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Show School ( and Vy Home kt by Dr. Daryl J. McCarty I Executive Secretary .. i Utah Education Association Recently a newspaper article ar-ticle about a basketball game between Utah State and San Jose State contained a lesson for parents and kids. A Utah State player said his team's problem in that game was that Aggie players play-ers couldn't decide whether to pass, dribble or shoot. San Jose State players didn't have that problem. They took 19 more shots than Utah. Maybe the thing that won it for San Jose was decisiveness. decis-iveness. Too many people fail in the Game of Life because they can't make a decision. Is it because parents shelter shel-ter their children from making mak-ing decisions and living with the consequences? I believe be-lieve that's at least part of the problem of indecisive -ness. Certainly, if nine year old Larry wants to go ice fishing fish-ing and you think the ice on the lake is dangerously thin, you make an important import-ant decision for Larry. "No way," you tell him. But when Larry earns ten dollars and wants to spend it in his own way do you butt in and tell him how to use the money? If you do, you're taking away an opportunity to make a decision. You're also taking tak-ing away an opportunity for him to learn a lasting lesson les-son - the lesson of making decisons routinely for him -self. Should Larry make enough small decisions like that, chances are he'll be able to handle the big ones as well. Sure, like San Jose State, he may miss the basket a few times. But chances are that he will come out a winner. |