School Disco

Missy's school held a disco last week, the first sitting being for nursery, Reception and KS1.  I wasn't going to not let Missy go but I knew she would find it a little difficult.

Whilst Missy is very age appropriate in many ways, she does have a little catching up to do in the social and emotional areas.  If you ask her to dance at home to music, she is like a whirling dervish, showing off her rmoves, laughing and giggling.  At the disco she was the opposite.  On the dance floor she looked a little lost, not really knowing what to do, not until a classmate came along grabbed her by the hand and started dancing.  At this point she would break out into an enormous smile.  She'd dance with them but then, like many 5-7 year olds, they were off again at 100mph round the dance floor leaving Missy alone again.  When she caught my eye and I displayed a few moves (of sorts!), she'd stare and frown at me (and no, it wasn't because my moves were embarrassing) and look the other way.  I wanted to scoop her up and dance with her but this would have led to a tantrum.

The hour-long disco was clearly stressful at times for her.  When she asked me to take her to the loo, she was angry, when we walked back to the car she was grumpy, when we got back in she wouldn't tell Daddy about the disco.  When in the company of several children, Missy usually spends much of the time staring at them, trying to make sense of what they are doing.  At the disco, much of what she did was copying the other children.  And that's good, that's how children learn, by copying.   It was a shame though that she didn't enjoy the disco as much as many of her classmates who are confident, have high self-esteem and just know what to do.

At least though I now know what the kids of these ages are listening to.  I stopped listening to the charts in the late 80s!  And I distinctly remember Heart of Glass by Blondie and Up Town Rankin by Althia & Donna being played at my school disco.