Each of our children (except Evan) has their own activities. Tommy has horseback riding and D&D. Sarah has Girl Scouts, Student Council and art club. Noah has Boy Scouts, karate and chess club. Amy has umm, well I guess she has nothing since preschool ended this week. I’ll have to find an activity for her. She loves dancing so maybe we should try that. Then again, maybe not. Sarah has a good, no, great friend who has been in dancing for years. This girl is smart (straight A’s), funny, cheerful and just an incredibly wonderful child who could move in our house and join our family. I really like this girl. This year she was not allowed to go ‘en pointe’ in dance class because of her size. Because of this, she has decided that this is her last year in dance class. This girl is a shining star and I feel terrible for her. I know another girl who has been in dance classes forever. She had the same body size issues as Sarah’s good friend. She spent last summer taking prescription medication to lose weight so that she could be en pointe this year. These are not obese teens. These are awkward, growing, changing, 12 and 13 year old children. Instead of sounding like fun, dancing sounds as judgemental and cruel as beauty pageants and cheerleading. Noah has already declared that he is going to teach Evan karate. Maybe he should teach Amy first.
Who’s telling her she can’t go “en pointe”? Her parents? Her teacher? Her doctor? I’m assuming one of those. I’m not all that familiar with ballet, but surely there are other avenues of dance she can continue to pursue… that should be her encouragement. Give her body time to catch up to her age and meanwhile keep dancing – however. Maybe she can hiatus from ballet from a while and take modern, or tap, or even ballroom.
There’s a lot out there – and once it’s done her size doesn’t even need to be brought up.
That just stinks. We’re in Polish dance, and … well… we Polish women aren’t small to begin with (well, most of us aren’t). We aren’t a “professional group” but we accept everyone, regardless of their abilities, ethnicity, body size, etc. If you can’t do the jumpy/spinning dances, you do the more gentle ones only. It’s all about participation, not exclusion. I really feel bad for Amy’s friend.
Is Amy interested in Karate? We’re in Taekwondo, and while Kate (almost 9) and myself are in it, the almost 6 year old doesn’t have that level of excitement, so we never put her in. We’re just waiting for swimming lessons to start up here! She’s loving the swimming.