Interesting article in the Mail today

[balletla]

Yes but who is that does the comparing - the mothers! In my experience the mothers at JAs etc. are all so competitive that it gets passed down to the child.

And it's all a waste of time - like you say - often a gazelle at 8 years old will be an elephant at 16 (sorry - maybe not an elephant but I can't think of anything else). Virtually all the JAs with the most desirable physiques and talent in my DDs year are no longer around. It is definitely a marathon and not a race.

[Tulip]

All I can say is thank goodness either my daughter or myself have to deal with those type of ballet mums and I also have to point out ribbons the mums who you say are making comparisons well you yourself have just made one when you compared the size if a child of eight to being a teenager but the words you used were horrible, from gazzelle to elephant.

[Anna C]

My dd's dance physio always says that it's no good deciding before 16 whether a student has a suitable physique for a career in classical ballet. At 10 I never would have guessed that my dd would have long legs! So who knows how Sarah Vine's dd's physique may develop.

 

Tulip, I am sure Ribbons was not intending to be offensive - she did say that she couldn't think of another comparison.

 

Still, it would be more constructive to comment only on the article, please folks. Thank you.

[tomuchtallent]

My dd started to think she was fat from the age of 9! She is 10 now and still goes on about it but does not have a eating disorder,in fact eats more than me..She is tiny boned and lots of people comment to her about how lovely her ballet body is. In my house weight or diets are never spoken about and none of my family weigh themselves.I can only think that ballet might of had a part to play in this.

[amber21]

In response to curious's comments about comparing bodies at ja's my dd has danced various genres of dance from 3years old and is now 10, I would say she is very confident in that she is fit and feels fit and knows how to look after herself, is aware of what is healthy food, unfortunately the only comparing she has experienced and heard is at school from the classroom from children who are not physical in that their hobbies don't involve much physical activity. My dd has shared that she doesn't understand why these girls talk about themselves in this way. It is sad that the dancing world gets a bad image as the majority of people who have eating disorders have never stepped foot in a dance studio! A small minority may use exercise to burn calories faster but from a fitness perspective if someone was so ill they wouldn't have the energy to dance!

I have also found in my experience Ja parents quite nice and not competitive most have been interesting, informative and good fun to be around.

Ax

[aileen]

Invariably, articles in newspapers are frustratingly short on detail, which leads to speculation, as in this case. We just don't know the full facts. There are several scenarios. The girl may have had issues with her appearance anyway, regardless of her attendance at ballet classes and/or the attitude or behaviour of her mother. There might be an unhealthy atmosphere at the ballet school. The mother may have been trying to deal with her daughter's unhealthy attitude towards her appearance for a while and has decided to stop the lessons as a last resort. The mother is highly-strung (in my experience there are loads of highly-strung mothers around) and is making something out of nothing. The mother has been looking for a reason to stop the lessons and has convinced herself that the lessons are giving her daughter an unhealthy attitude towards her appearance. Personally, I don't think much of any mother who exposes her young daughter's insecurities to the public in this way.

[taxi4ballet]

Well said Aileen.

 

A mother whose job is beauty editor of a major newspaper (many of which incessantly publish fashion photos of terribly thin models in their supplements), and whose house is probably filled with such images on a daily basis, has decided to blame ballet classes for her child's possible negative body image...

 

Hmmm...

[Dance*is*life]

I just feel that the mother's reaction was rather too drastic. Kids at 8 often go through phases and believe all sorts of stupid things they hear from other kids - it's up to the parents to explain and sort things out. It may well be that at this particular school there is a tendency to emphasize body image and if the parents are concerned, then I think they should have talked to their daughter, her teacher, and even the Director about it. If after all that they saw that there was indeed a problem then they always have the option of moving her to another school, where the atmosphere may be less charged, rather than removing her from ballet altogether. The point is we don't know from the article if the parents actually did anything, apart from removing her from ballet,and this is probably because the newspaper wanted to sensationalise the whole thing. It is very easy to manipulate readers.

 

By the way lots of dance students don't like to eat before a class as the food tends to sit there and makes them feel heavy. When I have a 9 0' clock class, for example, I eat breakfast first and then get washed and dressed etc, so as to give myself more time to digest the food before dancing. And lollipops are a no-no in most families nowadays, as they ruin teeth, so not a particularly alarming reaction. As someone said perhaps a school teacher gave a healthy eating talk!

Edited June 8, 2013 by Dance*is*life

[straceydor]

No body has mentioned about normal everyday schools weighing children in year 4 or 5.

A friends son who does not dance but has low self confidence refused to eat because the school said he was over weight. He was not, but he is quite tall

[primrose]

The school nurse weights the children in their reception year as part of a medical check. If there are any concerns about the child then a letter is sent home to the parents. No child will be given any feedback from the nurse or teachers. This would be classed as professional misconduct

[Anna C]

Yes, my daughter was weighed in Year 5 - can't remember if she was weighed in Reception too. I do remember that the letter was addressed to us and sent in a sealed envelope.

[straceydor]

None of my three children were every weighed or measured in reception at school.

Two of my friends have said it was year 6 when their children were measured and were told to their faces that they were over weight and a letter home to their respective parents. Both children do more than the average amount of exercise per week.

[aileen]

I believe that they weigh children in year 6 at state schools. Wasn't there a proposal to weigh children in reception class as well? I feel that these weight charts are a very crude measure of whether a child is a healthy weight. Having said that, I have read that many parents today don't realise when their child is overweight as they are so used to seeing overweight children that their perception of a normal weight is distorted. Straceydor, as the letter about your friend's son's weight would have sent to his parents they must have been the ones who mentioned his weight to him.

[Jazzpaws]

Aileen - they do indeed. I had the letter dropping through the letterbox informing me that DD was less than 4% centile thing. I used it as kindling for my log burner! Every child is different and DD is slight genetically, and full of energy so no worries.

I had no idea of DD's weight until she applied to RBS SA this year and her teacher weighed her. I have 5 daughters and have never bothered with scales in the house. One of my older daughter's best friend suffered from anorexia as a teenager, which was so devastating (nothing to do with dance at all), she happily recovered with support from her family and now has two lovely little boys.

Any high profile dancer will be slim in the same way that athletes are because of their training ! What a storm in a teacup ! 

[Fiz]

My eldest dd stopped eating at 10. My husband had lost his job and she was very worried. It was nothing to do with ballet. A friend's non dd had food problems as a result of her parents' divorce. Her mother had told her food was expensive now she and Daddy were not together any more. My youngest is not eating enough, we think, because she isn't earning much, has massive loan debts from her degree and knows actors need to look good and slim equals good in our society, however much we deplore it. This are all non ballet related food problems.

[Moomin]

The weighing in schools started purely as a public health measure and parents complained because the results were not fed back to them which is why a letter is sent out to parents now. Children themselves are not informed of results and it should be height, weight & bmi centile (bmi is not the same range as for adults & has to be plotted according to age). There will always be exceptions to any rule but bmi is pretty accurate as children and adult females generally do not have enough muscle mass to make any difference, they would have to be training for hours and hours each week. Personally if my child came back as obese (or underweight) I'd want to know about it, little changes in activity level etc can make all the difference. Certainly in junior school I was regularly weighed & measured and thought nothing of it. Even extremely young children notice differences in bodies, it can't only be me who's been red faced having had a toddler exclaim "why is that lady so fat"?!

[primrose]

My dd was weighed regularly whilst at vocational school.she hates it but accepts it. I personally dont agree with it as it should be more about how the person looks

[aileen]

Although they *may* (and I'm not certain that this is the case) both be on the same spectrum, I do think that there's a massive difference between anxiety and unhappiness about one's appearance (which can have a big impact on the person's quality of life) and a full-blown eating disorder which is, literally, life-threatening. An eating disorder Is a serious mental illness and there doesn't seem to be agreement about what causes it. I think that there can be different triggers and it seems that some people have a susceptibility, which is possibly genetic. One person who receives a passing comment about his/her weight will develop an eating disorder; another (most) will not. Eating disorders are a weird (and very unhealthy) coping mechanism or expression of emotional unhappiness. Two young women whom I know developed an eating disorder after suffering a trauma (the life-threatening illness of a family member in one case and the serious accident of a close friend plus a bereavement following the prolonged and unpleasant death of a family member in the other). Neither had ever attended ballet classes to my knowledge.

[rowan]

I'm not sure a nine-year-old necessarily knows why others might be better than her at ballet - and they might not be anyway - and she may just put it down to a perception that it must be because "they are more the right size." Some thinner children might be rubbish at ballet and some plumper children might be the best at ballet in a class because they've got all, or some, of those other things that make them good at ballet - including other physical things like great turnout or feet, and also artistic things like sensitivity to music. I knew a girl who had one of the more "solid" builds at age 10, but won a dance place at a vocational school.

[JulieW]

Let's not take this discussion down the eating disorder route - we've got a long thread on that elsewhere if anyone wants to read it.

[Anna C]

Here's a link to that previous thread: http://www.balletcoforum.com/index.php?/topic/558-dt-article-on-ballet-and-eating-disorders/?hl=%2Beating+%2Bdisorders

[Tulip]

Gosh it was very interesting to read our old discussions, but one thing that was evident was how far schools have come in providing our dancing students with good knowledge about being healthy and staying healthy.

[neil]

Follow-up in the Daily Telegraph today

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/mother-tongue/10111061/If-your-daughter-is-feeling-the-heat-in-ballet-lessons-shes-in-the-wrong-class.html

[Anna C]

Thank you Neil (and welcome to the forum).

 

"Opprobrium" - what a marvellous word!

[Pas de Quatre]

Thank you for posting that - at last some common sense.  My greatest fear is that DaDas have already been cut back this year, so if Michael Gove, Minister for Education, has taken against ballet, the future funding for ballet training may get even worse!

[Jazzpaws]

Thank you for posting that - at last some common sense.  My greatest fear is that DaDas have already been cut back this year, so if Michael Gove, Minister for Education, has taken against ballet, the future funding for ballet training may get even worse!

A scary thought !! Hope he drops it and doesn't start a campaign about ballet training being unhealthy for young girls and shouldn't  be supported by public money etc - any excuse to make more cuts

[2dancersmum]

especially when it does seem rather that it is the mother who had the problems doing ballet and left because of weight issues and who is now projecting her negative view forward to the next generation.  Makes you wonder if she was really asked to leave or if it was her own (or her mother's) perception of her size.

Totally agree that we do not want any more cuts to ballet and in particular when it is based on nonsense like this.

[amum/Cathy]

Labour made a reference last week to starting centres of excellence for IT and engineering, modelled on the RBS scheme (and RAD - not sure they understood what they were talking about there!)Shame they're not the party in power now, but Gove would look very foolish dismantling something that his opponents are wanting to extend! http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/jun/04/labour-pledge-training-it-engineering?INTCMP=SRCH

[amum/Cathy]

Sorry, just correcting myself - it doesn't say RAD but rather RADA!

[Dance*is*life]

I just read the response to the original article and one sentence she quoted from that, suddenly brought on an "Excuse me!!!!!!" in my head. Her daughter is 9 and yet she wrote "after eight years of .... and grand jetes" etc etc. So when on earth did she start her daughter dancing - in the cradle? And 8 years of grand jetes? Hmmm........

[Anna C]

I spotted that too!

[Pas de Quatre]

Mentioned that in my earlier post - lots of things in the original article just don't sound right!  

[aileen]

Sarah Vine is re-living her humiliation at ballet school through her daughter. I've noticed other mothers doing this. If a mother was bullied at school she perceives every slight or upsetting incident as bullying. It's not good for the child (IMO) that s/he is cast as a victim in these situations. One of the most important lessons that a child has to learn is resilience and having a mother who blows every unpleasant incident out of proportion is not going to help the child develop this skill.

 

Do children of nine do grands jetes or is SV just trying to embellish her account, as she has done with the time that her daughter has been attending ballet lessons?