I know this title seems sort of “woo woo” as we like to say here on the West coast, but earlier today I was talking with a fellow parent and we were talking about the different ways our kids have of going about things. Not everyone follows the “traditional” or “socially acceptable” way of going about schooling, activities, religion, etc. As a matter of fact, our kids have a way of evolving individually and forcing us to realize that there are even different paths out there!
When I was growing up, I just assumed that every kid went to their neighborhood school and then onto public high school and then you either dropped out or graduated, after graduation, you either went on to college or went to work. It all seemed pretty obvious and pretty cut-and-dried to me. Of course, the world isn’t nearly that regimented and we now live in a society where there are more choices than ever—home school, charter schools, alternative schools, public, and private schools. The GED or alternative diplomas are both accepted at most colleges and now kids are taking a “buffer” year between high school and colleges and many higher education programs are actually encouraging it.
There are just so many different ways and different paths that children can move through and more and more seem to be doing it. The challenge for us parents is to catch up with the times and be able to think outside the box too. I know for myself, raised in the everybody-did-things-pretty-much-the-same world, this isn’t always easy. It is hard not to worry that my kids might be taking “wrong” turns or worry about what their paths may actually look like. The important thing is that I stay involved, supportive, and advocating as much as possible and learn how to allow and accept that my kids may go about things very differently than I did—but they are living their own lives, not mine all over again.
Also: How Many Ways Can We Solve This Problem?
Letting Our Kids Live Their Own Lives