Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

It’s been FIVE months since Anya first started her ballet class.

There were days when she looked forward to her classes. And (of course) there were days too when she told me she ‘didn’t feel like going to ballet’ (more specifically, because she didn’t want to stop playing with her play-doh at the time!)

Kids change their minds about things, easily (read : they can easily give conflicting opinions about something within a short span of time)

And so yes, I do sometimes wonder if Anya really does like ballet.

…

The other day, as we walked home together from her ballet class, we had this conversation:

Mommy : Anya, today is your last ballet class ya …

Anya : (puzzled) Why won’t there be any more ballet class next week?

Mommy : Oh it’s because you’re already at the end of the term, and if you’d like to continue doing ballet, I would need to register and spend some money to pay for the new class …

Anya : (still puzzled) You have to pay for the class ?

Mommy : Your ballet class is not free. Somebody had to work, spare some money and pay for each of the session you go to so that you can learn ballet.

Anya : (quiet for about 5 seconds, then she looked at me) Mommy, can you please spare some money to pay for my next class then? I like my ballet class and I want to continue, Mommy …

Mommy : … Let’s talk to Daddy later about it, okay … and we’ll then see how it goes …

…

Even before I had that conversation with Anya, we planned to extend her ballet class in a few days time anyway.

I intentionally started the conversation though, to introduce the concept of ‘someone needing to pay for her classes, etc’. And I intentionally didn’t immediately say ‘yes’ to her request (ie. letting her wait for a decision after a talk with Daddy), so that she went through a ‘waiting period’ as well before she got her answer.

[My belief is that, when one waits for some time to find out if she’s going to get what she requested earlier, it’ll increase the rate of appreciation towards what you finally get. I mean, as compared to always getting things ‘immediately’]

Anyway.

I didn’t quite know how the conversation would go when we first started talking about it. But really, to actually hear it genuinely requested by the child herself (who has started to slowly understand how many many things in life are apparently not free) was … nice.

And yes. It was encouraging too.

At least to her mommy who sends, waits and picks her up from class every time.