To make my daughter do ballet

[Hairyragemachine]

When I was 5, my mum enrolled me in ballet classes. I went to about six, then decided I didn't want to do it, so my mum took me out of them.

I now have a 5 year old, who has just done her grade 1 ballet exam. However she now says she doesn't want to do it any more. There doesn't seem to be an underlying reason per se, I think she just finds it a drag to give up an hour of saturday morning. This week we had tears and a tantrum and eventually I gave up forcing it, as she had a bad night and very busy week.

But should I allow her to just quit all together? Given it's so good for balance, confidence (she is a performer!), friendships (she has lots there) and discipline, posture... should I make her go for a bit longer?

I wish my mum had not allowed me to just give up - or come to think of it to give up piano, violin, french, guides, tap dancing - lots of hobbies which I wish I was good at now and had stuck at. I needed her to be my self discipline until I was old enough to be my own.

Or - is it mean to force a 5 year old to ballet (she also does tap and modern) when she doesn't want to go? What if she is missing out on a career as an international prima ballerina? Let me know what you think please!

I just can’t imagine a five year old saying “I don’t want to give up an hour of my Saturday morning” like you’ve posted

I wouldn’t force - it’s obv not speaking to her for her to have the massive tantrum

I actually believe that it’s important to have the opportunity to learn music, dance, art, etc etc etc. But it shouldn’t be compulsory. I think people who truly love to create whatever sort of art they love do beautiful things. I spend a lot of time going to the theatre and concerts and museums so I do think they’re valuable. But no I don’t think children should be pushed to learn an instrument they don’t enjoy and no I don’t think everyone needs to spend an hour a week learning ballet. There are so many interesting things to learn about and explore so finding something you love should be the goal.

some children will love cooking or lego or reading. Some will love ballet. Some will love rocks. These (and endless others) can only be found and explored if the children have the exposure and time to do so. If they’re timetabled every single day doing something out of obligation how would that happen?

some children love the discipline and grace of ballet (my daughter) but not everyone does and this girl shouldn’t be forced, particularly when it seems she is really, really busy already.

That’s not true. My DD is a professional ballet dancer and all the pushing came from her. She dropped most other hobbies to concentrate on dance, because she wanted to. We as parents had the tricky path of trying to be supportive while not being keen.

Oh and about the point for future musicians. My mother forced me to take piano lessons for years. The only positive thing to come from it is my little brother sat down with me and discovered he loved it. He quickly outpaced me, was on the piano constantly and is a musician and music teacher today. he regularly would just sit down and play for his own enjoyment. I dropped it the day I was allowed to and haven’t sat at a piano since.

My method with these things, is drop the stuff they don't like, but throw the kitchen sink behind their passions. I have two theatre school kids and it lights them up. Find their thing and it's easy.

DS is 15 and does football and piano but they don't light him up, they get him off his arse, which is the same thing translated for teen boys.

I was made to do ballet. It’s not great memories. The teacher made fun of the ‘bag of sweets I kept in
my leotard’ (I had a pot belly)

My dd2 was a bit hot and cold with dance. Where as dd1 loved it and would have danced every day. Dd2 almost gave up at least once a year. Because you pay termly I always said she could stop at the end of term. By that time there was normally an exam or a show she wanted to do and she carried on. She did it until she was nearly 16 in the end and did exams up to grade 6.

that said. There was never any massive upset tantrums and real difficulty getting her to go. If she had been really upset I may have let her stop immediately. She tried a lot of other activities too over the years but dance ended up being the thing she did the longest.

My mom allowed me to quit ballet when I was about 5 and I have always been grateful to her for that. It just wasn't my type of thing - the pink tutus, the special hairstyles...I was not that girl, and I am not that woman now.

I did sign my own daughter up for ballet when she was little, as for all I knew her preferences might be different from mine. But I found the whole thing really weird - the emphasis on styling the hair of even very young girls a certain way, the emphasis on them wearing certain things to display their bodies. The whole idea of their bodies and movements having to conform to a particular ideal, even at such a very young age.....

My daughter also found she didn't like it, so I let her quit as soon as she was ready to.

I think it takes a certain type of person to love ballet. And if you are not that type of person, being compelled to do it feels horrendous.

Please don't do that to your child. Just let her be happy and herself. Children have to conform enough at school - but at least there there are important reasons for it. Please don't make her go through this at the weekend too, simply for the sake of a hobby.....

How horrendous - you poor thing.

And that exemplifies very much my problem with ballet. There is a focus on girls and women having a particular body type, and they are made to dress in a way that displays that body type to the adult gaze.

I remember when my daughter was doing it, sitting in the waiting room one time reading competition guidelines for the slightly older age groups, and there were these restrictions on girls not being allowed to wear underwear under their leotards .... WTAF!

I am not suggesting ballet attracts paedophiles (though to a certain extent I do imagine it would). I just don't think it's a good message to give young girls - that sounds much of their worth and value depends on their body conforming to others' expectations of it ....

And absolutely - those sorts of things make total sense to anyone ‘into’ ballet and my daughter would be the one to tell me all those expectations. I can’t imagine navigating this with a child who didn’t even like it. My daughter breathes ballet and would never even think to wear underwear under a leotard. Am sure parents of children with other passions know a lot about those topics too, I just have a dancer. (And a boy currently playing two games of football so I get to learn a lot about that too. Find it far less interesting to be honest!)

The hair is put in a bun so it is out of the way. The teacher can then see the line of the head, neck and shoulders; and they wear close-fitting leotards and have either bare legs or tights so the teacher can see exactly how they are holding themselves, their positioning, and which muscles they are engaging. It enables the teacher to check they are using themselves properly, and so they can be taught the correct technique.

Of course - all makes sense to anyone who has an interest in ballet. Just like any number of 'obvious' things probably make sense to people into football or chess or whatever else. But pushing this sort of thing onto someone who doesn't enjoy any aspect of it is silly. My daughter has 0 issues wearing a bun and a uniform and spending hours in a class working on head alignment. But this would be unpleasant for a decent proportion of the population!

Everyone here will tell you to let her quit. Don’t.

parents guide their children or give the option of balled or something else movement based. Learning perseverance and discipline is important it’s how you build any skill.

I agree, there is no point in pursuing any hobby or activity unless it is something you actually enjoy doing.

Agree. If we leave it solely to children to find their passion and show the perseverance and commitment to continue it to a level of excellence, well a vanishingly small number of people will become excellent at anything!

Especially giving growth of addictive tech filling children’s hours, fewer options to get inspired to become good at something (eg book reading, watching TV or films) and reduction in art and music classes in school.

I was forced to Judo. My parents sold to me under the guise of it being self defence. I was good at techniques but once you get to a certain grade, it is about the fighting. I did not want to hurt people and I did not want people hurting me.
I hated it and was berated for not progressing.
I was 13/14 at the time and made to lie on top of teen boys and grown men, and have them lie on top of me too in the form of Judo holds. I was not comfortable with that at all. And some of the teen boys thought it was funny and would dry hump me and groan.

Ballet is not for everyone.

It's not essential at all.

Are you living a life you didn't have through your daughter.. she's 5 leave her be

My dd did grade 1 and dropped it. I was pleased. They were already making comments about how nice it was they had to take her belt in compared to some of the other girls. I found it incredibly odd that they wouldn't let them rehearse in leggings but had to run around in essentially underwear.

She switched to street dance. It's so much better. No exams, no stupid hair, no leotards, they choreograph a lot themselves and just go for an hour and have fun.

There’s really no reason to be rude about ballet. Your daughter didn’t like it and likes something else. Great! I would never say ‘she’s doing stupid street dance’

It’s actually amazing when you find something your child really, truly loves. I’ve never liked anything as much as my daughter loves ballet. It’s magical when she dances. And she was like this from her first day at baby ballet when she was 4. If she hadn’t been, we would have kept looking.

I'm not being rude about ballet. Nowhere did I say it was stupid. The dance itself is lovely, why would I have enrolled her otherwise? The culture around the two dance schools she tried however was not.

Oh I did say the hair is stupid. Which it is. I definitely think overly tight buns are stupid.

She isn’t missing out on being a Prima ballerina op; a vanishingly tiny number of people ever get that far without a true passion which she clearly hasn’t got.

In any case, she’s already doing other dance. Grade 1 is so basic the skills are quite transferable from one style to another if she really does change her mind.

I think the problem here is you have pendulum-swung from not persisting with enough yourself as a child to overloading your DD. It’s a problem today that children are overloaded with structured activity and aren’t developing all the skills of creativity, self-entertainment and just good old fashioned play that nature intends every species to have. What would you say if you saw a playful puppy in full time structured training?

Let her choose one or two things SHE likes and say you would like her to stick with her choice until x grade/ period of time so she chooses carefully.

I think in fairness that poster had a point.

I did a lot of ballet and there comes a point in many dance schools where it can be quite a brutal thing. Ballet is unforgiving about proportion, shape, turnout, all sorts of things and we had loads of anorexia and self-image issues going on in our class. Some of the most diligent and committed just aren’t going to go far through no fault but of their own - and even if you do go far it’s a punishing career. It’s got to be a near obsession to be a long-term proposition, combined with a lot of good fortune in your genes.

So yes, it’s great for those it’s great for but it is important for parents to acknowledge the realities too . There’s nothing wrong with advising people to choose something a little more forgiving. Different if the child simply adores it: you support them and make plans for how you will handle their boobs growing cup sizes too large or their legs being too short after puberty. But op’s dd clearly doesn’t have that passion for it or she’d be begging to go.

I had the right shape and only an occasional love of it. It drove my teacher and a handful of the really diligent, committed ballerinas who worked very hard to distraction with frustration. But in the end I pointed out I simply lacked the necessary passion in the same way they equally and through no choice of their own lacked the physique. But few hobbies are as exacting in that sense. And there were a lot of very disappointed dancers in my group. One did in fact become professional. She was gifted on both fronts but it isn’t a career for the faint -hearted.

It’s a nice thing for little girls to bob about in pink tutus while they are very little, but it quickly takes on a different vibe unless you particularly choose a “ just for fun” school.

I agree. Beyond a certain point it has to come from them. And it will, if it’s their metier.