Letting Your Kids Just Be
This week I took Bliss off to our first mummy-and-me dance class. We sat in on a class last year and Bliss loved it. She couldn’t wait to join in and I was so proud of her happy twirling as she looked on from the back of the class.
Given this, and her general love of music and movement I was really excited about getting started, sure she was going to love it!
I was wrong.
The minute we walked into the room she shrunk. If you’ve met my daughter, or readabout her enough here, you’ll know that she doesn’t often shrink.
First she wouldn’t get out of the pram and then when she did she clung to me, demanding to be held for almost the entire class. The one time she relaxed a bit was when we played with the ribbon wands.
I was OK with this. New environments can be overwhelming especially when you feel certain things are expected of you and you don’t know what those things are. There wasn’t anything expected of course, not even that she would participate. The only person who expected participation was me and I got over that pretty quickly, especially when I realised it wasn’t going to happen without a fight. Or with a fight. And really, what’s the point in fighting over it? This is supposed to be a fun thing for us to do together and if she hates it, then hey, we can just dance around our living room together!
But, there was a time I would have been full of excuses for her and would have spoken them in front of her. “She’s not normally like this.” “She’s really confident, I don’t know what’s wrong with her today.”
And I did almost do it again.
There was another Mum there with her daughter, much the same age as Bliss. She had started dancing last term and the mother gushed about how she had jumped right in with both feet, while the teacher laughed graciously over how this little girl had taken over the Christmas concert with her impromptu moves. A gentle but enthusiastic little girl she launched herself right into this class and her mother beamed.
I recognised that mother.
And in an instant, I felt those excuses rise.
Mercifully, I faltered.
Bliss doesn’t have to love every new experience; goodness knows I didn’t as a kid and as loud as I am, I can be shy too. Maybe she will warm up to these classes and maybe she won’t. Upon reflection, my girl is a high-energy kid and maybe soccer or karate is a better fit for her than ballet? Maybe we should try a less structrued form of dancing? Maybe, maybe, maybe…
For now, I’m just going to let her be the little girl she is and keep my big trap shut when it comes to making excuses.
*Megan wrote a great post along these lines recently and to save me saying the very same thing she said I’m just going to suggest you check out her post, Why do we label our children? with a hearty Amen!
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Couldn’t agree more!
My two boys recently started karate classes and while the 8 yo got into it all with gusto, Mr 4 promptly came off the mat as the lesson started. So I let him be, apart from a couple of questions of “do you want to start now?”. At the same time I didn’t “baby” him, but had him sit on the floor rather than on my lap. So I kind of ignored him.
At the next class he participated in some of the exercises, but still came to sit with me when he felt uncomfortable. It took him probably 5 classes to stay on the mat for the duration of the class, even if he didn’t participate in all the exercises.
It’s been about 4 weeks now and he’s fine, he still sits out some of the things he doesn’t like doing, but he stays on the mat and the teachers are really excellent at balancing the “letting him be” and encouraging him to get involved.
It’s great that you’ve noticed this about yourself and are letting your girl work things out for herself. She’ll be ready when she’s ready….
That sounds like a really great strategy. We all take different amounts of time to warm up and I’m just so glad that that is more understood than when I/we were kids.
Love it. We come to expect and anticipate our children’s reactions to things, but they don’t always act that way. I love that you highlighted that phrase: “I don’t know what’s WRONG with her today”. It’s a reminder that as well as labels, there are some things that shouldn’t be said about our kids.
We all need to be reminded of that at times.
Thanks for the link too. :)
Megan @ Writing Out Loud recently posted..What do you love about parenting
So true! Even when we know it, we have to remind ourselves/be reminded of it!
Very interesting. I’m sure I’ve heard myself make similar excuses in the past. Thanks for making me think :)
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No worries Caz :)
One week my 3yo loves swimming lessons, and the next he refuses to go in. Point blank. There is no point forcing him as it will just end in tears and a disastrous lesson. I sigh, give him a cuddle and take him away. And I just smile at the other parents. I don’t need to make an excuse – it’s been the same bunch for about a year now, and we’ve all seen each other’s kids do the same thing. But your right, you should never need to make an excuse if your child is in a situation they don’t want to be in. Let them be.
Thanks Melissa. It’s right, we need to give each other more credit as parents because we’ve all found ourselves in that situation at some point, or if we haven’t yet then it’s only a matter of time!
Great post. It’s good to be reminded of these things so that, hopefully, next time when excuses rise I can swollow them.
Well, done, Louisa!
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Thanks Becky, you’re so encouraging!
Really helpful post. I’ve been guilty of making excuses. For me they have a lot to do with my embarassment as a parent (what will people think of me given how my daughter is behaving?!!) and not much to do with making the situation better for her.
Lately I’ve been focussing on talking about what she needs (eg. Emily just needs a little bit of space) rather than labelling (she’s shy), excusing (she’s not usually like this!) or apologising for her.
Hi Tash, gosh I think that’s a really common experience. It takes a lot of resolve and thoughtfulness to ignore the stares and opinions of others. I really like the suggestions you gave about what to focus on, that’s really helfpul.
Good on you, Louisa! So GOOD! This is such a hard thing to do but I think it’s one of the most important things we can do as parents. ESPECIALLY if our children can hear us making those silly excuses for them.
No, it’s great that she wasn’t feeling up for it and you let her go with that. I’m very impressed and I am sure she is grateful. x
Hi Maxabella, thank you for your lovely comment. It really is lovely to get it “right” given how often that’s not the case and I really appreciate your encouragement :)
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good post. there are moments when I say the ‘I don’t know what it IS today’ more for the benefits of others, just to make sure they don’t think he’s always .. like this (shyness is NOT the problem, never was) but I am trying to control that, too. It does not matter when your child doesn’t really ‘perform’ the way you initially expected or otherwise hoped for. sometimes it’s just their way to deal with the new experience (or 10 000 other things might have influenced it badly that.one.day) so you’re right to give it a few more goes. and let it be when it’s just not for her. :)
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That’s a good point, I’m possibly oversensitive about what I say in front of her, and how what I say about her might influence the opinons others form…every day is quite different from the other! I guess I’ll see what comes from Tuesday… :)
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I so agree. I used to take my first child, when she was 2 and up, to physie dance classes. She was so happy, she’d just run around and nearly smack into everyone. Very rarely did she attempt an actual dance move.
I was cool with this, the teacher was cool with this. (Except the nearly smacking into everyone part). There was one mum who used to belt her kids, yelling, ‘you go over there, you stamp your feet and clap your hands!’ If they didn’t do it ‘good enough’, she’d follow them around, moving their arms and legs for them. I’m talking about her two year old daughter and her 6 year old one.
She used to enjoy commenting loudly at how ‘naughty’ and ‘untalented’ my child was, I used to just laugh in her face.
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Great post! Children never do what we expect them to do. It’s in the rules or something. But often what they do end up doing is far more interesting.
Thanks for Rewinding at the Fibro.
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So true. Too often, I hear the words ‘he’s not normally like that. He must be tired. He’s been a bit sick…etc etc” come out of my mouth. Maybe he IS normally like that but I am ignoring it. Great post. Will think twice about making any sort of excuses for ME and my mothering, because ultimately that’s whose butt the excuses are covering. Nothing to do with the kids – you’re right…they just want to be.
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I hadn’t even noticed that I sometimes say the same and I don’t want to. Good reminder. Thank you!
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It’s amazing how much just slips through totally unnoticed hey :)
Oh so true! But don’t write her off the dance completely – I famously quit ballet at age 4 (and took it up again at 13 to be come professional!) am so glad my mum let me leave in my huff – counted her losses and desire for a pink shoed baby ballerina and moved on. I really believe kids know what interests them (or not) in terms of activities – one son would play soccer every day of the week, and the other “just wants a peaceful morning” on the weekend and has never done an extra-curricular activity (and we have managed to shrug off the pressure for him to ‘do’ something.)
Great post – glad i stopped by from the Pink Fibro.
Hey! I’ve gone ahead and bookmarked http://www.everythingisedible.com/blog/parenting-2/letting-your-kids-just-be on Stumble so my friends can see it too. I just used Letting Your Kids Just Be » Everything is Edible as the title in my bookmark, as I figured if it’s good enough for you to title your blog post that, then you probably would like to see it bookmarked the same way.
I think back at all the times I have made these same excuses without meaning too – they just fall out of my mouth… And it’s all about making excuses AT other people rather than FOR her if you know what I mean. I think I have belatededly found my new years resolution!
With regards to the dance class, I’s give her a few weeks. Miss E started tiny tots dance class last year and all of the bubbas at one stage or another would want to cling with Mummy and have her hold their hand while they danced. Then the next week they’d be all out there! I was just about ready to pull Miss E and try gymnastics or something (as she’d just run around like a thing possessed for most of the class) but then the next week it clicked and she’s been addicted since…
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