ballet dad blog
  • Home
  • The Blog
  • Contact
  • subscribe

Blog Three

1/12/2015

0 Comments

 
 Routine Incarceration 


In the last blog I wrote about how we have a new awareness of timetables, routine and their observance. Here is some more:

The thing about such a specialist school is that they have got such a lot of ground to cover. I imagine this is similar for any school which is delivering a full academic programme in addition to whichever specialism: drama, football, music, or ballet. The consequence is that our son's routine is rigid. There is no time for breaks, or free time, or deviation from the pre-ordained timetable. This is difficult for us; for eleven years we adopted the most liberal of parenting styles. Some might say that we have not only taught our children to question, but perhaps encouraged them to rebel. Now, one of our children finds himself in the most strict of regimes. I imagine that he would find more room to manoeuvre as a military cadet than he does at a specialist ballet school. The only flexibility he experiences is literal rather than figurative. We have firmly believed that our children must learn to manage their own time: knowing how to react to boredom is one of life's most essential skills. As I mentioned in the first blog, he has found his own way of dealing with this lack of free time. I know little about physics; but I think that it is 'Hook's Law' which describes reshaping a spring by seeing how far it will stretch out of shape. In terms of shaping his day to maximise his free time, our son has found the maximum point to which the spring will stretch - it is not very far. He points out to us at every available opportunity that for a full twelve hours a day his time is allotted. This stretches to thirteen hours if you include getting dressed and breakfast. 

We have found a counter-intuitive way of combatting the rigidity of his school day. We are fighting routine with routine - an almost homeopathic approach. We skype everyday at precisely the same time. He gets picked up at the weekend at exactly the same time, and we leave on a Monday to return him to the regiment at exactly the same time in order to beat the traffic. We spend the same amount of time sitting in the cafe on a Monday morning waiting for the time for the start of the school day, and we always order the same drinks. 

Last term, in the final week of school, there were alterations to this routine. Christmas events seem be the only thing robust enough to make the ballet routine yield. Our son found this unsettling. He was clearly stressed by having to text us his skype time in advance, or being allowed to sleep in following a late night, or a Christmas Party making the evening meal take place forty minutes later than usual. Our beautiful free spirited iconoclastic child has undergone a transformation. He has become a creature of habit. 

My own life has adopted an immutable routine. I wait at the same place at the same time at the beginning of the weekend with the same sandwiches packed in my bag; I get up at the same time every Monday in order to secure our 6.15am departure; I get the same number of stamps on my loyalty card in the cafe; I drive home listening to the same podcast each week - This American Life; and in three months I have only missed one skype session - even managing to keep the appointment when working overseas. I always pop a card in the post on a Tuesday.  My life has never been so regulated or structured. It runs like clockwork. 

Our family life finally has a routine which must be adhered to at all costs. This parallel structure to the ballet day provides our son with security - a comfort blanket. We have become a different type of parent, and he knows that parental love and primal nurture also fit into a schedule. 


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Anonymous

    Archives

    August 2020
    January 2020
    March 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    May 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015

    RSS Feed

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Categories

    All
    A Letter
    Alzheimer's
    Anonymity
    Autonomy
    Away From Home
    Birthday
    Blessings
    Camaraderie
    Changing Rooms
    Cheap Seats
    Choice
    Christmas
    Comedy
    Competition
    Confession
    Cruelty
    Daily Contact
    Denial
    Departure
    Dilemma
    Diversity
    Dreams
    Education
    Election
    Elitism
    English National Ballet
    Exit Stage Left
    Expensive Seats
    Father And Sons
    Fatherhood
    #firstworldproblems
    Fitness
    Frankenstein
    Freedom
    Freud
    Guidelines
    Half Term
    Half-term
    Harry Potter
    Hogwarts
    Holidays
    Homecoming
    Ice-cream
    Idealism
    Incarceration
    Independence
    Learning
    Liam Scarlett
    Lies
    Loving Too Much
    Midlife Crisis
    Money
    New Beginnings
    Nutcracker
    Obsession
    Parents
    Perfection
    Presents
    Reactions
    Rebellion
    Responses
    Ricky Jay
    ROH
    Royal Ballet Company
    Royal Opera House
    Rules
    Rumpelstiltskin
    Safeguarding
    School
    Siblings
    Silence
    Sister
    Snobbery
    Steven McRae
    Strangers
    Sugar Plum Fairy
    Swan Lake
    Swans
    Swimming
    Tamara Rojo
    Teaching
    The Golden Rule
    The Price
    Thomas Whitehead
    Time Passing
    Truth
    Uncertainty
    Vampire Bats
    Victory
    Vocational Training
    Widening Participation
    Work

  • Home
  • The Blog
  • Contact
  • subscribe