I was trying to have a balanced approach to parenting when I enrolled the little guy in an arts and crafts class. I figured he would benefit from exploring his more creative side. I was wrong.
Sadly we had quite a miserable time at our first art class this morning.
It's not that he was the youngest kid at the table. He wasn't. It's not that there weren't interesting things to do. There were. It's that he wanted to leave the table and run around the room exploring. He also wanted to throw a few crying fits, step on other people's art work drying on the floor, stare out the window at the clouds, and pretty much anything that didn't have something to do with the class we had registered for.
I knew within a few minutes I had made a mistake. I had an internal dialogue on whether I should switch to a more active class or just get my money back. I was also debating whether I was giving him enough of a chance. Perhaps he just needs to try it a few times, I thought to myself.
Well by the end of it I had decided I was not going to torture myself for the next eight Friday mornings. I asked the teacher if she knew about the withdrawal policy and while she didn't have any useful information for me, she certainly seemed relieved that my non artistic son and I would not be coming back and interrupting her little class.
I was relieved when the front desk guy reassured me that it would be OK and passed along the contact info of the Director of kids programing. I gave her a call as soon as we got home and we switched the little guy into a sports class as of next week. No hassle whatsoever.
I don't feel like a failure. But I did learn a lesson. The little guy is not the type of kid who wants to sit at a table quietly painting. This guy wants to move. And I'm going to let him.
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