Everything I Learned About Life, I Learned in Dance Class by Abby Lee Miller Page B

is because of mean girls.
    If your daughter is dancing for recreational purposes and coming to dance class only once a week for fun, there shouldn’t be any injuries. If she’s coming two or three days a week and she’s involved, there might be an accident here or there. If there is core training, and your kid is training on cement or tile floors four or five days a week, you will have a problem. That’s why it’s so important to take a look at the floors before signing your daughter up for dance classes. Go to a facility that has special shock-absorbing floors designed for dance.
    Your kid’s feet are going to have a problem if you purchase cheap pointe shoes online instead of listening to your child’s teacher and buying the right pointe shoes, which include a proper fitting.
    It’s important that your kid receives proper technical training that’s even on the right and left side of her body. During a normal classroom session, your kid should be working both sides of her body to keep her alignment even.
    If your body is telling you it hurts, then you need to stop and rest. If it’s just one part of your body, then rest that part of your body, but just because you have to rest that part of your body doesn’t mean everything else can’t continue to work. If your daughter has a sprained ankle, she can still walk on her hands. She can still do elbow stands or chin stands in acrobatic class. She can still get her body into a split. As long as she isn’t putting pressure on that ankle, she’s okay. She can lie on her back and elevate her feet up in the air to do a hundred sit-ups every hour. She can get in a push-up position and put the sore foot up across the other foot behind the ankle and do push-ups with one foot.
    If a kid is truly sick with pneumonia or chicken pox, she can’t get all sweaty and gross in dance class. But she can lie in bed and watch old Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire movies and a Dance Moms marathon. She can study. She can read dance books and work on their terminology and vocabulary. She can continue learning to be a better dancer, even when she’s sick.
    You don’t want to “work through the pain” with children because it can cause irreversible damage to their bodies. But you don’t want to coddle them either. You want to acknowledge that your child is hurt—her right knee is bruised or twisted, or she tore her cartilage and has to go to therapy. But in the meantime, you want to point out to your child that there’s nothing wrong with her left knee. You want to deal with and address the pain by seeing your child’s doctor and getting an opinion, but you want her to continue to train the rest of her body. Some kids are so tight that they can lose their flexibility in just a month.
    Dear Abby:
    For the most part, all the moms at our dance studio are very helpful and supportive, but we have one mom who gossips and spreads rumors about our girls and some of their parents. How can we put a stop to this?
    One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. Do not let this woman affect your child’s education. You can decide to take the high road; be the better person and don’t say anything at all. What goes around comes around. Let the gossip gods take care of her.
    Abby
    OH, GROW UP!
    They say patience is a virtue. I’m not so sure. Am I supposed to have patience with the kids? Yes, I’m a teacher, and that’s my job. But patience with the parents? I just don’t have time. Every moment I spend explaining myself, and the method to my madness, takes away from the time that I spend teaching their children. They don’t understand me, nor do they care when it comes to competition. They like to take credit for their children’s success. Never will they admit that I’m right. They want all the glory with none of the work!
    Every child peaks at a different age. Some win every single competition before they are twelve, and then they crash and burn. Others might work and work and work and never win one