'My 12-year-old was training an average of about 25 hours a week outside of school as a ballerina.'
; however, school and ballet took up every moment of her life. She would get home from school, eat, do classwork, go to the studio for three hours, come home, eat, and beg my husband to help her with a math assignment at 10 o'clock at night. She wasn't sleeping enough and had absolutely zero down time. The thing was, when I asked her, she didn't want to change any of it. She wanted to dance more hours.
In January, right before she competed in YAGP, I realized something was off. We had been so focused on things at the studio that every other aspect of her life seemed to fall off the radar. After a long Winter break of her either sitting at home by herself or back in the studio rehearsing, I realized that she never mentioned anyone outside of the dance studio. One particular afternoon, as I watched a group of kids from her grade at the house across the street, it hit me — she had become a loner.
It took a few weeks and the relative calm after YAGP for me to sit back and reflect on the six months prior. How had we gotten to a point where my sweet girl with the fun, bubbly personality felt so isolated around her classmates? I tried to encourage her to, reminding her that everyone at her age is afraid to be the one who reaches out to a new friend. I would follow up each afternoon and ask her if she met anyone new that day.
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