We have had both the blessing and the problem of Z's teachers wanting her to focus on their subject. Her piano teacher wants her to spend all her free time on piano. Her voice teacher is ready for her to start a more time-consuming training program. Her agent obviously wanted her to drop everything for an audition. She isn't taking dance right now but I know that the good dance school around here get very serious and time consuming when the kids are eight.
Anyway this is what I am dealing with:
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My daughter is into musical theatre - so she wants to sing and dance and act. She also is interested in composing her own material. Right now she takes private lessons in piano, and voice and does Shakespeare theatre during the school year.
Secondly she is very interested in most branches of science. She wants to be an astronaut and a Doctor. She also collects gems and minerals and arthropods and reads science text books for fun (when she is not reading sheet music.)
Third, when she was around 2 1/2 she gave herself the lifetime goal being a polygot. Currently she takes private lessons in Japanese but she has also learned some Spanish, French, and Hebrew. (she is also known to read foreign language dictionaries for fun)
Fourth, she is very physically active. She would live at her gymnastics school if she could. She is not taking dance now because I made her take a break but she has taken and loved both dance and martial arts and wants to get back into them. She also likes any sport we have introduced her to - tennis, swimming, basketball, soccer, etc.
Fifth, she loves to read. She reads all the time, mostly fantasy books and poetry. She is often reading more than half a dozen LARGE books at a time.
Sixth, she is no social hermit. She has a lot of friends and we have two homeschooling groups we go to as well as playdates every week.
Last, but not least, I personally think it is very important for her emotional and mental health to have significant down time every day. Often her down time is taken up with reading or composing or singing. But she could just lie down if she wanted.
Last summer she started doing some professional acting and last January it got to be too much. I was more than willing to drop that. But all these other things are really important to her.
I am in a state of worrying about Z's near future and how she is going to continue pursuing all her many interests. I understand that she will have to spend more time on some things and thus less time on others. If she gets more into the whole performing arts thing maybe she will have to explore science or languages at specialized camps during the summer.
Right now we are able to keep a healthy balance. But I feel like to get to the level she wants to be at in her various activities (i.e. a challenging level) she will have to give up some things. Or at least not do all of them at the same time.
Planning for all this is kind of stressing me out these days.
5 comments:
She certainly does have many interests,she's so talented! O has a lot of interests too (not as varied as Z though). I am also concerned about how he will ever decide on pursuing just one career,I don't think it's possible? I know what you mean by down time,it's so important for O as well. Z is so young now, maybe as she gets older, things will become clearer in which path she would like to pursue?
Wow!She certainly sounds busy, and she is lucky to have such a good Mom
looking out for her best interests!
I am no real advice. I struggle with this concept myself, but I don't have your energy to pursue all the outlets that you arrange for Z. It is amazing all you do given the just the traffic.
Z is really talented and smart girl and it's great that she can excel in so many things on the other hand I can see that it may be hard to think about future and how to pursue everything she loves so much and still keep a healthy balance.
I think this is where homeschooling is a big advantage of hers. It's not like she would sit in a school from 8:30 to 3:30 and you would have to try to fit all that on top of her school schedule.
Japanese and science are part of her curriculum, your school days are much shorter than regular school days (and she still learns much more than she would ever do in school) and you have all afternoons "free" to pursue her interests.
L - you are right. Homeschooling realy helps. I have been able to keep a balance but it is already a fight.
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