I started a thread a little while back about my recently turned 4 yr old wanting to start dancing. I found a lovely friendly class for him and he's having a great time so that's all good.
But I now have a dilemma - they're asking if he wants to do the show in a month or so. In principle he'd love it - he's been playing 'pantomimes' ever since he saw the local one, and he plays at curtains opening and closing, being on a stage etc. However the problem is that it would involve three evenings in a row:
- dress rehearsal finishing at 8pm or so
- 2 x performances where he would be on early but wouldn't be allowed to go home until 9pm at the earliest (this is the interval - I got the impression they'd rather he stays until the end of the show - presumably 10pm or so??
).
Normally he goes to bed by 7pm and nothing important has come up that has meant him staying up this late. However when he has stayed up a bit later he has never had a lie-in, just got up at the usual time but extra tired and grumpy. He is prone to emotional outbursts and sometimes hitting his brother when tired.
I've never been involved with anything like this for such little kids and it seems so so late to me so I don't know whether to just say no for this year. For him to do it would require some logistical juggling as we also have a baby, husband works late and we don't have local family so it's not completely simple to just have a try and see what happens. (That's without the cost of the costume/ticket etc). On the other hand if he does cope I think he'd really enjoy it.
Any experiences positive or negative of doing something similar with a 4 year old??