We survived the testing but I wasn’t sure we were going to survive the waiting. I still didn’t know what was wrong with my little girl and I was even more unsure of myself than ever. I didn’t know how much to push her or where to back off. About this time it was also time for Amanda’s first dance recital. When I signed her up for dance class I never thought the recital would be a problem boy was I wrong. Amanda has always been a very extraverted child who could have guessed she would have major stage fright.
Amanda started protesting even before the dress rehearsal which is a full dress rehearsal on stage. I emailed the woman in charge and expressed my concern because I wasn’t sure she would get on stage and they said just take her put her in line and walk away she will be fine. But she wasn’t fine. I got her in hair make-up and costume. Not a small accomplishment because just the mention of combing Amanda’s hair brings her to tears, the seams on the tights bother her and she complained the bodice on the costume was too tight. They led her on stage and one of the teachers stood beside her. My daughter was crying by this time and protesting that she didn’t want to go on stage. I was sitting in the audience upset at my daughter’s distress, but not going on stage; I know if she could just do this she would be fine. Amanda on the other hand walked off stage crying as soon as the teacher walked away. They did the dance without her. I contacted the owner of the studio to find out if they even wanted me to bring her back. I was told to get her in costume and see if she would go on stage but not to push. She said that even if Amanda didn’t dance in the first performance she might do the second one once she saw what it was like. She even said I could walk down to the stage with her the night of the performance if that would help. To be honest I don’t know what will help at this point.
We finally received the psychologist report (I actually had to go pick it up) and it mentioned things like Sensory Processing Disorder, ADHD (which I honestly believe Amanda is too young to diagnosis this) and anxiety. We meet with the psychologist the next week to discuss this (the Monday after the recital so I am going into this still not understanding my daughter).
Day of the recital we got dressed and went. No family was in the audience because Amanda was still insisting that she didn’t want to dance. We climbed up to the balcony to wait our turn and Amanda had a small break down because she was afraid of heights something else I didn’t know about my daughter. She was fine after a little while. She just needed to get use to it. Anyway Amanda refused to go down with her class. One of the helper mom’s came up to try and convince her to go down and offered anything from the snack stand as a reward. Amanda still refused. The mom then looked at me and said can’t you get her to go down? I answered no. I saw a look similar to contempt on the other mom’s face. All I could think is she doesn’t know Amanda and I do and this was not a battle I felt I needed to fight. Short of dragging Amanda crying onto the stage she was not going to go and having my daughter dance on stage was just not that important to me. Amanda cried when the woman left and said she wished she could go on stage and I offered to go with her but she said no. I am sure I should have done something but I felt so helpless to help my daughter at that point. We decided to watch the rest of the recital. Which she enjoyed once the pressure was off.
The next day Amanda let me walk her down to the stage when it came time to perform. She still said she didn’t get on stage and I was told by the same mom that I was my daughter’s biggest problem. Maybe I am I don’t know but I still don’t think forcing my child on stage was the right thing. I tried to explain that we suspected Amanda had Sensory Processing Disorder and I couldn’t be sure what was causing her to be so afraid but honestly I was too upset to really discuss it. The diagnosis was new and I was still coping with the fact my daughter has a disorder. Monday can’t come soon enough.
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