Hi, all. I am a single mother of 2. One boy(13) and a girl who is 5. I have been raising my daughether on my own since her birth. My mother comes and helps from time to time, boy goes to his father too, but she has always been with me. She goes to dance classes and I think she really is talented. She put ballet videos and she dances all day long. Her teacher had a dancing contest and she decided that my girl will only attend 1 dance, although her dance classes colleagues had 2 dances. She said she is not prepared for the 2nd dance. I went to this contest with high hopes. She performed the first dance ok, but after the dance was over the rest of the girls went to change for the next show and she came to me. She seemed happy. I hugged her, kissed her and told her was great. But she started crying. I don't understand why, but she cried for the rest of the show. She didn't even want to take a picture. All of the girls were happy, smiling, she was the only one crying. I felt emberessed. I raised my voice to tell her to stop and it just felt like all the people around me were looking at us. What was supposed to be great day, was a disaster. And not because of the dance. I wouldn't have been upset if she didn't perform well, but she did. I was upset about her attitude that I cannot understand. I had an awful day afterwards and coulnd't stop crying. I argued with her, told things I shouldn't, but I was just so dissapointed about everything. I still am. Maybe I had too high hopes, maybe I put all my happiness in my kids, I don't know. I haven't been well lately, anxiety and depression started to sneak in, but I took vitamins and started to feel better. And now this happened and I am down again. I had moments when I felt I hate her for ruining the moment, the day...I could not understand her behaviour. I just wanted for us to have a good time, but it was nothing like that. Now I don't know what to do. Shoul I tell her teacher she was upset msybe because she didn't take part in the 2nd part? I really don't know if I should take her to dance classes. There is a lot of time and money investment. And I don't know if it is worth it. I know I shouldn't take it personally, but I just feel she should have behaved better. And it's killing me she is like this. She doesn't seem to bond with anyone from the dance classes. And also from kindergarden. I think she is shy and maybe she doesn't get friends with other girls so easy. Also she is very attached to me. Do you think that maybe there is a problem with her? Thank you for any advice.
It can be so hard when we expect our children to feel one way about something and they feel another way, especially when we don’t understand what they are feeling. I don’t know what upset your daughter either, but my guess is she was picking up on your disappointment that she wasn’t able to dance in the second dance. You mention a few times how close you both are, which is great, but kids can be amazingly in tune with parent feelings, and unfortunately, getting angry with her, embarrassed by her, and crying all day, wasn’t helpful to her if your goal is to help her manage disappointment better. You are her role model for what to do when disappointed.
I know you know that, and don’t mean to be critical, just want to offer you some ideas for managing these situations better. First, give up on any idea that she has to be a great dancer in order to participate in dance classes and have fun. How good she is at the age of 5 is really irrelevant to whether she should continue as long as she is having fun. It sounds like she was happy at first after the dance, but then something changed. Did she notice she was the only one not in the second dance? I have to question why a teacher would do that to only one child, so maybe it would be worth finding a class or activity that is more inclusive no matter the skill? But I also think if you were fine with the situation she would have been fine too. Whatever it was, it would have been better to say, “sweetheart, what is making you sad, can you tell me?” If she can’t tell you, just sympathize, “I’m sorry you’re sad”, and ask her how you can help. Does she need a hug? If she feels understood, she is more likely to calm down more quickly. But, if she can’t calm down, you can always just remove her from the situation and reflect on it later. It’s always a bad idea to yell at a child who is already upset, and while I don’t think you should worry so much about what other people think (every parent has been in a similar situation), I also can imagine people were looking at you more because of your reaction than her crying.
You mentioned a couple of other worries that are worth thinking about. If your happiness is dependent on your kids, that is a problem, so make sure you are taking care of yourself. Being a single mom isn’t easy, are you getting the support you need and enjoying your own work and social life, or is all your time devoted to your kids? If you are experiencing anxiety and depression I would strongly recommend therapy. Even if vitamins help you feel better, therapy will help you sort out your concerns and take better care of yourself so you can take good care of your kids.
It’s hard to know if there’s a problem with your daughter. Some children are introverted and will need a little more support to connect with children they meet in a group setting like school or dance class. Have you connected with other parents at school or dance class? Your daughter might need to build her social confidence and might need more help to do this. Talk to her teachers who can give you a better idea of whether there is a problem. Also talk to them to see if there are any children who might be a good match for a play date, and then speak with a parent to arrange something. Many children do better one on one than in a group. If you think there is a problem, reach out to the school social worker who might be able to provide some help to your daughter.
So, you spent all day crying and depressed because your daughter was crying and depressed?
And you’re disappointed in HER?
It’s a child’s responsibility to make sure that you are happy and fulfilled and having a good time?
You hate her for ruining your day?
I hope this is a troll post, because this is horrifying.
If it’s real, remember that you’re an adult and in charge of your own emotions and reactions. If you rely on your kids to provide you with emotional comfort and ballast, and hate them when they behave like immature beings who have not yet learned to respond with grace and perfection 100% of the time, you’re ruining their psyches and their potential.
If you have one iota of good parenting in your soul, stop placing this terrible burden on your poor daughter.
Disgustedly,
Suz
You’ve posted before about your stress, anxiety and depression, and about extricating yourself from an abusive marriage. I think you’ve been through so much that you are looking for something, anything, to show you that you’re a good mom and that you have healthy kids. You even posted about jumping into a marriage with a man you just met.
So, in this case, you’ve given your five-year-old a job, the job of being happy and making you happy, and of finding a talent. The purpose of dance classes for young kids is not to compare them to other kids (who can be in 2 dances vs. 1) or to weed out who’s going to be on Dancing With The Stars in 20 years, but to give them some exercise and some exposure to the arts. So, maybe your child isn’t yet ready for the structure, maybe the noise and commotion of these shows and an audience was overwhelming, or maybe the costume was itchy. Maybe she picked up tension from how invested you were in the performance.
Whatever the cause, your response to an overwhelmed child was to yell at her and be embarrassed, to focus more on other adults around you than on your child who needed a break from the commotion. Then you spent the next day crying.
You’re focused on the wrong thing, and you want your child to make you feel better. No child should have a job to make a parent less depressed.
It’s nice you’re taking vitamins, but they don’t cure depression and anxiety. Prior responses to earlier posts have urged you to get a counselor.
You don’t need to invest another dime in dance or anything else at this point. Your child will benefit from being outside running around the yard or the park with a friend - not an organized activity, just play. She will benefit from having fun in the kitchen with you, organizing the plastic leftover containers or stirring the tuna salad or putting napkins at the place settings - note my emphasis on fun.
She is in pain because you’re looking for photographic evidence that you’re a good mom and you’re focused on other people’s looks - but you don’t consider that they best thing would have been to remove an overstressed and overstimulated child from an upsetting situation rather than trying to talk her out of it.
Please let her be a child. And find professional help to support your own journey.
What does your therapist say?
If you don’t have one - get one.
Vitamins are all good and well, but messed up brain chemistry needs more than vitamins to get the balance right again.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being on an antidepressant for as long as you need it.
I don’t think your daughter has a problem yet, but she’s going to have problems if you don’t take care of your own problem first.
Be the adult - get the help you need.
She is only 5! Kids this age can take things personally and don’t know how to express their feelings in many ways. She felt frustrated and disappointed that all the kids were going to be in a second number and she wasn’t chosen for it. She felt excluded, and you yelled at her, that’s sad. She looked to you for support, and you denied her that support and shot down the fact she was showing emotion. She was expressing to you her emotions about feeling excluded and wanting sympathy. For her, it may be crying, for you, it may be not wanting to go back to those dance classes if they’re going to exclude no one else in the entire class but you or wanting to confront a teacher that excludes you from an event. You don’t want her to end up bottling up her feelings and keeping them bottled up or finding someone else to vent to who may be the wrong person, but this may end up occurring if you keep responding to her frustration by yelling.
You should have just gotten up with her when this started happening and taken her home. Remove her from the situation, then you could have spoken to her about how great she did in the first dance and how maybe they will have her in another performance in the future and maybe encourage her to work more on her skills. You should tell her you empathize with her feeling frustrated, give her a hug, find something else to focus on like making brownies together, and then let it go. Yelling at her in front of strangers for an extended period of time not only embarrassed her, but you. You are putting so much pressure on such a young child to be perfect, it’s obviously something she has picked up on and she is crying because she feels she disappointed you. Do you now see how wrong it was to yell at her? If you want to find another dance studio, fine, but there’s nothing wrong with her being involved in a hobby like dancing and having fun with it. See it for that, a hobby, a way for her to be active, and have fun.
I remember my ex-MIL taking my child to a piano class where all the kids were amazing, playing Chopin etc., she was around your daughter’s age. She felt she wasn’t good enough compared to those kids and thought they’d laugh at her so she stormed out of the place. I told her that everyone’s skills and abilities are different. She watched some of these amazing kids on YouTube and learned they’d put in up to 4 hours a day of practice and said she was not going to do that, but at least now understood why they were so great (and she could be just as good if she also put in 4 hours of practice a day). I told her these kids are planning to make a career out of it, hence their dedication. She brought up the incident last year, at the age of 17 and admitted she was insecure and jealous and found her reaction now to be silly, but that came with time. We didn’t dwell on her decision to be upset or anything, we shrugged our shoulders and just moved on. I hope you’ll both be able to move on from this as well.
I feel like shaking you to get you to wise up! You’re supposed to be an adult here, and you aren’t acting like it. You’re supposed to be her parent, but you’re aren’t being a good one. Her dancing is not about you! It’s about her! It’s just awful of you to raise your voice at her because she cried. It’s awful that you were embarrassed. She’s five! You should have comforted her and taken her to a quiet place to let her rest.
You have put so much pressure on this little child that she broke down at a performance. Children with parents who don’t treat their children like this also cry after performances. It’s not like your daughter is the only one.
I feel terrible for your little girl. You need counseling to get your act together so that you don’t destroy your child. Do the right thing and get help.