Making Choices

School has started back up again and it’s back to the grind. The kids in my class are especially cute this year and I’ve enjoyed getting to know them and watching them get comfortable enough to hug and hold hands with me (my favorite part).

The first 2 months of Kindergarten are intense as we teach the children the routines and figure out who they each are and how to best reach them. I think we have already discovered the class clowns, the boundary-pushers, the stubborn ones, the sensitive ones and the ones that want to follow and enforce the rules. It’s great watching their personalities emerge and listening to the things they say. While we were suggesting adjectives and animals for our class name, one little boy announced after alligators had been proposed that we should be the “Appropriate Alligators!” with a giggle. Such a great sense of humor and he’s only 5!

Part of teaching kids manners and rule compliance is giving choices. That way they feel like they get to make decisions about their classroom life, and we get happier children. It’s also teaching them how to make a decision and live with it, something I’m not sure I ever learned.

Choices, choices...

In fact, I used to be quite indecisive. I actually still kind of am, but am learning to just choose something and go on with my life. For instance, when I come home from work I take 2 buses. One that takes me down the freeway from near where I work to near where I live. From the freeway bus stop, I have the choice of 2 buses. One takes me a block from my house (#26) the other takes me 5 blocks from home (#44). Both save me a lot of walking, but the timing doesn’t always match up with my first bus and sometimes it’s a matter of how long I want to wait. The weather here has been sunny and warm, so I don’t mind the walking or the waiting outside, but sometimes I just want to get home as fast as possible. So sometimes I choose to catch the #44 because it comes sooner and I am in constant motion going towards home. However, sometimes it’s late and catching the #26 would have gotten me home sooner and I’m annoyed that I made the wrong decision. I used to beat myself up about it until I realized that we all make choices every day and sometimes it’s the wrong choice. So live with it, because there’s nothing to be done about it now.

I cannot tell you much this has changed me. It’s seems simple and silly, I know, but making decisions was sometimes crippling for me.  While eating out I couldn’t decide if I wanted the pancakes or the eggs because I didn’t know which one would make me happier. While making plans with friends I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go out because I wanted to, or because of societal pressure to go out on a Saturday night. Or if I wanted to stay in because I wanted to, or because I was antisocial.

Now I try to please myself and don’t worry about it. If I want to see a movie and no one else is free to go with me, I go alone. Or if there’s an event I really don’t want to miss, but don’t want to go alone, I make myself go anyway because it will make me happier in the long run.

As I get older, I’m trying to live my life more for me. Why not? I am not married, don’t have kids and why wouldn’t I try to make myself happy? Of course this implies that I don’t do anything that negatively affects others or hurts anyone in any way, at least not on purpose.

I do sometimes wish that I was back in Kindergarten, where the choices are simple and it doesn’t affect your life as much. But as it is, I’ll just have to accept being a Kindergarten teacher and give the choices instead.

Advertisement