Remember this gorgeous, beautiful plan I made for my eleven-year-old son?
He wants to do school the way his older brother does.
I wrote about that plan, too, but I fear I made it seem much more parent-led and structured than it really is. Let me start by explaining how it looks on a day-to-day basis.
In the morning, I greet my teen by asking him if he's eaten, showered, you know, done all the normal morning things. This is because he sometimes forgets and just slips onto the laptop before we are all up, then stares at it til it's 11am and we're wandering about trying to start our days. Not all the time. But often enough that I have learned to ask. Once he's done that stuff, we check in with each other.
He wants to know if I have plans for him for the day. Doctor's appointments? Heavy things to haul across the house for his poor weakling mother? Weird dinner plans that will make him want to prep his own alternative supper? Or, the dreaded, some class I've signed him up for. He especially hates that, even though he usually likes them once I've dragged him there.
I always want to know what he has planned for himself for the day. Writing a Faster than Light mod that will make him want to stare at my laptop screen for eight hours straight? Going on a bike ride that might keep him out past dark? Robotics team meeting? Mostly, though, I want to make sure that he's going to work on some of his credits that day and not maintain a horizontal posture all day, phone in hand, texting from bed. He and I both are aware that he needs to work about five hours a day, five days a week, to do all the credit hours he's supposed to do this year.
When I say credit hours, I mean, hours of activities he can count towards his graduation requirements. For example, to get into the college he wants to attend, he has to do four credits (where a credit means 108 hours of high-school level learning) in mathematics. Today, racking up five credit hours in tech writing, biology, engineering, and phys ed, he's written a proposal for a project in an orbital mechanics simulation, participated in an online tutorial, and bicycled to a local MakerCamp event.
During our morning conversations we often brainstorm the next steps in each of his credits. And a lot of the time I end up badgering him some, reminding him that he has to put in the time when he'd rather lounge around and daydream or watch YouTube videos of games he plays. I want him to have time to daydream, and I recognize that he is learning to pursue a passion diligently when he hunts down every last vid of a particular game stage, but I don't want him to skip high school for it.
And a lot of the time he is full of great ideas and just goes. I love those times. I live for them.
It seems his little brother has been overhearing those morning conversations.
He's been present, too, when we're coming home from an outing or cleaning up a project and I say, "Oh, don't forget to count [such-and-such] towards [thiscredit]!" or, "If you write up a formal goals statement and describe what you did to reach them, you can count [fun thing] towards [relevant course]."
He wants that power and that freedom.
I think he also wants the paperwork. Just a day ago he jealously snatched the intake paperwork from me when I was handed a clipboard by his optometrist's secretary. He sees his brother carrying around a binder full of sheets on which he logs what he did, how long it took, and which course he counted it towards. Like when he was a three-year-old clamoring to do school at the dining room table with the big kids, he wants his own binder.
And I'm content to give it to him. He's always been a self-starter. He'll be good at this.
He wants to do school the way his older brother does.
I wrote about that plan, too, but I fear I made it seem much more parent-led and structured than it really is. Let me start by explaining how it looks on a day-to-day basis.
In the morning, I greet my teen by asking him if he's eaten, showered, you know, done all the normal morning things. This is because he sometimes forgets and just slips onto the laptop before we are all up, then stares at it til it's 11am and we're wandering about trying to start our days. Not all the time. But often enough that I have learned to ask. Once he's done that stuff, we check in with each other.
He wants to know if I have plans for him for the day. Doctor's appointments? Heavy things to haul across the house for his poor weakling mother? Weird dinner plans that will make him want to prep his own alternative supper? Or, the dreaded, some class I've signed him up for. He especially hates that, even though he usually likes them once I've dragged him there.
I always want to know what he has planned for himself for the day. Writing a Faster than Light mod that will make him want to stare at my laptop screen for eight hours straight? Going on a bike ride that might keep him out past dark? Robotics team meeting? Mostly, though, I want to make sure that he's going to work on some of his credits that day and not maintain a horizontal posture all day, phone in hand, texting from bed. He and I both are aware that he needs to work about five hours a day, five days a week, to do all the credit hours he's supposed to do this year.
When I say credit hours, I mean, hours of activities he can count towards his graduation requirements. For example, to get into the college he wants to attend, he has to do four credits (where a credit means 108 hours of high-school level learning) in mathematics. Today, racking up five credit hours in tech writing, biology, engineering, and phys ed, he's written a proposal for a project in an orbital mechanics simulation, participated in an online tutorial, and bicycled to a local MakerCamp event.
During our morning conversations we often brainstorm the next steps in each of his credits. And a lot of the time I end up badgering him some, reminding him that he has to put in the time when he'd rather lounge around and daydream or watch YouTube videos of games he plays. I want him to have time to daydream, and I recognize that he is learning to pursue a passion diligently when he hunts down every last vid of a particular game stage, but I don't want him to skip high school for it.
And a lot of the time he is full of great ideas and just goes. I love those times. I live for them.
It seems his little brother has been overhearing those morning conversations.
He's been present, too, when we're coming home from an outing or cleaning up a project and I say, "Oh, don't forget to count [such-and-such] towards [thiscredit]!" or, "If you write up a formal goals statement and describe what you did to reach them, you can count [fun thing] towards [relevant course]."
He wants that power and that freedom.
I think he also wants the paperwork. Just a day ago he jealously snatched the intake paperwork from me when I was handed a clipboard by his optometrist's secretary. He sees his brother carrying around a binder full of sheets on which he logs what he did, how long it took, and which course he counted it towards. Like when he was a three-year-old clamoring to do school at the dining room table with the big kids, he wants his own binder.
And I'm content to give it to him. He's always been a self-starter. He'll be good at this.