Layers of Paint
New member
I've been ballroom dancing for 4 years, the first 2 years in a separate dance studio. Frankly, I'm starting to get annoyed with ballroom dancing. I know all of the routines, I've worked hard, and I'm the oldest in my dance class. The rest of the kids are around 8-10 years old. I'm 13 years old. I'm in 7th grade, and I want to focus on my studies so I can get into an excellent high school. I can't do that with ballroom dancing. I spend 1 1/2 hours on each Monday and Wednesday dancing a routine that I've known for 2 years. Ballroom dancing is wasting my time. Also, all of the other kids think it's alright to talk about me behind my back just because I'm older. Whenever I get close to one of them to dance in pairs, they call me disgusting names and refuse to dance properly when dancing with me. If I go to the teacher, she'll say that they're just little kids having fun with me. I have no idea why these little kids are affecting me so badly. I've never had this problem before with older kids. I haven't told my parents about what's happening at dance. If I tell them, they'll start going into a panic attack, and they'll demand to "...speak with the teacher and demand to know why their child is being teased and hurt at dance." It will embarrass me greatly, because these kids go to a school very close to mine, and they'll start pointing me out to their friends saying, "Oh look, it's that big kid who has overprotective parents." I've been embarrassed more than enough in my childhood, so I believe my parents don't need to know. I've talked with my Dad saying I want to quit dance, and he said I have to talk with my Mom. I'm positive they'll both say yes. The problem is, I don't know what to say to my dance teacher on the day I quit. If I say, "I'm quitting." or "This is my last day.” she'll start getting upset, be depressed for the whole day, and make me feel guilty. Can you guys list a bunch of excuses that I can use, without upsetting my dance teacher? She's a nice, gentle person, but she ignores everything that's going on in the classroom: the bullying (even though I'm older), the teasing, the humiliation and the suffering that I have to endure every Monday and Wednesday. I know that some of you are probably going to say something like, "Just live with it until the end of dance. It's only two days a week". I want to end up in a nice high school and college, get a good job, and become somewhat rich. Ballroom dancing is causing me to stay up all night doing homework from English school and from a foreign language religion school, going to sleep somewhere around 3 in the morning. I have to wake up at 6 in the morning so it's not a lot of sleep. I look a bit like a raccoon with the dark circles under my eyes. Please answer, and endure my whining. I know I may sound like a whiny brat, but I am really stressed, so stressed that I missed 4 months of periods (and I'm not pregnant). I want to get back to my normal life, my life before ballroom dancing. So please give me a list of good excuses to use on my teacher when I quit so she won’t cry. Thanks.