Last night, in the middle of dance practice at home, my daughter broke down in tears and told me she wanted to quit dancing. It's not the first time she's said something like that, but we haven't heard it since she was frustrated at having difficulty learning a new dance or new steps nearly two years ago. She'd not having any difficulty learning the dance they're working on now, so I don't think that's the cause of it. We are starting to work on her technique more than just knowing the steps, and that can be pretty hard work sometimes. Maybe that's it. I'm not sure though, and she's having difficult articulating what she's feeling and why she wants to quit dancing. She's always loved dancing...loved learning new dances/steps...loved competing...loved meeting new people and making new friends... It worries me a bit to have her come out with this out of the blue.

She has just turned 12 and is starting to go through those hormonal ups and downs so common to teenagers. Maybe that has something to do with it...or maybe not. I do know that she wants to do more than just dance, but we just can't afford multiple activities right now. We stuck with dance because that's what she's always loved the most.

I don't want her to just quit because of some frustration that she's not able to articulate to me right now, but I also don't want to force her to do something that she doesn't want to do. Forcing her to do something works just about as well as someone trying to force me to do something...it doesn't!

We had a long talk about it last night, and talked a little more about it this morning, but she was only able to express a general disatisfaction and state that she just doesn't want to dance any more. She says that "she knows how she feels inside, but she just can't explain it to me, or say why she feels it". I want to help her find the words to explain it, but I'm not sure how to go about that!

If she truly wants to quit dancing, then we'll move on and help her find something else that she loves, but I want her to be sure that that's what she really wants.

Does any of this make sense, or am I just rambling aimlessly? Any words of wisdom out there?

I'd talk to the teacher. "I want to quit, and I can't explain why." sounds REALLY fishy. Maybe she's fighting with the girls in her class, or maybe she's fighting with the teacher?

I never really thought about the possibility of conflict or difficulty in class. She's always been pretty open about those sort of things if they happen at school, so I guess I sort of assumed that she'd be the same about dance class. We have dance class tonight, so maybe I'll email the teacher and see if we can have a five minute meeting to see if anything different has been happening in class lately.

I do know that my DD sometimes feels like the odd-man out in class. There are only the three of them in the class, and the other two have been in class together for several years now. We only moved to this area this past summer, so she doesn't have the background with them that she had with the girls in her original dance class in Calgary. She does consider them friends though, and has never had issues before. She has also always said that she really liked her new teacher, even though her teaching style was a little bit different than what she was used to in Calgary. Mind you, just because there haven't been any issues up until now, doesn't mean that none of developed.

I have always had a firm policy with my kids. They will not quit ANYTHING in the middle of the year. I insist they finish what they start. If the next year, they don't want to keep doing the activity, then I let them make that decision, after much discussion.

Maybe just have her cut back for a year. She may just need more time to be a kid. 12 is pretty young to have been competing "for years". My daughter didn't start competing til she was almost that age. It's demanding for them and you are right, she needs to love it to keep it up at that level.

You also say she was practicing at home when she got upset. Maybe she doesn't need to practice at home while she is feeling like this. She might feel you are drilling her.

And you say that "we" are working more on her technique. Now, this is a hard fact, but when dancers get older, there comes a time for mom to start stepping aside. Dance is HER activity. (Yes, you've been a big part up to now. It's great that you've been involved. And you still need to be involved, just maybe not so much.) My daughter was 13 when she asked me to stay out of the dressing room the first time. Ouch! That stung! But it was what she wanted. That age thing, like you said. Maybe your daughter is beginning to feel those seperation pangs but can't tell you. (My daughter had no trouble at all telling me, lol! She was very firm. I was out!)

Try some different things before you let her throw in the towel. Maybe a few adjustments will make a difference. Encourage her and let her set the pace. I hope she doesn't give it up, if she truly does love dance.

kk~

When I was thirteen, I decided I wanted to quit dancing.

I'd done an eisteddfod where the adjudicator ripped many of the girls to shreds (including me) and just couldn't bounce back from it. My confidence was totally gone. All it took was one comment.

My mother was very sympathetic, but she would not let me quit. We eventually came to a compromise. I dropped down to one class a week (jazz) and changed schools to where the style taught was more current. The change suited me and gave me a new perspective. I grew to enjoy dancing again and in time, my confidence came back.

I did eventually take up all the styles I'd dropped and added more as well. Now I teach.

The moral of the story is that this age is a very traumatic time for a girl and it doesn't take much for things to go pear-shaped. I think it's important to find the root of the problem and then find a workable solution that makes both parties happy. Some compromise might be necessary. Dropping part of the commitment, but not all of it, may give your daughter the space she needs to reflect and adjust to this turbulent time.

Helen

Thank you for your comments and advice.

I spoke with her dance teacher last night, and there doesn't seem to be anything new or unusual going on at dance class. My daughter has confirmed this. In fact, she went to class feeling a bit down because of a rough day at school (she had a tiff with her best friend) and came out of dance class feeling bubbly and happy again. I honestly don't think it's the dancing that's the problem.

kandykane, my sister has a similar policy to you regarding her children and wanting to quit anything...they can quit when the year is up if that's what they want. We've found something that works even better with my daughter. If she wants to quit in the middle of something, then she has to pay me back the money that I'm out because of paying fees up front. She's a fairly money-wise kid and has better things in plan for the money she's saved...

We've talked it over and she'll be finishing out the competitions she's currently registered for and continuing her dance classes until those competitions are done. Our competition schedule this year has been less than in previous years, due to lack of funds and fewer competitions in our new area. It's possible that she still feels that it's too much this year, now that she's starting to want to socialize more. I have no problem cutting back on competitions, although I've never forced her to compete, and she's usually the one asking when the entries are coming out for the next competition, and trying to convince me that BC or Ontario are not THAT far away and so she wants to compete there as well. The competitions have always been the why behind her dance. On a side note...12 is definitely not young to be competing in Highland dance. Highland dancers generally start competing as young as 5 and some have made it to the premier level by the time they're 8 or 9. She started taking class when she was 8 and started competing when she was 9. I'll talk to her about competitions though and see if cutting back on those would help.

As for practicing at home, I only sit in on her practices when she asks me. I remind her that her teacher has asked to her practice at home at least twice a week, preferably three times, and let her choose the time and days that she practices. Usually at least once she asks me to sit in on her practice. We have no mirrors for her to dance in front of, so she can't see herself dance. Those practices are generally more intense than the ones that she doesn't ask me to sit in on, but we do discuss what she's going to be working on and what she wants me to be watching for. Because I can see whether she's getting the correct foot position (for example), sometimes we'll do the same step over and over again, but I ask her ifs he wants to set a total number of times to repeat the step or if she wants a set number of times to complete the step correctly before we move on or call it a night.

I'm more than willing to make adjustments and compromises. I really don't want her to just quit, because I know that she does really love dancing. I think I'll take Helen's advice and see if there's something else that she'd love to do. We may be able to find a low-cost or no-cost activity that she'd love to do on the side, just for the fun of it.

In the meantime, I'm going to keep talking to her and helping her sort out exactly what's behind her sudden desire to quit.

I'm a violinist, not a dancer, and I'm now old enough to have grandchildren and some grey hair. (My dance connection is that I play for a ballet orchestra among other groups.)

When I was 14, I got extremely ticked off at my school orchestra teacher. I had been the concertmaster and could play rings around anyone else in the orchestra, but this girl kept challenging me for the post (her privilege) and I kept playing rings around her, but our wimpy orchestra teacher always put it to a vote and with 18 girls and 2 guys in the section, I always lost. [Selecting a concertmaster should ALWAYS be done by the conductor.] So at the end of the year I quit...for two years. I didn't touch the instrument and I did other things in school.

In 11th grade, by an accident of the alphabet, my very first violin teacher from grade school, by now the high school orchestra director, was also my advisor and had to sign off on my senior year program (12th grade, last year of free public school in the US) and he challenged me to take the violin up again. In the intervening two years, I became more interested in the repertory through recordings at the library where I worked after school. So, I took up violin again, this time with a greater appreciation for what I was playing. Half-way through that year, this same instructor, also the conductor of our town's volunteer adult orchestra, invited me to play with that group. That was all I needed. I went away to college and though it was too late for me to consider a major in music, I played in the University Symphony and that conductor arranged for me to study (for free as part of my regular tuition fees)with a member of a world famous string quartet. Even after college, while employed full-time in a non-musical profession, I got to study with one of the three or four most famous teachers in the US at the time. Now that I am retired (I'm in my mid 60's) it is my violin which keeps me from vegetating as many of my retired confreres are doing. I play over 30 public concerts every year at the very highest levels short of full-time pro symphonies.

I likely would not have done that had someone forced me to do it when I was in late high school...I really had to do it for me at my own initiative.

Jon

I probably would have done the same thing in that situation Jon. And no one has ever successfully forced me to do something I didn't want to do. My daughter's pretty much the same in that respect, which is why I don't want to try to force her to keep dancing. I do, however, want her to be sure that she really wants to quit. I don't want her to look back and regret not dancing. I have a feeling there's more going on here beneath the surface than what she's telling me.

It could be just plain old burnout. You know? I clog, and I ADORE it, but sometimes you just need a break!

Cridh, (I have a 15 yr. old dancing daugher as well as a 9 yr. old actress daughter).
I wouldn't read to much into it. You will drive yourself nuts, doing so.

Chaconne has an interestng slant on things, though Chaconne doesn't mention who/what was the motivating factor that got her into music in the first place. Most talented kids that I know, have parents that are very involved with their child's lives. You should see this as a wonderful opportunity to learn and discovery your lives togeather. No matter who's advice you heed....there is no garuantee as to the outcome.

I can probably peel off 10 dance delimmas that I am currently having to face, concerning my dd, that would make your situation seem trivial. Then again, I know some parents of very talented and successful children, that deal with such delimmas on a daily basis. They become extremely skilled at it, as well as grow a thick skin. The better you get at resolving conflicts...the more it seems, come at you. It's the price one pays for awareness. The more intelligent one becomes, the more one finds themselves facing ignorance.

Anyway, no matter what you do, you will find life goes on. Often times, for the better. It's not such a bad thing that your daughter comes to realize that you won't always have all the answers. Togeather, I am sure you 2 will figure it out.
Good luck to you and your daughter.

^LOL...Chaconne (Jon) is a guy My motivation for becoming a violinist in the first place? Well in fifth grade (age 10) violin lessons were offered in our public school. I learned that the violin class was to be at the same time as Arithmetic class, on Fridays. Since I would do anything to get out of Miss Nelson's Arithmetic class (my weakest subject...I was otherwise a straight A student), I became a violinist! I've been sort of math challenged ever since even though I had four years of high school math (geometry, algebra I and II, trig, and beginning calculus.) I had Calculus through freshman college where I got a mercy "C" because I helped the instructor build a harpsichord. I only needed that five credit calculus class for my degree requirement. Aside from plugging in formulas I have used little math since then.

So what better motivation? My parents were supportive however. Mom had been a pretty decent pianist as a kid so there may have been some genetic disposition. She grew up in a better economic class than the one she married into and was pretty well of even in the Depression, plus these were the post WW II years when things were a bit austere, so we never had a piano in our home. Mom's great plan was for me to take two years of violin, the only instrument offered in grade school then (1952) and switch to band in 7th grade when band instruments started and "march in those cute uniforms". Talk about a stopper! However, I had a horrid orthodontia case...six years of braces...and the orthodontist insisted that the only wind or brass instrument I could play was the flute...the only one which did not directly touch the teeth or the lips compressed to the teeth. In 1954, no self-respecting boy played the flute, particularly since the girl who had been my sixth grade girlfriend, who had ditched me, also played the flute. [We howl with laughter about this when she and I see one another at high school class reunions.] I became a violinist (and a very good one) just because I would sit next to her in band. We were later good friends in high school, but no romance...I had a girlfriend who I later married and she ultimately married our high school concertmaster. Even playing violin was bad enough, but I was a pretty big kid, could take care of myself, and I beat the living pulp out of a kid who teased me once too often about being a sissy with his violin...a teasing he lived to regret. He did not know that I was also the starting fullback and linebacker on the football team. Ain't nobody gonna mess with me...and after that they never did. Word travels fast in Jr. High School (now called Middle School.)

Jon

Hi Jon, (though you didn't imply otherwise, barrefly is a guy as well).
I loved your story, but that isn't quite what I was asking.
Though, I think there may be something to learn from your story.

As a child, was music your passion? I can write a book about my daughter's dance....but it would not offer a clue to her passion about dance. Mainly because, I haven't a clue if she understands why she dances.

That is why I enjoyed your story. You did not seem to give me a clue about what motivated you in your music pursuit. If you asked my daughter, what motivates her to dance....and she didn't not b.s. you....she would give a similar reply. You gave anticdotes and experiences,...but that is all. Perhaps, there is hope that my daughter is like you, in that...."music is simply,...who you are/.what you do". Perhaps, dance is "who she is/what she does? Maybe we shouldn't get so deep about why/whether one does/loves somethng...I dunno. :>)

dancenet...enough with edit updates...
Jon, I just wanted to add...Melissa also studied music for a few years(alto saxophone). she seemed a natural at it due to her sight reading ablility and her near photographic memory. She still has her "made in Paris, Selmer. If she was still playing, I would be enjoying the pleasure of her playing Coltrane and Getz. :>) However, seeing her dance gives me as much satisfaction.

^I guess I had an appreciation for music somewhat beyond the normal for the era for a kid my age. As I mentioned, mom had a lot of piano and I would hear her play when we visited her parents. In kindergarten age we had a phonograph and I knew Peter and the Wolf by heart and could name all the Strauss Waltzes on a particular 78 rpm recording I had. But that was the extent of our recordings at home. My father, then a manager of a Singer Sewing Center had a salesman who was a violinist (and also a musical saw virtuoso ) and when I was in 1st or 2nd grade we went to a civic orchestra concert he was in which made a big impression on me. I remember particularly the Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker. [I have since play over 40 full lenght performance of the Nutcracker with a ballet company]. In 3rd grade I had a regular class room teacher who let us listen to a 1/2 hour weekly program of classical music for kids. I think most of the kids in the class were indifferent about this, but I was rather entralled with it. Many pieces I subsequently played myself were first heard on this program, an offering of the Wisconsin State Public Broadcasting network. (I particularly remember the "Intermezzo from Carmen" but didn't know the name until I actually heard the opera when I was in high school.) Unlike most kids I also had a 3rd and 4th grade music teacher who taught us elementary solfeggio (that is singing the notes just like in "Do a Deer" from "Sound of Music." I was also a choirboy in the church choir of a sizable church. A fellow choirboy is today the tuba player in the famed Canadian Brass. His father was our music director. A major influence was the availability of classical recording at the public library where I worked after school in high school. I got to them before they were circulated to the public and this was right at the time my parents bought a decent hi-fi system (not yet stereo.) When stereo came out in 1958, I build the first stereo system in my town from two amplifier kits (I was a licensed radio amateur by then and knew electronics and I had built several radios as a teen.)

So, I would say that the influences were all in place when I was offered the chance to study violin, first in school class for two years, and then by private tuition. As I lived in a fairly small (30,000) rather remote Wisconsin town, I could not receive first class instruction until I went to the State University in Madison where I had the good fortune of studying with a violinist of the world famous Pro Arte String Quartet. That was what really made me a violinist. I later studied with another renown teacher and concert artist when I moved to the Washington DC area after college.

So this was all a combination of some desire and a lot of luck and being in the right places at the right times.

Jon

Well...after an hour long conference with her dance teacher last night (as opposed to the 5 minute chat earlier this week) we have some new insight into the whole big broohaha. It appears that her current teacher ran into her previous teacher at the competition in Kelowna, and they also had a nice long talk about my daughter, and her teacher had been wanting a chance to talk to me about it. So when I asked her if we could talk more (I wanted to tell her about DD's decision that she's going to stop dancing before DD decided to announce it to the world), she went out of her way to make a time when we'd all be available.

The conclusion her teachers had come to (without knowing about DD's decision) was that DD just isn't being challenged enough. Although she's had her points in the past where she really struggled with learning new steps, she's fairly past that now and tends to pick things up like a sponge, being able to consistently repeat a newly learned step after only a couple times going through it. This is a distinct contrast with the other two girls in her class who both have some very excellent technique (better than DD in most cases actually) but aren't yet consistent with picking up and repeating the steps.

I've heard many many times the comment "We had to do the fling FIVE times tonight because xx and xx kept making mistakes!". Our general reply has usually been something along the line of "Well everyone makes mistakes, and look at it like it gives you extra time to work on the technique, not just the step". Then the next home practice, she'd work on her known dances, particularily the "core" dances - fling, sword, and ST... I asked her last night how many times she danced the fling last week. She pulled out her practice book and counted all the ones she did in practice, and added an average of three per class, and she'd done more than 12 flings in one week! No wonder she was getting bored of it!

Anyway, the ultimate shake down is that we're going to completely change how DD practices at home. Her teacher is going to give her a specific technique item to work on each week, and she'll do work on that for part of her practice, while the rest of her practice will be dancing ONLY her newest three or four dances. She'll also keep working on the stretching and strengthening exercises that she's been doing since those will help her with her three biggest weaknesses in her dancing. Providing that her teacher seems some improvement in DD's technique, they may then start working on the premier level dances in private lessons.

The end result? DD is absolutely stoked at the thought of learning new dances. She's thrilled that she won't be expected to do the "same old dances all the time" during home practices and has vowed that she will work diligently on the stretching and strengthening exercises in particular since those will help her technique in all of her dances. Her teacher is happy that she finally has a little insight into what makes DD tick (DD needs structure, firmness, and high expectations that she can aim for. Nothing makes her happier than giving her a list that she can tick off as she completes things). I'm happy that the situation appears to be resolved, and more than a little bit bemused by how boredom and lack of challenge led to an emotional breakdown and a desire to quit...but then, as much as my daughter is like me, she's also very different from me! Ah well, as much as I'd like to understand her all the time, my primary job as a mother is to love her no matter what, and she knows that.

Cridh, "fling" "sword" dance...Highland Dance...ah ha. The best of luck to the both of you.

Chaconne, I was going to write a long post...but decided that I am better off just contemplating on your auto-biography.
It seems like you have lived a blessed life.
I only hope my children could experience life in a way that you have.
Charles
P.S...my daughter has performed in 3 "nutcrackers". She has danced in the "Waltz of the Flowers" as well. Now, she's doing mostly partnered dancing.