The Plan

Here I am. I have a plan. It is a good plan, or so I think. It is a plan based on a tried-and-true approach. It is my plan, and I'm comfortable with it.

And then, I read THE book. Not a book that necessarily changes the plan, but one that puts a filter between my eyes and my good plan, and highlights all its flaws. Been there?

The book ... Project-based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-directed Learners by Lori Pickert.

The plan ... Grade 5 in our homeschool.

The flaw ... I'm not allowing him the freedom he needs to learn to sit in the driver's seat of his life.

It seems I've faced this flaw before, with two older sons. The talking point of the conversation was not homeschool, but it was the lesson all the same. Boys need to grow up. Moms need to step back. And it is time once again.

All this in mind, we begin the transition. I think about the Jewish people and their sons' bar mitzvahs, when they are expected to live in full obedience to God's laws at 13 years old. I've always thought of that as the time when boys, Jewish or not, stop being taught and raised primarily at home by their mothers, and transition to the training they gain from the world of their fathers. That gives me just a few years to finish the childhood training and prepare Nathan for the manhood training. How did the time pass by so quickly?

We move on with the Grade 5 plan, but the heart of the plan is changing. The heart of the mamma is changing ... all in an effort to keep up with the boy who is growing and becoming. We don't raise children. We raise men. And so, the next stage begins.