M demonstrates "eleve"

Here we see the disastrous results of my trying to put rag curls in M's hair

M and her friend show off their fancy duds:

When I signed M up for a dance class for three year olds, I had some loose expectations: she would dance and wiggle a lot, she would make a lot of noise in her tap shoes, and she would have a great time.  In my research on dance classes, I found that a lot of studios charged a "registration fee" before one could even sign up.  That should have been a clue for me-- these studios see it as a honor for my daughter to take dance classes from them.  Apparently, it's not like any other service or educational activity in which I pay for the teacher's time, and they teach my child something I can't (or at least, didn't) teach. 

This year she did both dance (ballet and tap) and choir.  Both were geared toward 3-4 year olds, both classes last one hour per week.  She "practiced" both at home almost daily.  But other than those similarities, the two classes were vastly different experiences.

Choir was a blast: M looked forward to it every week, eagerly running into the rehearsal without a look back at me.  Perhaps once or twice she had to be drawn back into the group when her exuberance carried her away (she is very... energetic, let's say), but it was an entirely great experience culminating in many fully optional performances: one for the parents & families in a church, the others in multiple nursing homes and senior centers.  The costume fee was included in the registration fee. 

Dance was not a blast.  At first, she went to class willingly, but there was a lot of talking instead of dancing.  During the talking, M would dance, be reprimanded and occasionally sent into time-out.  After the time-outs piled up, I finally talked to the teacher. who told me she didn't know what was wrong with M. 

I should have taken that as a hint to quit, but instead I used this as an opportunity to teach the kids that when we make a commitment (e.g. to be in dance class) we will stick it out.  As time went on, there was a costume fee ($45!), the tickets for the recital, and then all the extras that were encouraged but not required (we skipped them all): the DVD, the after-show flowers, the performance T-shirt...

M finished the year, and ended on a good note (no thanks to me and my bad attitude, which I'm sure you can hear in this post.)  We're going to do a different dance class next year-- one with no registration fee?-- one that encourages dancing... even exuberant dancing.  And I think M will probably want to do choir again, too.

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Posted by lexi

Ohhh this sooo sounds like our horrible ballet experience this past semester. A $40 costume that was horribly ugly and ill-fitting and a disorganized teacher who let the recital rehearsals become so disastrous that my daughter was driven to tears. I volunteered to help backstage during the rehearsals and recital and man was I in for a reality check. The other children were soooooo disobedient and all had sassy little mouths. Then the moms of those children would come backstage to yell at the volunteer mom because their daughter didn't go on stage at the right time. (Maybe because mouthy disobedient child would NOT listen and go on stage when told............that would be a parenting problem, not my problem!) I gave up and called the dress rehearsal her "recital" because I couldn't take it anymore! I had a terrible attitude about the whole thing and will never do that dance studio again. I learned my lesson. Awful!!!! Dance should be fun!

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