Choices, Choices, Choices. . .

Congratulations to Samantha Gauer and Calvin Kotrba, along with three other Twin Cities Suzuki pianists upon being selected to play in the Suzuki Association of Minnesota upper level graduation honors recitals on March 15 at Bethel University.

This is a lovely event in a beautiful hall with a wonderful piano. I hope a lot of people will come and watch. For the record, because I had a student of almost fifteen years and my own child auditioning I took myself off the judging committee. Too much love floating out there to be objective.

Calvin will not be representing Blackhawk Middle School at the state spelling bee. Alas, he did not qualify. I confess that I'm relieved. The state bee is also March 15, and had he made it he would have had to choose between representing his school and representing the advanced piano kids.

This got me to thinking about all the choices in our lives. Even choosing between two good things can be difficult.

Personally, I'm happier when I have fewer choices. I'm paralyzed by the mall and I can't even order at a restaurant with too many foods. I shut down. Plus, how can they have all that food ready to serve?  I don't get it.

But I still want  little choices.

Chances are if you are reading this blog you are probably a parent or teacher who is accustomed to giving the children in your life good choices. I do better in some areas than others.

Mary scored very well on her standardized tests, but it still takes a good seven minutes to get her shoes on. That's not including the time it takes to choose which of her umpteen pairs of shoes to wear for the tasks of the day versus the ensemble she is wearing. Too many choices.

I'm better with her clothes. Since she started kindergarten, each morning I give Mary two or three choices for what to wear to school. She gets to choose but she isn't choosing from the whole closet. This works smoothly. Otherwise we would have to home school or find a school that starts mid-morning.

Same with breakfast. . . do you want this or that? Toast or bagel? Chocolate pop tarts is only an option when I'm out of town and Bill is in charge.

Same thing with piano. Do you want to start with a scale or theory? How many repetitions shall we do? What shall we do next?

Asking a lot of questions and giving limited and acceptable choices helps kids develop autonomy and eventual independence. The dance is knowing how much and when.

Our culture has the total curse of over choice.  It's everywhere all the time. I pay a little more to grocery shop at a smaller store because it's bad for my brain to see all those breakfast cereals. I'd have to let go some students for the time it takes me to stand there and make all those decisions. See how much I'm saving?

Bill and I try to protect our kids from having to make every little choice about every little thing. Dole out appropriate freedoms. We've done good with bedtime and not so great with food. Every family has their issues.

There will be enough tough choices in life.
I'm glad Calvin can postpone the academic vs. music a little longer. In eighth grade I had to choose between jazz band and algebra. Even then I knew that wasn't fair.

Speaking of academics and music, I saw Aidan last weekend and he announced that he is officially pursuing a double major of music and computer science. Congrats, Aidan! I'm happy for you.  Perhaps you too can postpone a difficult decision just a little longer, heck, maybe forever.  After all, my husband has two big band gigs this weekend.

Congrats on the Debussy, Calvin, and you can try the spelling bee thing again next year, though you should know genetics are against you. . . hopefully your DNA won't hold you back on either front.

Congrats to Sami, too. And good luck to everyone, with your own family's dance. May all the choices be win win.