Parent help during injury recovery

[Momof3darlings]

Would love any tips of how parents keep the spirits up of the dancer recovering from an injury. DD is recovering from a Badly strained tendon near a hip flexor. After 3 weeks of taking it easy in class, PT and Pilates she is finally able to begin full speed classes and rehearsals. But the frustration points are high since that means although she can be back at it full speed, doesn't mean the leg/hip are responding at the speed she'd like. And Nutz is close approaching.

 

I have one VERY determined but VERY frustrated dancer on my hands which means, I need my boxing gloves on to fend for the rollercoaster of mad, tears, etc coming my way.

 

And to top it off.................flu bug hit our house this weekend. Guess who's sick? And it's not me , well yet anyway.

vj

[Mel Johnson]

Oh-ho-ho, boy! Have YOU got a lot on your plate! With the flu active, the swimming pool is out to help with working off frustration. About the only thing I can ask is: Does she like video games?

[Victoria Leigh]

All I can offer is a lot of sympahty, vj. Injury is one thing, but to top it off with flu is quite another. We wish you good luck in surviving this, and of course we wish your daughter a speedy recovery from both!

[chauffeur]

If you think your DD is at all inclined to "hear" you between the explosions of tears, you might try pointing out that letting stress get the better of you flings the door wide open to illness and injury, and drags out recovery time. Power of positive thinking, and all that. So, that said, when I've got something to recover from, I always like to whip out my favorite funny videos (Auntie Mame!!) or funny books (any Jeeves and Wooster), and start laughing my way back to good health.

[BW]

Dear momfo3darlings, I feel for you, your daughter and your entire family! Drink lots of fluids, have copious amounts of good chicken soup, force everyone to use their own toothpaste and I vote for renting as many movies of a humorous nature as possible, as chauffeur has suggested. Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein has always been one of my favorites.

 

I am sorry and wish you all a speedy recovery!

[Momof3darlings]

Well good news! This turned out to be only a 24-36 hour virus instead of full blown flu. (Thank goodness, I have too many costumes to finish to be sick longer than that). So she was back at her last rehearsal before the holidays with a smile on.

 

The hip thing will just take a while and I'll be the punching bag for a bit I'm sure as she'll have good days and not so good days, but it is on the mends. Just a slow go.

 

Funny how things works out, her director said yesterday it was the best they'd done the pas technically yet and jokingly maybe should should dance sick more often. (You have to know her to appreciate that comment)

 

Ahh, motherhood.

 

vj

[Victoria Leigh]

I can appreciate that comment, vj Is she doing Snow or Sugar pas?

[Momof3darlings]

I can appreciate that comment, vj   Is she doing Snow or Sugar pas?

 

Sugar pas, no variation attached

 

vj

[Babsaroo]

Journaling and art sometimes move the blows away from the mom. When dd went through something similar, I had her draw and write about her frustrations. She's not a journal writer but it worked. You would see her ready to blow, take a deep break and go off to her desk. She would come back and share what she wanted to. It placed the frustration away from family members (we were all ducking) and on to a piece of paper. It worked well for us.

 

The mom in me says get better soon. The nurse in me says be careful and don't rush the hip injury recovery.

 

There's motherhood...and then there's motherhood of ballet dancers in Nutcracker season.

[vagansmom]

With a teen, there's not a lot a mom CAN say without being wrong! I remember that what worked best for my kiddo when, for various reasons (illness and/or injury) she couldn't dance was to a) stand or sit in the hallway and throw a tennis ball repeatedly at a door, (it got out lots of anger and frustration) and learn to draw by using the book, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain".

 

Another sit-down activity I've seen teens do when they're physically limited is play with the Ed Emberley thumbprint books. They're really fun and pass the time in a creative way whether one is an artist or not.

 

As far as saying something to keep spirits up while she's dancing, but not at 100%, I'm not sure there's much that can be said. You might suggest she document the baby steps of improvement so she can see progress over a weekly period, if not daily. It helps to get a visual representation of progress. Otherwise, one's mind can make something out to be much worse than it truly is. I use this strategy with kids I tutor; they chart their daily progress, inventing their own ways of graphing it. Later on, they love to look back on their records. But again, the suggestion, coming from mom, may not work.

[balletshuttle]

My DD dislocated her knee-cap on Nov. 10th and was out of class and rehearsal for a bit. One thing she did while sitting and watching her understudies do her parts was to work on her por de bra (please don't laugh at my spelling) This really seemed to help her feel like she was a part of things and that she was still working toward perfecting her performance.. Fortunately she's had a very swift recovery and will be fine for Nut. Hope your dd is 100% soon!