Have you ever met a stage parent? The parent who goes to extremes to push or promote or manage their child, and who seems to see a talent or skill or beauty in their child that they truly believe is greater than the other children around them? A parent who believes their child is just waiting to be discovered, and will be if only they are at the right school, in the front line, in the best costume, with the best routine, doing the most classes and the most practice. And a child who is in possession of the most medals/trophies/awards which validates their belief in their child’s unique skills.
If you are in the dancing world, I’m sure you have met a stage parent. You probably have some at your studio. You can probably think of a few off the top of your head. But would you know if you were one? Do stage parents recognise their own behaviour for what it is?
We all want the best for our kids. We all want them to have happy healthy lives, to have success, to do better in life than the generations that went before.
But in pursuing these dreams for our kids, are we acting in their best interests? What exactly is the goal? How do we know if we’ve gone too far?
The thing is, kids want nothing more in life than to please their parents. Absolutely nothing makes a child happier than to think they have made their parents proud or happy. Or more basically, that they have earned their parents’ acceptance and approval. Children will pursue that as a main goal. At the end of the day, the activity that achieves the pride or approval isn’t really relevant, as long as the goal has been achieved. This is true in pretty much any endeavour – child prodigies in every field from tennis to swimming to gymnastics have time and again told stories of miserable childhoods spent trying to please their parents through their achievements, and always falling short, needing to do more. It’s not enough to win the school race, then there’s the district, and the state, and the nationals, and the world championships, and the Olympics. Always another step to go to achieve parental pride. Stage parents in the dancing field are exactly the same.
Consider this – if your child does well at a competition, and you congratulate them and make a fuss, are they happy because they know they have achieved a personal best? Because they achieved self fulfilment? Or are they happy because they can see that you are happy?
What if they fall short of expectations? Muck it up and forget the routine, forget to point, forget to smile, and then miss out on a place. Do you show your frustration? Your disapproval? Your disappointment? Do you look for outside sources of blame - the judges didn't know what they were doing, were random, must have been blind. Is your child allowed to simply fail without failing you and your hopes and expectations?
Is it possible you are misreading their motivations to do the next competition or the extra class? Is it because they want to do it, or because they feel it will make you happy - that if they just try a little harder you will be pleased with them?
I’ve been reading online about signs of stage parents, and found some interesting behaviours that perhaps you’ll recognise in others, or scarily within yourself.
- Stage parents go out of their way to build a relationship with the teacher or coach, or other influential people within the studio, in the sometimes unconscious hope that cultivating these personal relationships helps build favour for the child.
- Stage parents probably tend to inflate their own importance to the studio, and get annoyed when their child doesn’t seem to receive appropriate special treatment - is just treated like ‘one of the many’.
- Stage parents become involved in their child’s tuition or coaching – questioning the teacher, the position in the routine, the costumes, the progression to the next class. They regularly seek new teachers or studios, perhaps with the hope they might finally find a teacher who recognises their child’s true talent. Interestingly, while they initially invest much time in praising the child’s teacher, if goals are not achieved when expected, the stage parent will start to criticise the teacher to others, and eventually seek out a new one.
- Stage parents often become coaches themselves (regardless of their lack of qualification). They will critique a performance (often finding fault), decide their own child’s strengths and weaknesses, enforce stretching or practice sessions, take them to dance events/concerts so they can understand the goal set for them if they only work hard enough. They manage their child’s ‘career’ in all aspects.
- Stage parents encourage, reward or admire children for performing even if it isn’t in their best interest to do so – when sick, injured, overtired or burnt out.
- Stage parents allow and encourage children to miss other activities – school events, (or simply school!), birthday parties, playdates, important family events, to ensure they don’t miss class or a competition. Really, how far backwards can they fall by missing a few classes a term, compared to the social rounding they receive by maintaining and building relationships, and being exposed to experiences, outside of the world of dance?
- Stage parents ignore requests from the child to try other activities or pursuits, or to take a break. If the child is burnt out, it might be better to let them take a term off. They will either resist going back (in which case they probably are never going to be successful in dance as a career, and forcing them into it will just build resentment), or they will miss it terribly and beg to go back!
- Stage parents often start very early. They will profess how much their child loves to dance – indeed was born to dance - to the exclusion of any other activity, despite never really having tried any others. How can a child of 4 or 5 (or even 10 or 11) ‘choose’ a career in dance, commit to a dozen or more hours of dance a week, when they’ve never seriously tried any other activity? It’s important that children be exposed to lots of life experiences before they commit to a single one.
- Stage parents are often people who have been disappointed with their own progress in life. Often they pursued the activity (in this case dance) as a child and didn’t achieve as many goals as they wanted (or their own parents wanted), or they wished they could have done the activity and weren’t allowed to. This frustration in their own lack of achievement or experience is then to be resolved by enjoying their child’s achievements.
Do you think stage parents recognise themselves as such? I think they hardly ever do. Are they bad parents? Not intentionally, of course not, but I doubt they do their children much long term good. What happens if the child ultimately doesn’t achieve their parent’s dreams for them? Those children may spend a lifetime feeling that they’ve somehow failed or fallen short, that they haven’t earned that much-craved-after parental approval, and they may go on to become stage parents to their own children.
Truly successful people, those who achieve sustained success in any field, are successful because they are drawn to the activity in question and pursue it freely, without prompting or pressure, without promotion or because their parent has sucked up to the teacher. They do it not to please other people, but to please themselves. They don't need to be reminded to practice. They set and achieve their own goals – not those arbitrarily set by others. They find satisfaction in their own achievements, not in the acceptance of their parents when they bring home a trophy.
I think it’s a worthwhile exercise to test yourself – are you a stage parent? Does your child truly want to be involved in dance or are they doing it to please you? Even if they truly love dance, would they be just as happy doing a fun class a few times a week, or do they really want to be in the ‘best’ school and doing group and solo competitions most weekends?
Do they obtain their self worth through achieving goals you have set for them, rather than by achieving goals they have set for themselves? It’s no good asking them, they won’t necessarily admit it, or even recognise it in themselves - children are by definition not emotionally mature, they lack insight. But think about your own motivations. If your child announced tomorrow that they wanted to drop it all and take up karate or ten pin bowling, how would you react? What would you say? What would you do? Would you be disappointed? And most importantly of all, would your child detect that disappointment?
A worthwhile set of questions for us all, I think.
