Say that the kid is bad enough for it to be positively embarrasing–though the kid does not understand this.
The kid has been taking classes in which the activity is taught for two years.
But–say the kid is only six.
What do you do?
(What’s going on is–our six year old son is really into dance, specifically Irish dance, but all kinds–and though he is only six, I am prepared to state for the record that he is absolutely, irrevocably terrible at dancing. He attempts to demonstrate his dancing to others on occasion, and it is painful. I’d like for his interests to be steered otherwhere–but he seems fixated on this. This is not where his strengths lie, and it’s not like it’s the only thing he enjoys. But any time we hint or suggest he might like to drop the dancing in favor of something else, he shuts the suggestion down. We could just forbid it I guess, but that would seem to be likely to lead simply to an upset family. What’s the point in outright denying him something he seems to really love? We’d rather nudge him, somehow, if we could find a way to do it…)
If he’s enjoying it and getting exercise I say let the boy dance! He’s only six!
I’m sort of going through the same with my six year old. She wants to be a “Star Girl” which apparently means she wants to sing. And she does so really really loudly and off-key like you would not believe. I know that singing ability does not run in our family and I am pretty sure her singing can’t be fixed but she loves it so and spends far too much time choreographing songs but at least it gets her off the computer and feels a passion for something.
Maybe your boy won’t ever be a good dancer but it may give him something else worthwhile that you just can’t see yet.
If he were sixteen, I could see worrying about this. But six? This is the perfect time to “do just for the saking of doing”.
Progress doesn’t always happen in a linear fashion. Maybe a developmental cog will turn and he was suddenly become an awesome dancer. Or maybe what he really enjoys is the music and it will take a bit more time for him to realize this. Or maybe self-consciousness will kick in and he will realize he’s just not that good all on his own.
If you take him out of sometihng he enjoys, he’s going to want to know why. Are you prepared to tell him, “Well, hon, you just aren’t that great! Time to do something in which you can excel!” People who turn into geniuses don’t become that way by only engaging in things that they excel in. They become geniuses by engaging in things that they enjoy and where they can see their own incremental progress.
I say give it another year and it will all work out on its own.
I don’t know many six year olds who are great at dancing. My son wants to do ballet. When I can afford it, I’m in. I hope he still wants to do it next year, though. And who cares if they’re bad? Hopefully when he’s 10 and tired of dancing he won’t remember how bad he was at 6!
“Nudging” him out dance class just teaches him that it’s only okay to do/enjoy things you’re good at, and that’s a horrible way to go through life. I know soooo many people who won’t even try to do something new because they “won’t be any good at it.” Even when it’s something they really, really want to do. People spend their whole adult lives learning how stop worrying about how things look and “dance like nobody’s watching.” Your kid already has that; why would you take it away from him?
“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey
Let the kid dance.
I take it you don’t dance, Frylock? I think you’re projecting your own insecurities and self-consciousness onto your child. He doesn’t feel the same way about dancing that do you; he enjoys it and doesn’t care what other people think. I think he’s got the better approach to this, and I’m somewhat envious since I spend too much time worrying about what others think about me.
At 6 years old, there is still a LOT of fine motor skills development to be done. There’s no way to know that he won’t one day be very good at dancing, or at any other physical activity he may choose to do. Most people aren’t natural dancers - they take years and years of training in order to teach their bodies how to do amazing things.
Even if he gets to be 16 or 26 or 56 and he is still terrible at it, if he loves doing it, why on earth would you take that away from him? Why would you let your own issues take joy out of someone else’s life? That’s a horrible approach to parenting, IMHO. Get over yourself and let your son be happy.
6 years old is way too young for a kid to start worrying about whether he’s good at anything or not. Same for his parents. I understand the desire to see him excel at something, but really, which is more important: having a child who seems to have a reasonable shot at being uber successful at some point in his life, or having a child who is happy?
There’s probably some of my own painful childhood memories mixed in here, causing an overprotective impulse to break in. But seriously, the kid is the worst. If he’s not steered away now, then when he’s older and he does realize what’s going on, he may be traumatized. I exaggerate… but knowing my own personality at that and subsequent ages, and knowing how closely his personality seems to follow mine–I’m not actually sure I’m exaggerating that much.
I’m an Irish dancer too, like your son. It’s a very difficult thing to get good at (I’ve been doing it for a year and a half, it’s not an easy sport). I’d say if your son is really into it, he will probably improve (I’m only just starting to and I’m fourteen, not six), and besides, even bad dancing is cute on a six-year-old. Hopefully he will get better - it’s great that he has a passion, right? Many kids his age don’t work out at all. By getting into the habit of working out, he will be easier to get into other sports too when he’s older (I started out ballet dancing and dropped it for Irish dance because I eventually realized that I was terrible at ballet).
And even if he doesn’t improve at Irish dancing, he will likely grow out of it if it’s not going anywhere. The six-year-old son of my Irish dance coach also dances, and he’s good but not great, even though he is the son of the coach.
With my daughter it was gymnastics. She was lousy, but she loved it. She also didn’t really have the discipline to do it. She did it through elementary school - got good enough to do back and front handsprings (which kids who are good at it can do at five, she could barely pull them off at 11), and then, when she got to middle school, the world opened up with French Club and Tennis and Student Council and a dozen other activities she wants to try - and we dropped gymnastics. (She was lousy at tennis, too).
But gymnastics was good for her. She never made team (thank God, expensive and time consuming) but she DID develop a lot more grace and flexibility and she DID get a lot of exercise.
I have a bunch of Girl Scouts. MOST of my Scouts are in the G&T program. One was on the math team that placed third in state last year. Two went from fifth grade math to eighth grade math when starting middle school, two from fifth to seventh. And ONE is in remedial math. Guess which one is on the math team this year? Yep. My remedial math kid. Is she good at it?, nope, but she is developing the skills and spending more time doing something she should be doing and doing it by choice in an enjoyable fashion. At this age, the last thing anyone wants to do is discourage her from developing math skills by saying “but honey, you aren’t good at that.” If she decides her life goal is to get into MIT and major in Engineering, it might be time to burst her bubble (unless she has Einstein-like undeveloped talent), but for now, let her do more math.
