My oldest son Aidan is just on the brink of his formal education--he starts kindergarten in the fall. He's so excited by the prospect that the greatest compliment you can give him now is to say he is acting "just like a schoolkid." He role-plays the school day all the time--our family dinners become cafeteria lunches, drawing sessions become homework, and time at the park across the street becomes recess. I hope this enthusiasm continues once he really is in school!
But there's one part of his education that I think we'll need to supplement, and that's his education in music. My own music education was woefully spotty. I had a few private instructors teach me (first on the organ, then on the guitar), but they never followed any particular curriculum. I came away with bits and pieces of knowledge from one teacher, and a little bit of something from the next. And what I learned in school didn't fill in any of the gaps.
So, in the time-honored tradition of wanting better things for my kids, I've decided to find a good music teacher for Aidan. But where to start? There are countless private teachers in this area (with the same potential pitfalls I faced). There are schools that teach the Suzuki method, the Yamaha method, the this-method, the that-method. It's all very daunting to a musically untrained person like myself. I want a logical, systematic curriculum, but most of all, I want it to be fun for him. Much of the reason I gave up music lessons was because of being bored to tears with scales and exercises. I want better for my kid.
But not only that, he also wants to play soccer.
I live in fear of becoming one of those stressed-out families, with too many time commitments and not enough time. One of those families that never eats dinner together and only sees one another in passing from one lesson to another. I won't let us become that, but I want the kids to be able to explore the things they're interested in. It's going to be a balancing act.
The knitting is coming along just fine. No photos of the progress on Quinn, but I'm getting into the home stretch on the main part of the bag. A few more quiet evenings of work on it, and I'll have something to show!
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I can emphathize with the stress of kid's activities. My daughter is in kindergarten this year, and trying to balance exposing her to everything and not stressing her out is tricky. We found a neat "Music for Budding Musicians" program which combines piano, song and dance to expose her to music, and she seems to really enjoying it. So much that I think we'll continue with regular piano lessons next year. The nice thing is, kids are so very flexible, so just an introduction can be transferred into something different without too much trouble. Good luck!
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