I cannot stand watching my child do dance /shows !

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Now I know what I put my parents through when I was a kid (which they also agree with ) and how mind numbingly boring it was for them to endure. My 12 year old regularly shows me dances /songs/ shows anything drama she's created with her self/ her siblings god it's so mind numbing to sit and entertain.
I know I'm being unreasonable but nope can't stand that part of parenting anyone else with me ?

Yep get it. I was the same. However, your post has just made me reminisce over this and made me realise I actually miss it. I haven’t actually noticed it had stopped. I’d love to go back and sit through a performance again

Haha same. Imaginary play is the worst. And pushing swings. I used to absolutely hate pushing swings 😆

My friends kids do this. God it’s tiresome.
Everyone claps and cheers like they’ve just performed on the west end 😅 I just about manage a smile and a clap.
Whenever they do it I am reminded why I didn’t want children. I’m not very good at pretending to enjoy their company, though I don’t think kids see it like that because they are always drawn to me. Maybe it’s like when people don’t like cats 😂

God, I'd forgotten I had string puppets! My parents did eventually beg me not to keep putting on shows for them.

I did like watching puppet shows as a child, but I think even I knew I lacked the dexterity. I had to make up very dull stories that only needed the puppets to walk around 😁

I was also strenuously discouraged from violin practice. I was terribly offended! The next door neighbours thanked me for giving it up ...

Oh god, I feel your pain OP. My kids don’t do this but both my sisters would (at every fucking opportunity) turn every family gathering into an opportunity for their kids to ‘perform’. Jesus Christ is was excruciating. No, we don’t want to spend half an hour of our lives watching your kids sing/dance (badly). NOBODY GIVES A FUCK!!!

You are entirely missing the point.

There is no 'disdain' for the arts here. In fact this thread is chock full of all the parents who paid for years of dance/stagecoach/music or whatever and soldiered on, going to support the shows, precisely because we do recognise the importance of arts.

But alongside that is the recognition that skill in the arts takes YEARS of hard work!

So come on, be realistic, as a general rule young children are still pretty shite at it and it's ok to acknowledge that! This thread is not full of parents who didn't bother going to the show. Your ire is misplaced.

Probably in theatre school, not wearing an Elsa dress and badly singing ‘let it go’ in your living room with their cousin on a Sunday afternoon 😆

But alongside that is the recognition that skill in the arts takes YEARS of hard work!

And not forgetting talent. Not every child is destined for the big (or small 😆) stage!

I hated the end of year shows and carol concerts I had to endure every year at my kids primary school. The nursery and reception nativity plays were cute but god I’m so glad he’s left primary now so I don’t have to endure any of those god awful shows

I have one who is a musician in several bands, and another doing theatre school. My own main "hobby" seems to be taking them around to rehearsals and then performances. I am going to miss it when they go to university.

My DSs primary school productions were a feat of endurance. There would be a handful of children carrying the story along, but then every class had to have a turn at dancing to a shoe-horned in pop song. And by dancing I mean a 5 second ‘step-step-clap-turn’ routine that was repeated for what seemed to be about half an hour. And we always had to provide elaborate costumes for it.

In contrast, once I’d perfected an outfit worthy of an arctic explorer, I really enjoyed the weekly rugby matches at a multitude of rugby clubs that all had their own Siberian steppes micro-climate.

If it's anything like the dancing dd is involved in, there's not a huge amount of skill involved. There's a lot of drifting about in pretty costumes, looking soulful. The occasional leap. Hours spent in leisure centres, for the bargain price of fifty odd quid a comp + spectator cost + booking fee.

I thought I would love pushing swings. Really thought how joyful it would be to push my child on a swing. Or with them on my lap flying high into the sky.
Nope hate it. Will barging to get out of it. Count it down. I don't even know why I hate it so much. But erg.

My dc’s horse ride and competition venues are always placed somewhere that inevitably has its own arctic weather system! I’ve now invested in heated things (socks,gilet, hand warmers) to get me through winter. There’s never a dull moment though so at least I’m not bored as well as cold and there is usually chips and cheese or bacon rolls available 😆

I misstepped and volunteered as a parent governor at the DC's secondary school. I now get a front row seat to watch every school production, dance recital and youth orchestra show for 4 years. There's usually 1-2 kids who are good at it and the rest are varying degrees of terrible. I am enthusiastic and clap and cheer and tell them how wonderful they are but it's dire.

Lol at 'the arts'!!!

This is little Lucy wafting round with her nightie on her head, banging into the coffee table wailing her head off.

Yes very nice dear.

Me and my sisters did unfortunately my parents captured it on film when camcorders were the rage in the early 90s 🤣🤣

<splutters about soupy ruining creativity>

No wonder the arts are not valued nowadays.

My sis and I were sent to dance school . I was quite good but poor sister was a fairy elephant. The dance teacher offered my mother a refund as my sister wasn't " suitable " . My mother refused as she said she had to bring her anyway so stick her up there at the back.

Anyone else have the gymkhana in the garden. Pretend horses trampling all the plants . And then tears when they fell . Probably because of the paper bag horse heads . No Amazon costumes then .

Or the "sales" outside on a table . Not much passing traffic in our cul de sac . And the elaborate plans about what we were going to do with all the money we raised . One memorable Saturday we smashed the pane of glass on the door trying to carry out the table ourselves .

Some muns were very enthusiastic viewers of school plays. One mum asked what I thought of Y3 offering . Told her I could barely bring myself to watch my own kids class never mind somebody else's. She was not impressed .

Lyrical?

At least it is better than contemporary, where it's all angst-ridden writhing about on the floor in grey rags.😂

Contemporary😄
"We're doing a new dance. It's about war. We all die at the end. "
"X has this great idea for a dance. We all get a disease and die. Except for one person, who floats off, cured. "
"Our new dance is about a journey to a new country, but then we get sick and die. "
"This one's about a relationship. I think she said it was romeo and juilet, or something...."

Oh the 'sales'...

We got a visit from a couple of police officers one time. We'd tied handwritten notices to the lampposts at the front of the street. (We lived in a block of terraced flats with gardens to the rear.)

The police ascertained that it was only a bunch of primary school bairns playing and left us to it.

Haha this has remined me of a time on holiday when I just could not understand why my mum was more interested in her book than watching me jump over the millionth wave of the day 😅

Year 4 ukulele assembly. 60 children with a ukulele each. Enough said, I’ll take home skits over that any day.

My mum sat through 9 end of year shows at primary school. Every year we did a concert with each class doing something different. My mum had to sit through 2 years of my brother, 5 years of us both and another 2 years of just me….my dad was always working back shift that week 🤔, my Primary 7 teacher said ‘Mrs xxxxx you deserve a medal!’ My mum just said ‘never setting foot in that bloody hall again is enough!’ Jokes on her though as that hall is her nearest polling station 😂