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Life after ballet


Lifeafterballet

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12 minutes ago, Glissé said:

I will have to get dd to do the same writing down passions etc. she’s been stuck in a negative rut lately her school isn’t helping I think she needs to find who she is outside of dance. It’s so hard when ballet has been the biggest part of her life for all these years. Like you said she just needs to find that passion ❣️

You have hit the nail on the head. Dd talks about only ever identifying as a dancer and feeling that without that she is nothing. These children are so much more. They have skills and abilities beyond their years and just need to believe in themselves 💪 The very best of luck and a very happy Easter holiday of exploring all those amazing opportunities that await her xx

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3 minutes ago, cotes du rhone ! said:

You have hit the nail on the head. Dd talks about only ever identifying as a dancer and feeling that without that she is nothing. These children are so much more. They have skills and abilities beyond their years and just need to believe in themselves 💪 The very best of luck and a very happy Easter holiday of exploring all those amazing opportunities that await her xx

Exactly the same with my dd think she’s going through a bit of an identity crisis at the moment! I agree they have learnt so many transferable skills over the years just need to find that passion so they can use them! Thank you , very best of luck to your dd too have a lovely Easter xx

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39 minutes ago, Flower said:

Have you done an aptitude and interest test like the Morresby one? (I’ve probably spelt that wrong). It should work out your strengths and weaknesses and suggest millions of things you never thought of. 

Just did a trial question of a Morrisby test and failed miserably 😂 Fab suggestion so worth exploring 😃

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4 hours ago, Glissé said:

Exactly the same with my dd think she’s going through a bit of an identity crisis at the moment! I agree they have learnt so many transferable skills over the years just need to find that passion so they can use them! Thank you , very best of luck to your dd too have a lovely Easter xx

My daughter had exactly the same identity crisis. It took a while but you have to keep pointing in a forward direction. Regroup and list their skills and qualities  - try loads of different things. Be brave and look forward are the words we kept saying. They are so young and the world is ahead of them - loads of options if you open your mind to them. Ballet isn’t everything and for a very few it’s a career that satisfies and it’s fleeting. My daughter has found a new path at uni and now can see a career she feels will be fulfilling and she can succeed at. That’s all you want as a parent. Remain positive and keep going. !!! 

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Giving up your dream of a career in dance is a major life change for a young person, and shouldn't be rushed.  Especially if it is something that isn't purely their choice. 

 

Maybe rather than rushing in to what do chose next, a little down time to give them space and clarity is what they need.

 

A few months at home, working in local shops/cafes if they are lucky.  Doing  normal teenage things.  Discovering who they are as a person. 

 

I'm sure it will come.

 

I'm not surprised that schools give little support on this.  To be honest they probably have very little expertise in other areas.  But encouragement doesn't cost anything :)

 

Good luck - they will find their paths when the time is right.

 

 

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49 minutes ago, glowlight said:

Giving up your dream of a career in dance is a major life change for a young person, and shouldn't be rushed.  Especially if it is something that isn't purely their choice. 

 

Maybe rather than rushing in to what do chose next, a little down time to give them space and clarity is what they need.

 

A few months at home, working in local shops/cafes if they are lucky.  Doing  normal teenage things.  Discovering who they are as a person. 

 

I'm sure it will come.

 

I'm not surprised that schools give little support on this.  To be honest they probably have very little expertise in other areas.  But encouragement doesn't cost anything :)

 

Good luck - they will find their paths when the time is right.

 

 

 

I agree, glowlight - there’s often a large element of grieving for a lost dream, which shouldn’t be brushed aside.  Counselling can be beneficial, or even just acknowledging it and letting the child/young person process their feelings of sadness and loss.  

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46 minutes ago, glowlight said:

Giving up your dream of a career in dance is a major life change for a young person, and shouldn't be rushed.  Especially if it is something that isn't purely their choice. 

 

Maybe rather than rushing in to what do chose next, a little down time to give them space and clarity is what they need.

 

A few months at home, working in local shops/cafes if they are lucky.  Doing  normal teenage things.  Discovering who they are as a person. 

 

I'm sure it will come.

 

I'm not surprised that schools give little support on this.  To be honest they probably have very little expertise in other areas.  But encouragement doesn't cost anything :)

 

Good luck - they will find their paths when the time is right.

 

 

Covid gave my Dd time away from full time ballet for the first time in 8 years. Ballet was her first thought/worry of the day and her last. Every action/meal etc was executed in the pursuit of ballet. Is there any wonder these children have an identity crisis when they believe that being a dancer is all that they are. When you eventually step away and look at it from outside the bubble you realise how crazy it all was and what you have sacrificed for a dream. 
The teachers we found are not only not experienced in guiding the dc onto other paths when they so choose, they are not very good at guiding them with a ballet career either 😒 

In the 8 years of training and all the parent/student/teacher meetings we attended there was only one occasion that we felt there was honesty about Dd and the reality of a ballet career. I mentioned it yesterday and Dd had exactly the same moment in her memory too 😊 Dd knew deep down that she just wasn’t good enough, that she wasn’t the cream of the crop, not special enough as she put it and she needed someone to confirm this. This teacher was the only one that supported Dd in choosing another path. 
I totally agree that they will all find their path when the time is right. All we can do as parents is be there to pick up the pieces 🤗 and the bill 😂 

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1 hour ago, glowlight said:

Giving up your dream of a career in dance is a major life change for a young person, and shouldn't be rushed.  Especially if it is something that isn't purely their choice. 

 

Maybe rather than rushing in to what do chose next, a little down time to give them space and clarity is what they need.

 

A few months at home, working in local shops/cafes if they are lucky.  Doing  normal teenage things.  Discovering who they are as a person. 

 

I'm sure it will come.

 

I'm not surprised that schools give little support on this.  To be honest they probably have very little expertise in other areas.  But encouragement doesn't cost anything :)

 

Good luck - they will find their paths when the time is right.

 

 

This is absolutely spot on. My dd left the ballet world  depressed, anxious and quite frankly broken. I was as lost as she was - I’m a problem solver by nature and there was nothing I could do 😭

Bit by bit she found her way , a 2nd stint at ballet - mistake!! Working in a local hotel which helped a bit as she was given positive encouragement . The breakthrough came when she went away for a ski season , again working in a hotel , this led to a job with the same group on her return. Still not out of the woods in terms of happiness ; this came in the form of a 2nd ski season where her mojo returned and she “found” the person who wasn’t the broken dancer.

while away she completed an online diploma in digital marketing. On her return she secured an apprenticeship in the same and , I’m so proud to say, has just secured a position with an international boat company doing the same.

please let her take as much time as she needs, there may well be a couple (or more of false starts, there maybe depression and anxiety and anger - these have to be worked through , god willing your daughter will emerge stronger and more beautiful than you can imagine right now . I wish her and you all the best. If you want to message me and chat , I’m here .

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Ive loved reading everyone’s replies, thank you. I was thinking the same giving dd a break after grad and not rushing into anything. I’m sure there will be lots of grieving as mentioned eg anxiety depression anger etc. It will be interesting actually because dd has been through all of them emotions caused by ballet so stepping back I’m thinking will allow her to heal. I guess time will tell and we are going to embrace this hell of a journey! 

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Just to add, from the perspective of someone teaching at a university, there is nothing wrong with encouraging your DC to slow down a bit. Gap years are great! And might be quite important for those moving from the intensity of a vocational dance training into other areas.

 

I've been teaching for over 30 years, and what I increasingly see is hothoused anxious driven young people. Current secondary school education is an over-examined treadmill of benchmarks, tests, assessments - SATS start at age 5 nowadays, don't they?

 

We try to get our students to slow down a bit, to stretch out a bit, and to breathe and take a look around them. We've toyed with making our entire first year a Pass/Fail assessment (first year marks in our degree don't "count" to the final degree grade) just to take some pressure off the constant 'grade grubbing' that they've faced since the start of their school lives.

 

It's about prioritising education over schooling, if you see what I mean ... Lives are long (we hope!) and although for young people it all seems urgent and desperate, we can help these talented people by encouraging them to slow down and take the time to work out what they really want.

 

Edited to add: it's apparently a well-known phenomenon that many young people go through something like a second adolescence in their late teens/early 20s (sort of 7 year cycles). So there is a further bout of self-questioning, emotional ups and downs and so on. Sometimes young people are diagnosed with depression at this age - I  often wonder if that's not just a consequence of the young person under pressure, and going through this final stage of growth into physical/biological adulthood - the brain takes until early 20s to mature, for example.

 

So some sort of thrashing about looking for life's meaning and purpose seems to be a common experience of the late teens/early 20s, for many young people, not just dancers. 

Edited by Kate_N
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Kate I couldn’t agree more about taking time: both that it is necessary and that it is very possible. (We are colleagues in the broader sense and maybe in the same institution I think from one of your earlier posts though in very different disciplines). I’ve seen this up close with my son who stepped out of university after his first year, took a year out, and went back a transformed character: so focused, so happy. Same course but a totally different student.

Do agree about the rush to achieve the (perceived and artificial) success of grade grubbing, instead of understanding and maturing. And so important: enjoying. I think it indicative  of these wrong approaches to education that online learning has been deemed an appropriate substitute for the university experience which it so very much isn’t, however high quality it often has been. Content coverage completed, marks achieved, everything else lacking. 
So yes, gap years are great and young people excited and curious about the adventure of life is what we should be encouraging. Young dancers are equipped with so many skills for their new adventures, but learning to slow down is a good one to add to their impressive repertoire.

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Can’t comment about ballet schools but I think schools in general need to up their game with careers guidance. As early as 16 you’re plotting your future course with a level choices and there is very little help

and advice needed. I’ve discovered so many careers since I did my degree that sound amazing but I’d have to do the whole lot again, sure I’m not the only one who feels like this!

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I couldn't agree more with the whole concept of stepping off the carousel at the age of 18 (or whatever) and taking time out.  Doesn't need to be a gap year as such, but just having time to think about what you really want to do with the rest (or even just the next bit) of your life before you rush headlong into something else.  I always recommend (except possibly for those who want to become doctors - it takes long enough as it is) not going straight to university or equivalent from school - I really think you benefit more with a couple of years' (or even more) experience of life, and I know that lecturers like having mature students to teach because they have so much more to contribute.

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2 hours ago, Peony said:

Can’t comment about ballet schools but I think schools in general need to up their game with careers guidance. As early as 16 you’re plotting your future course with a level choices and there is very little help

and advice needed. I’ve discovered so many careers since I did my degree that sound amazing but I’d have to do the whole lot again, sure I’m not the only one who feels like this!

 

DD has just chosen A levels and as part of it,  had to see a careers advisor at school. ( but not a teacher from school,  a 'specialist' from a career advice centre.) 

She said that after A levels she wanted to go to college to study performing arts, and  he said she needed a plan B .... she asked what he would suggest ( looking at her A level choices) and he shrugged and said it was up to her ! She mentioned her thoughts about what else she might do/where she could go to follow those thoughts and he said again 'it was up to her'! So no advice what so ever! Probably because she wasn't wanting to go and be a dr/lawyer/teacher! 

 

Her school teachers have been more use!

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I was told by the careers teacher all

those  years ago to think carefully because my chosen degree was ‘quite hard to get into because Asian families considered it a good choice for their daughters’ 🤯 it doesn’t seem to have improved since then! 

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5 hours ago, Peony said:

Can’t comment about ballet schools but I think schools in general need to up their game with careers guidance. As early as 16 you’re plotting your future course with a level choices and there is very little help

and advice needed. I’ve discovered so many careers since I did my degree that sound amazing but I’d have to do the whole lot again, sure I’m not the only one who feels like this!

I agree - and it hasn't changed much since my so-called career advice when I was at school all those decades ago!

 

The thing is... that school career advisers are usually teaching staff. And most of them have left school, gone to university, qualified and gone back to school again to teach. There aren't all that many whose eyes have been opened to the wider world outside, and maybe they just don't know what's out there.

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I seem to recall that I did some sort of careers selection test when I was at school: the profession I'm now in wasn't even one of the options mentioned!  (I also did a computer programming aptitude test at uni and got an "A": this was only because the test was totally incapable of assessing a candidate's interest in the subject :) !)

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Did anyone try the careers tool that the government put on line last year? 

 

I came out as 'Brewer' or 'Author'.  Neither of these is anywhere close to what I do now.  

 

As some as you know I aspire to the second, and Brewing sounds fun, but I'm not sure that it was really very accurate!

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1 hour ago, glowlight said:

Did anyone try the careers tool that the government put on line last year? 

 

I came out as 'Brewer' or 'Author'.  Neither of these is anywhere close to what I do now.  

 

As some as you know I aspire to the second, and Brewing sounds fun, but I'm not sure that it was really very accurate!

 

That test was hilarious.  One of mine was “Professional Athlete”, which those of you who have met me in real life would fall over laughing at! 😆

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My dd graduates this year and unlike some has an idea of what she wants to do if she cannot get a dance job, she has a passion for history and it came down to the wire whether it was dance or history and chose dance as it’s more age/ time constrictive. I’m sure she would happily now do a history degree but has no a levels and has already used her degree funding. She will be qualified as a RAD teacher this summer so that is something .  She wants to do contemporary rather than ballet but don’t think that path is any easier 

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It is now several years since DD graduated.  She started a trainee/apprenticeship abroad but had a knee injury and came home.  Pysiotherapy didn't resolve it and she had to have an operation, this was via NIDMS.  It took quite a long time between scans, seeing Consultants and having the operation booked.  During this time she got involved with a good amateur drama theatre.  The operation was a success and she could have got back into dance training, but she said she felt she had "moved on". 

 

Learning "on the job" in small theatres, she is now a self-employed Theatre technician and although times were tough last summer, she has been almost constantly legally employed since last September on outdoor refurbishments, and venue hires for professionals to film videos etc.   She is very happy with her life and says she has no regrets at all about her years of dance training, even though she went through some tough times at Vocational school.  She feels would not have ended where she is now if she had taken a different fork in the road at any time.

 

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Reading this thread is so hard that these students have to go through such turmoil unsupported by their schools. 

 

I have to say our family have always had the back up chats as I worry so much about the chance of a job when they graduate. DS is at Tring and we received emails last week that the kids will have an app for career guidance (not dance related) as it is always drummed into them all that they need back up choices. The university routes that the ones who choose not to go on and continue the vocational route is always celebrated. So many varied careers that the students all seem to go and pursue. Shows that there is more to life than a vocational career.

 

Still such a long road for the DC to walk that all we can do is support as best we can. At least our DC have had the chance and talent to pursue for as long as they did.

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I just wanted to add my views coming from an ex vocational student that went all the way through and graduated, but did not gain/pursue a dance career.

Most students will suffer from an identity crisis, myself included, and it is incredibly difficult to deal with! I found my self esteem regarding self belief and body image was crushed, and counselling proved very beneficial for that.

I’ve also had a couple of years out to re-study (I personally didn’t feel as though vocational school gave me the right qualifications to pursue what I’ve chosen to do) and I’ve also worked in little jobs in shops locally. If you can do this (I gather it’s a bit difficult atm given the shortage of jobs due to Covid) it’s a great thing to do. Not only will it give you a routine, but it’ll put so much into perspective. You may find “normal” friends as I did - far less bitchy than many of the individuals that I mingled with over the course of my seven year vocational journey! Also a great time to do driving tests if you haven’t done so already 😜 

It’s also completely fine not to rush into a plan b. I’m actually quite pleased I took the time to arrive at the decision I did. Having pursued ballet from such a tender age it can be all consuming and I really wasn’t all that clear as to what my other interests really were.

As for vocational schools the support just really wasn’t there. The concept of “plan b” was mentioned occasionally in passing, but no real focus on it. We had one talk with ex dancers/students who pursued a plan b, but confusingly they only brought in individuals who went into another dance related job! 

Most of my year wish that our teachers had been more honest and transparent with all of us. We all knew it was a tough world, but I think the vast majority of us were given false hope. It’s a tricky thing to tell a young person who has so much passion and dedication, and you always want to try and see how far they can take that. However, as dance jobs are increasingly few and far between I really do think it is the “creme de la creme” that make it. 

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Hi everyone just thought to come on here and give an update. Dd tried writing down her strengths, passions etc but keeps coming to me saying I don’t know who I am without ballet. As a parent I provide lots of reassurance it’s just so difficult hearing her say that because obviously she is so much more than the ballet world! There are also more opportunities sprinting up as we edge nearer to grad and she says she almost feels this guilt and worry that she’ll regret it later on if she doesn’t go for these opportunities even though she’s decided she wants to come away from it all. This is definitely a very very tough year! 

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I really feel for your DD @Glissé. Different situation but with some parallels- I've recently had to take early retirement due to ill health, from a role that was a massive part of my entire adult life. I know exactly what she means about not knowing who she is any more as my profession was a huge part of my identity.

Obviously my situation is different, but the best advice I  can give is to keep looking forward and not dwell on things you can't change. I know this sounds a bit drastic but would she consider seeing a counsellor? Talking to someone neutral can be very helpful. They won't tell her what to do but ot might help her find her own answers.

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@Glissé If Dd thinks that pursuing these opportunities will bring her happiness, I’d say go for it. If not, be sure not to let anyone make you feel guilty for the decisions you take. I do think now more than ever it is important to secure a strong idea of plan b. 
I completely relate to how she is feeling, especially considering you enter into ballet at such a young age and it is expected to become what you live and breathe. I would really recommend not rushing into ideas of what other interests Dd may have. Take a little time, have casual conversations about it. 
I had a rough idea that I wanted to pursue university level education when I had enough of ballet, yet I thought my only interests were dance based! I found the free courses on the OU website really useful, and selected a couple to do casually in my free time that sounded interesting. I found eventually I kept going back to the law courses and that’s where I’ve decided to take my further studies! I also considered apprenticeships (I remember finding an interesting one working with a jewellery designer) and briefly considered going down a fitness route. I know there’s a few areas that value dance training down the fitness route, particularly barre fitness. So I’d recommend lots of web browsing, books and keeping an open mind! 
Also I wouldn’t really shy away from seeking help with the transition period. I know many of us have sought counselling. You may find that there’s a lot of “such a shame, think of all that time and money invested”, but please do try to ignore this as much as possible. Ultimately it’s about what will make your Dd happy, and surely that’s what should be the main goal in life 😉

 

 

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Tell her I feel her pain. I’m over fifty and I don’t know who I am without children - nor what my strengths and passions are. This comes up throughout our lives and it’s SO OK not to know. Most people don’t have an answer. They start one job, and then just stick in that line regardless of passion or interest. She is still all that she was before - she’s just becoming *more* than only a dancer. 🔥

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23 minutes ago, Pups_mum said:

I know this sounds a bit drastic but would she consider seeing a counsellor? Talking to someone neutral can be very helpful. They won't tell her what to do but ot might help her find her own answers.

Yes she is actually going to be seeing one and I’m hoping this will provide some relief and some answers.

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4 minutes ago, Glissé said:

Yes she is actually going to be seeing one and I’m hoping this will provide some relief and some answers.

That's good. I found it helpful. Just accepting that it's normal to have these feelings and that you're not actually weird or the only one to feel that way is a good start.

It's paradoxically often easier to talk to a stranger than people that are close, so hopefully it will help your DD.

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