Should I let my daughter quit dance?
My almost 4 year old daughter has been taking a dance class since she was 2. This dance school is absolutely amazing. She has always loved the classes and the teachers. At the end of last year with the final performance, she was pretty intimidated and had a hard time, but she really worked through it. Now suddenly she wants to quit. I have a couple of theories as to why she might be done with it, but basically, she'd done. I took her to class yesterday and she just screwed around, so I suggested that the teacher kick her out of class. Instead of being sad or disappointed, she was as pleased as could be. I'm stuck and can't figure out how to navigate through this...? If she quits, am I teaching her to quit when things get hard or scary? Or should I let her quit, because maybe this isn't her thing and she's not even 4?
i guess I would let her take the year off. You can always revisit the issue next year. Who knows, maybe she'll miss it? In the meantime, you could try to find another group activity for her to participate in. Or, if it's an option, make her do 2 more months of it and if it hasn't resparked her interest, let it go.
I think there are some things that kids have to be forced to work through and other things that they should be forced to try but allowed to give up. Dance or theater or guitar lessons or the soccer team are all in Category 2, while school and social development are in Category 1. Dance might not be her thing anymore, or she might just be sick of it for now and if you don't make it an unpleasant issue, she might happily return to it in the future.
My son is into rockclimbing. Totally in to it in that this year he is asking santa for a rope, harness and chalk bag. He's been doing this for 9 months now. When the time comes that he decides he no longer wants to climb, I will probably make him finish the session that has been paid for (instilling responsibility) and then drop it after that. We tell him that if we are going to sign him up for something, he has to commit to it for the full time but doesn't have to do it again after that. So far, baseball and soccer have been tried and dropped but we are still skiing and rockclimbing. Good luck.
I just feel that the "quitting" lesson wouldn't even be really understood by a 4er. At that age their minds are so rightly focused on fun and the exciting changing world around them that it would be surprising for her to have a focused discipline. If it's no longer fun, its no longer fun, let her move on and be who she wants to be.
my daughter is 12 and an amazing dancer she started when she was 6. i think at 4 yrs it isnt really a worry, you can always pick it up again at maybe 6 -7 yrs when she is ready to take it more seriously. let her have lots of fun because dancing can get very intense as they get older.
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