![\"DANCING](\"http:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/dwts-juniors-17-20002-e1539655500806.jpg\")
<\/a>When I heard they were doing a Juniors<\/em> version of Dancing With The Stars<\/em>, as much as I was thrilled that I was going to see tween performer JT Church back on my television, dancing up a storm once again, I was really worried, as a former teacher, that this competition show would be way too stressful for ones so young. Heck, look at what wrecks the grown-up<\/em> competitors are!!!<\/p>\n<\/a>The cute little girl who’s always squishing this adorable spelling bee boy.<\/p><\/div>\n
But it looks like I needn\u2019t have been concerned. I\u2019m sure it hurts the ones who are *eliminated, but the show seems to be doing a couple of things to help make the whole process easier on them. *(The first week, the little girl chef looked distraught, as did the little boy who was the lowest scorer this<\/em> week, but Sarah Palin\u2019s grandson just looked blank, as he had all along, when they told him he was gone at the end of the premiere episode.) [Note: Big \u201cstars,\u201d eh? Even I<\/em> don\u2019t know their names, and I go back and replay bits I just saw every few minutes!!!]<\/p>\n First of all, the show, (except for the finale, I believe,) is taped (instead of live,) so if there are any disturbing incidents, they can be edited out. And that makes for so much less pressure on these children to begin with.<\/p>\n Secondly, they\u2019re not doing long drawn-out eliminations, or scaring the kids by telling them, \u201cYou\u2019re in jeopardy!\u201d The host just quickly states, \u201cGoing home this week is…,\u201d or something like that. Like ripping-off a band-aid. So good on them!<\/p>\n Honey Boo Boo and her very patient partner.<\/p><\/div>\n And, by the way, the correct two did<\/em> get eliminated the first week. This week was a toss-up because there were about four sub-par duos. Let\u2019s just hope it\u2019s poor in-denial-about-her-looks* Honey Boo Boo who gets the next<\/em> hook! She doesn\u2019t dance<\/em>; she just stands around shimmying. *[Note: I do<\/em> feel for Honey Boo Boo because I was in her shoes once. I was pretty hefty myself when I was ten, but when I saw the pictures my father took of me back then, I just thought that he was a bad photographer! I could not accept that I really looked that awful.]<\/p>\n As for the entertainment value of Dancing With The Stars Juniors<\/em>, most of the kids are adorable! I love the little dancer girl who just can not stop squishing her partner, the little spelling bee boy. So adorbs!!! And most of them are pretty entertaining, one way or another.<\/p>\n My fave duo–Sky Brown and JT Church.<\/p><\/div>\n Of course, hands down, my favorite duo is JT and his \u201cceleb\u201d partner, skateboarder Sky Brown. (But why does she sound Australian when she said she\u2019s from Japan???) I\u2019m rooting for those two all the way. (They were waaaay under-marked on Week 2, which was a semi-disgrace! But they went shortly after a much older pair, who received \u201c8\u201ds when they should have received \u201c9\u201ds. So the judges left themselves nowhere to go except \u201c7\u201ds for everyone else. Shame.)<\/p>\n But that\u2019s an issue with Dancing With The Stars Juniors<\/em> not being live\u2014we, the viewing audience, do not get to vote!!! That leaves it all up to a combo of the judges marks and the studio<\/em> audience vote. I just hope that every kid is allowed an equal number of guests; otherwise, the voting can be really skewed. And you know that if it was up to me<\/em>, (which, of course, it should be!,) JT and Sky would win.<\/p>\n My other two fave teams are Miles Brown, (the kid from Black-ish<\/em>, who is the one real \u201cstar\u201d on there,) and his girl, and the little spelling bee guy and his squishing-him partner.<\/p>\n Miles Brown and his cute partner, who is the little sis of Mr. X’s favorite grown-up pro, Lindsay Arnold.<\/p><\/div>\n Which brings me to the trio of bones I have to pick with the powers-that-be over there. One is that no one except the aforementioned Miles Brown is even close to being a star!!! (And, in reality, he\u2019s the most pro<\/em> dancer on there! He\u2019s Baby Boogaloo, who\u2019s been dancing professionally since he was about four-years-old!!!) Three of the twelve are even just children<\/em> of famous people!!! This show is just contributing to the future obnoxiousness of those already over-entitled offspring! (And it\u2019s equally egregious that some of them said stuff like, \u201cI\u2019m a clothing designer.\u201d Yeah, right\u2014you\u2019re a kid<\/em>, not a designer<\/em>!!!)<\/p>\n And how rude is it of the producers to not tell us the last names<\/em> of the mini pros?!?! No one knows who they are, yet they\u2019re being announced with only their first names, to make them seem lesser than the supposed \u201cstars!\u201d<\/p>\n The judges: (L-R) Mandy, Val, and Adam.<\/p><\/div>\n And lastly, when those said pros were introducing themselves on the first episode, and they said things like, \u201cYou may know me from Justin Timberlake\u2019s video,\u201d or \u201c…from So You Think<\/em> You Can Dance<\/em>,\u201d would it have killed the producers to show a five-second clip of what they\u2019re referencing??? Ridiculous.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>