Yesterday, in the car, my foster granddaughter told me her piano teacher and her mom were mad at her. Her teacher told her mom that she was disrespectful, and my granddaughter didn't think she was, except maybe when she put her feet up. Now her mom is saying she has to decide if she wants to quit piano or shape up and behave better. My GG has a sleepover on Friday night, and she wants to quit piano, but she's afraid if she says that to her mother the sleepover will be canceled. I know my GG well enough to imagine she was punky and probably rude. I like to keep the communication lines open so I suggested she tell her mom she'd like to take a break for a year and figure out how much piano matters to her. I also told her if she doesn't continue with music she won't probably be able to audition and compete with other girls with more experience and expertise later on. "So when you are sixteen and want the part of Maria in West Side Story you probably will lose out to girls with steady practice, lessons and an impressive resume". I told her I knew it was hard to think that far ahead, but she should decide if she wants to be a singer, then I named a few singers she admires that accompany themselves on piano. She saw my point about not using the word "quit" and instead "taking a break".
GG is ten going on 16. She wants to be a rock star, she wants high waist shorts and a crop top but they don't make them for a child her size and age. She "can't wait" to get her license and drive her friends around. She wants to see PG13 movies. She wants to be older in a huge way. In a couple of months she'll be 11 and she has signs of puberty. She likes goth style and boys and songs with bad words in them and the theme of young love. She's acting out and pushing her parents at every turn. As I've said to her mother, she's high maintenance.
I don't tell her mother anything any more, because then GG's trust in me will evaporate. I can remember when I was her age, and I was a bundle of half baked romantic ideas and a narrow world of what can I get away with wearing. Like my friends, I rolled up my skirt at school to make it shorter and begged for Tangee lipstick. I was trivial and short sighted and shallow. My best friend from that era sent me a note I'd passed her in class at that age and I was mortified. I clearly was a social, brainless idiot. So I'm confident my GG will survive this and acquire some depth as she gets older. But there are going to be a lot of fights and acting out before that happens.
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