It is a few minutes after 3:00 pm. My daughter’s school day has ended and she has entered the school auditorium by now, God willing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
As I write this, I am anxiously awaiting a verdict. Was yesterday’s parental advice to Sarah wise?<\/p>\n\n\n
Or did we set her up for trauma?<\/p>\n\n\n
Sarah came home from school yesterday torn. Her school is pulling together a musical in the next few weeks and Sarah would love to be one of the background dancers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
But even the background dancers have to audition. And that involves singing a solo in front of an audience of 40 classmates and adults.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
A daunting prospect!<\/p>\n\n\n
The thought of it left Sarah bouncing between “I can do that” and “I am going to embarrass myself to death<\/b><\/i>“.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
After texting a friend later in the evening, she came to the kitchen and announced, “My friend isn’t going to audition, so I have decided not to do it either. I am just going to be a part of the crew – backstage. Such a relief!”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
In that moment, I recognized myself in her: looking for an excuse to back away from what I feared might<\/i> happen. And missing a golden opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n
And so her mother and I both spoke up. I think Sarah expected to hear “Well, it’s your decision …”<\/p>\n\n\n
Instead, we repeated our confidence in her … and urged her to face her fears.<\/p>\n\n\n
This morning, although she lost a night of sleep, Sarah said she was going to audition after school.<\/p>\n\n\n
****<\/p>\n\n\n
It’s now 10:00 pm and I am happy to report that Sarah stuck around after school – for almost three hours – and then took her turn on the stage and sang her song.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
She said her stomach was in a knot all day. She had considered backing out but then decided all her anxiety would have been for nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Now we wait to see if she made the cut.<\/p>\n\n\n
For dinner we celebrated with some Chinese take-out from Yee Kee.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Sarah was exhausted but nothing could wipe that smile off her face all evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is a few minutes after 3:00 pm. My daughter’s school day has ended and she has entered the school auditorium by now, God willing.\u00a0 As I write this, I am anxiously awaiting a verdict. Was yesterday’s parental advice to Sarah wise? Or did we set her up for trauma? Sarah came home from school […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8477,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8476\/revisions\/8477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}