The Christmas Carol concert strop

[Jessieshome]

It’s my 11 year old son’s Christmas carol concert tonight, it’s at the local church at 6pm. He usually does an activity which he adores on a Thursday evening, an activity that was cancelled last Thursday and Saturday because of terrible weather. So he hasn’t been ‘FOREVER!’. He doesn’t have a speaking part in the concert as he has previous years, he’s just in the choir as all his classmates are. He doesn’t enjoy performing or singing on stage so even if he didn’t have somewhere else he would love to be he’d still not be keen.

We’re making him go to the carol concert and he’s furious. He’s been stomping and banging about in his room since he got home from school and has gone off to knock for his friend for a bit.

Am I being unreasonable to force him to go? Or is it fair enough - it’s part of Christmas, it’s his last carol concert as he’ll be in high school next year and he needs to learn he can’t always have it his way. We’re all going to have an absolutely terrible time, sat in a cold church watching our son sit at the back of his school choir in a massive mood!

There are tonnes of things adults are expected to do, and there are even more things they get to decide not to do if they don’t want to, including everything someone else signs them up for without any commitment made by the adult being required to do it.

Work requirements are a part of your job that you a) applied for and b) get paid for. Many adults decide to forgo optional work things like Secret Santa and Christmas parties. Some adults decide not to do overtime because it’s optional and they’d rather do something else. If work ever sign you up for an optional choir performance you can duck out it, too.

But he could have got out of it, at any point. The issue is that he wants to pull out at the last minute.
I have no problem with children making decisions, but they do need to recognise the consequences of leaving things late and letting people down. If he didn’t want to do it, fair enough, but that should have been made clear to the school/organiser earlier. It’s just poor form to pull out last minute in my opinion. Imagine if 10 children all do the same?

For everyone saying he shouldn't be forced to take part as he doesnt want to and wouldnt enjoy it...I agree that performances should not be compulsory, just as I think sports day shouldn't be compulsory...

However the time to take this stance is a couple of weeks ago when rehearsals started not 2 hours before the event that he is presumed to be attending due to not saying otherwise and people have put work and time into organising.

Thank goodness for some sense.

Then given it is years 3 to 6 I imagine the concert will go ahead - it is Winter with a whole lot of viruses about I imagine there is enough slack in the system to allow for children not to turn up. There is a minimum of say 80 kids in the primary school (and that is allowing 20 per class which is unlikely) - even a 60% turnout is fine. The whole thing should allow for that

anything outside of school hours should be optional

This is such a bugbear of mine! People with noisy babies and toddlers who won’t quieten them down or take them out. The odd bit of noise is of course expected and sometimes funny (the random toddler comments), but where a baby keeps crying or a toddler is rampaging around they are making it very difficult for the shy KS1 child who has been practising their one line for weeks and can’t be heard. We’ve all been there taking a potentially volatile toddler to an older child’s assembly / carol service but I used to sit on the end of the row so I could make a swift exit if needed and bribe with rice cakes to stay quiet!

The teacher at DC1 and 2’s drama class was great at this - she used to make an announcement before each show along the lines of “It is wonderful to see so many siblings here to support the children. The children have been working very hard on the show and some of them only have one line, so if little ones are finding it hard to stay quiet please do take them out so the children can concentrate on their performance”. I wish school would do the same before assemblies!

I think this depends.

If he had a speaking part this would make sense. But in every primary nativity performance my and my friends’ kids have been in, practice takes place during class time and the kids who aren’t going to be there are just stuck in the choir anyway. So saying they aren’t coming weeks ago wouldn’t have made any difference.

The school plays have been different - kids sign up to be involved and if they don’t sign up they aren’t included in the practices etc. In that case I’d agree that not going would be very poor form.

It’s too late now but I think it would have been legitimate to miss it, yes I get the commitment point but he’s also committed to his other activity and was committed to that first.

We had a similar carol service in a "local" church which all children in years 5 and 6 were expected to attend. DS didn't like singing and it clashed with his regular activity which he enjoyed.
He skipped the concert and then he got told off by the headteacher and I got a letter home. Headteacher got a strongly worded email back - apart from missing his activity it would have been quite difficult to get to the church they used plus it would have been standing room only in the porch for me and my younger DC's.

The stroppy behaviour was a result of not being listened to. Funnily enough people get pissed off when they feel forced and coerced.

For the sake of your children’s confidence and self esteem - please offer choice, discretion and support their decisions. Unless you want to produce a whole generation of people pleasers that have no critical thinking skills and are riddled with mental illness.

I really think this depends on what opportunities he’s been given to voice his desire to be a part of it or not. OP says he doesn’t like performing or singing. It’s possible he has voiced a desire not to do it before now, OP doesn’t say one way or the other, but assuming not..

Has everyone just assumed he would do it despite knowing he doesn’t like it and just hoped he’d not realise he had any say? He’s a young kid, thinking ahead like that and speaking up when he isn’t given good opportunities to do so is not a skill that it’s reasonable to expect him to have at this stage. Though talking to him about how that would be much better (and then listening to him if he tries in the future) is a good idea.

On the other hand, if they’ve been asked for a show of hands for who’s going to be there and he’s stuck his hand up, then insisting he sticks to that agreement is more reasonable - even though that’s a pretty poor way of getting buy in. And if there’s been something more explicit and less prone to pressuring then even more reasonable.

Why is it such a crime for an 11 year old child to be stroppy?

It's the only way he knows how to communicate what he's feeling.

Because he’s 11, not 3.

I’m fairly sure he knows other ways of communicating how he’s feeling and he should be encouraged to do so. Perhaps this whole situation wouldn’t be occurring if that had been the case.

You really do seem to be struggling to recognise that there's nothing inappropriate about a child who is still in primary school expressing his emotions in a childish way.

You're deliberately doing something that you will all have a terrible time at because of Christmas? Christmas isn't about having a terrible time is it? Or am I doing it wrong?

A great attitude to teach youngsters, you only have to do things you want. They'll do well taking that into their adult life.

If I were a teacher who had worked hard, probably in my lunchtime and after school, to help get this event together and one person suddenly couldn't be bothered to turn up I would make sure their name was at the bottom of the list for other class activities, especially if it was something he wanted to be involved in. He would learn that decisions have consequences.

It’s not a club. It’s horse riding at a relatives place and he can go tomorrow.

No wonder our country is fragmented with everyone setting their group against everyone else’s.

So without knowing why that child might not be there, you'd be a complete dick to him?

Bullying children isn't a good look.

I'd make mine go. I think people are too flakey these days. Sometimes I am, but only with plans I've not fully committed too.

There are exceptions - and people who you can be flexible with but if most of the choir don't show up because they're only in the choir and cba there is no choir or worse one or two people left to it.

Ah should have read the full thread.
Hope it goes okay. Even if he mopes it's a valuable lesson imo.

He can express them all he likes, but in a years time he’ll be in secondary school and expected to not have a strop when he has to do something he doesn’t want. Again I’ll repeat that he’s 11, not 3.

I must admit I don’t agree with this. It does NOT take away a child’s autonomy to fulfil a commitment. It breeds a whole ton of insecurity in a child who doesn’t have solid boundaries placed by the parent. They then grow up thinking they call the shots and this hits them doubly hard when they enter the adult world and life isn’t like that.

Can you imagine if I told my boss I couldn’t make the meeting because “autonomy”? Imagine the effects of never really having to do something you haven’t felt up to doing. It may not seem like a bit deal to you but it leads to a lack of resilience. Not “autonomy”.
I’m only in my twenties and even I despair for the next generations.

He’s 11! He’ll be at secondary school
next year. My six year old was very rude to me yesterday when I picked him up - shouting, moaning, throwing his coat at me. I said to him that wasn’t a very nice way to speak to Mummy and he must not be so rude. He apologised and told me he was hungry! If a (not especially mature) six year old can understand that he is acting out because he’s hungry, surely we can give an 11 year old some credit that he knows other, more effective, ways of communicating his feelings than having a strop and banging doors!