We were driving home from the Hope of America performance, a big celebration where hundreds of 5th graders from many schools combine to sing songs in a patriotic program. My middle son had just performed and spirits were running high. In a brief lull in the conversation, my oldest, looking forward to the next Big Thing on our agenda, asked: Mom, do you think Lydia will be able to do her dance performance?
I paused. I knew what he meant. Lydia has been in dance since January. I suppose most parents sign their kids up for dance or any activity hoping they will learn the activity 😅 But that’s not our life around here, and those weren’t my main goals for dance. I wanted Lydia to have more positive, playful interactions with peers. I wanted her to have opportunities to learn to follow instructions. And dance as physical therapy—improving balance and coordination, etc was also on the list.
Her first week in dance was hard. She sat intimidated on a mat in the back of the room. But over the weeks she warmed up and participated in all the activities. She got into the routines and got better at imitation. She is naturally so timid; probably due in part to being introduced to a world that was harsh and scary and violent to her right off the bat 😞 But her heart wants to fly and loves beautiful things and by surrounding her with brave tenacious friends, I watched her watch them, and I watched her start to crack open.
Memorizing a whole dance was a challenge for her, and we practiced hard in class and at home. And like so many things in this life, we had no idea how it would go in the moment. Did she know the dance? Yes. Would she pull it out? 🤷🏼♀️
But, as I told my son, “You know, with Lydia, it’s not really about Performances; it’s about Experiences. It’s more like, ‘You learned something! You tried something new! Good job!’” We applaud all 👏🏻 along 👏🏻 the 👏🏻 way. 👏🏻
I love that she teaches us things like this—that our worth and our lives are made up of so much more than single evaluative moments. We are infinitely more than final scores and loving each other through the whole process is what matters.
