The way you work with their teachers and artistic director affects your child. If you’re the mom who sits in the waiting area for hours and comments on what the kids are doing or how the kids are dancing, teachers take note of that and they won’t want to work with your child. You cannot stay there for hours and hours! Drop off your child and leave. We are not a preschool. Being too close to the other parents won’t help either! Focus on your child. This is why professional ballet schools don’t allow parents to watch.

In my dancing days, there was this mother who was always there watching all the classes of her daughter. If her daughter was there for 8 hours, the mom was there. Her defense was because she wanted to watch over and be able to see what her daughter did wrong to give her corrections when she got home and to rehearse her daughter when they got home. She stayed there for hours and hours, day after day. It came to a point where she would teach the parents how to dance and tell them right from wrong.

The studio owner got sick of it and said that she had to leave the studio and that no matter how many hours she stayed outside to watch her child, she would never know about dance. They left and tried to find another school but her daughter just wouldn’t dance with another teacher and only wanted to dance with her old teacher.

Leave the studio! Drop off and leave. There are more useful things to do. Do household chores, work from home, and enjoy a relaxing day at the spa. You don’t need to stay there and watch over your child every session. You are just a distraction to your child and the teacher. Are you allowed to stay outside of the classroom of your child at school? No. So it’s the same in the dance studio. Your being there causes drama. Let your child dance. Let the teacher teach. And you get to take a break from being a parent and just have fun. Click here to read about Dancing Through Adversity: Embracing Online Classes Amidst the Pandemic.

Another important point related to the afore-mentioned matter is given below which must be taken into extreme focus.

YOU WILL NOT SUCCEED IN BALLET IF YOU ARE ALWAYS ABSENT

Ballet needs regular attendance and commitment. You may have the potential to be a great ballerina but if you always miss class, you will not succeed. Like any other sport, commitment and regular training is a must to be a pro athlete. Ballet is muscle memory, if you don’t train often, how do you expect to be a great ballerina and go pro? Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. That’s what ballet is all about. You may even notice that when you miss even just one class, you will lose all the techniques you worked for the day before. That’s just how ballet is!

If dancers aim to become professional dancers, you will have to sacrifice a lot of things. Winning doesn’t happen overnight! Dancers pursuing a career in ballet, lose their childhood. They are always in the studio dancing and training. But if you ask them if they’re happy, they say yes because to them ballet is their heaven. It doesn’t matter if they’re in the studio for 10-12 hours a day, they are happy and content with what they do. Do not stop them from doing what they love! Let them dance and have fun.

A dancer’s career is only limited. It’s not a long-term career. Most retire when they’re 18 when they choose to go to college or until their body lets them. Let them enjoy it while they can! Sure, there are ups and downs in ballet. Off days as we call it and sometimes we might cry our eyes out when we get home. But do not tell them to quit. Boost their morale…as every day is a new day.

YOUR ATTITUDE MATTERS

If you are uncoachable, you will not succeed in anything. Your teacher knows what is right and what is wrong. That is why they became teachers in the first place. As a dancer, you need to allow your teacher to teach you. Listen to corrections and absorb them! You cannot be the pouty kid, the know-it-all or the lazy kid in class. It is disrespectful to have your eyes rolling. Ballet is all about discipline and hard work. If you want fun and games, then go to a daycare centre. Dance studios are NOT after-school care!

PARENTS, don’t try to be the coach. Be the parent, watch and just support. You cannot be coaching or teaching on the side. You enrolled your child to the dance school you chose for a reason and that’s because you trust their teachers.