed that she doesnt seem to have a natural skill for it and the other week she poured juice on the floor just before the class started (the teacher was not happy and I told her off off this at home).

I'm wondering what to do as have made friends there myself with other mums. I don't want to be pushy and force her but this is her only hobby. It is however, very expensive and they have a show coming up in autumn which will be lots of rehersals and extra coat for costumes etc. She is 4.5 so pretty little.

Aibu?
YABU- tell her she has to go
YANBU- accept and don't send her

Thank you!

She probably wants to do activities - with you and her dad. At home. No child gets bored with their parents. As long as she has friends in the neighbourhood or at school. And has books, crayons etc at home.

Would a child really spill juice deliberately? Think about that. That doesn't even make any sense. Unless she herself said she spilled juice deliberately.

If she doesn’t want to go, don’t make her go. Simple as that really. I’m sure she’ll find something else she’d rather do.

I think the key is to understand your own child, and not to project your own preferences and expectations on to them.

As a child, I was shy and happiest at home with a book. I didn't want to do a ton of activities, I just wanted to do my own thing or play with my closest friends. My dd was the opposite of that. She was happy to read and entertain herself when she needed to, but she is way more extroverted than I am and enjoys external stimulation, so she loved nothing better than being in a big organised group. I expect some of you might have considered her to be overscheduled as a young child (or even now tbh) but it was very much led by her and based on what she needed. If anything, I was the one who found it all a bit too much, and it was a constant negotiation with her about how much she should be allowed to take on.

Funnily enough, it doesn't appear to have inhibited the development of her social skills in the slightest @MsTSwift. If anything, it has probably helped to develop them - she is socially very confident and has lots of lovely friends. Perhaps your friend's dc would have been even more awkward without that early exposure...we shall never know!

There are some real black and white views about hobbies in this thread.

My daughter insisted on signing up to theatre school age 3. She was doing baby ballet and could hear the fun they were having in the room next door and asked me if she could try it. She went once and was very clear she wanted to keep doing it. She insisted on auditioning for her first show aged 3.5 and had spoken her first line on stage at age 4. I am sure some people thought I was a pushy mum but far from it. The drive all came from her. She's still loving being part of a theatre school years later. She has a group of friends she has grown up with and a wonderful confidence that comes from having a passion.

I never saw it as any different from her big sister who built complex Lego models before she started school and had a huge passion for learning about space.

In each case they also did plenty of mucking about with friends and playing too.

But yes, if your daughter really hates it then I wouldnt make a four year old persevere

There are some massive generalisations here.

My older DD was desperate to learn ballet before her 3rd birthday. She loved Tweenies, particularly Fizz, and because Fizz danced, DD1 had to. I asked my year 9 students if any of them knew of a dance teacher for almost 3 year olds and one piped up with "Try my teacher, Miss. She's brilliant." We did, and DD stayed there until she was 18 and left to go to university. DD studied ballet and tap, then aged 15 started a pointe class. Now she's 22 and does acrobatic rock & roll. However, lots of the children who started with DD got fed up, preferred other activities or moved away. It's not a problem. I most definitely did not force DD to dance. She also asked for a cello when she was 3 (I am a music teacher so DD spent quite a lot of time watching DH and me performing). We relented when she was 4, and again, she stuck that out until she left school, with regular lessons and playing in different groups. These activities gave her a much wider circle of friends than simply her school ones.

DH and I wanted our DDs to learn an instrument, but beyond that we didn't really mind what they did. We did remind them about being reliable and putting in practice between lessons, and other than the skills they learned, they picked up some life lessons. The poster who thinks they would be happier at home with their crayons would have bored my now adult DDs to death.

I’d give it till the end of this term then decide, it may be she didn’t like being told off and that’s the trigger, it might just not be her thing. My kids have both gone through phases of wanting to stop something, normally by the end of the term that decision has been settled on either way ( often with them continuing)

I don’t think you can call spending time with your child doing fun activities abusive. And it’s offensive.

We did messy play as a baby, it was fun, got us it the house and made friends which later became a toddler class where you went once a week and tried new skills together; sometimes it was ballet, sometimes gymnastics, sometimes taekwondo. It lasted 30 minutes once a week. She obviously stopped going to this once she started school and I was back at work.

I am a piano teacher so we did basics together at home as she watched me play until she said she’d rather play violin at school as her friends were in the after school club (I don’t think 30 minutes a week is bad). She also does art class in after school club on a different day as I don’t finish work until 5 to pick her up.

Swimming is an essential life skill.(obviously 2 years gap for covid when it was closed).

Over the last 6 years she’s been to 1 baby toddler class, 2 after school clubs and swimming. If she didn’t want to do them I would let her go to the homework club or something else in school but to be honest she enjoys doing these things with her friends in after school club and I’d be at work anyway.