Reaching for the Brass Ring

If my kids learn nothing else I want them to know that they have options and they can make choices. They can learn about anything they want to learn about or need to learn about. They are free to try different things so long as they are willing to do the work. They should not be afraid to try new things or to go to new places or to do things with people they don't know.

Two children who are friends with my sons said things to them and me recently which frankly surprised me and made me sad. Without sharing details, because their mothers read my blog and don't know their sons said these things to me, I won't tell the detailed stories. Then I heard a third story from a father about his son with the same issue.

The common denominator with these three boys is school. They have all been to preschool and school and they are aged 10-14. They have chosen to not try a new experience they want to do because they are afraid to enter a group of kids they do not know and have not known. They are very blunt when stating they will not join a group unless a handful or more kids in the group are known to them from school or some previous relationship.

Some chose to quit something as they were sick of it and do nothing instead of pursue the same endeavor with a new group of kids that may be a better fit. In other cases they are continuing with a pursuit they say they are sick of and bored doing as they feel their parents want them to keep doing it OR they just keep doing it as they already know how to do it. They also at the same time cannot try the new thing as doing the old boring thing creates a scheduling conflict with the new thing, so it comes down to quitting one thing in order to try out the other thing.

In one case the child worried he lacked skills to play a new sport and when I said he could learn along with all the other kids learning he replied with something that means, using more adult terms I'll say it: he is afraid to try the new thing and to look inferior in skills to the more experienced same-aged players. I said my son didn't know a thing when he went into his sport earlier this year and has learned a lot especially through special skills clinics that he could also take.

One kid was specific that he was afraid to try something offered in another town even when he hated the program run through our town. He liked the core activity but hated the group in our town so he quit. He was afraid and uncomfortable to join a group in another town. Even when I said that the kids in that group come from three different town's public schools and two parochial schools and two other private schools so it's not a clique he was still scared.

It dawned on me that one thing that homeschooling has done for my kids is it has given them the freedom to know they can go to different places and join different groups not just the one offered right in our town. My kids are NOT afraid to join a class or sport when they know they will not know a single person there or may know just one kid (out of forty or fifty).

My kids choose what to do based on the activity itself not choosing based on what is offered in our little town. When something is not here we go elsewhere, even if it requires a drive. I do not limit my kid's activities based on what is available in our small community, if I did they'd never have learned to swim (there is no place to swim in this town nor are lessons offered for our residents through some kind of joint venture with a YMCA or the town next door's park and rec department).

I have one son who resists a new activity which I suggest to him, and says he doesn't want to do it. After a bad experience with letting him have control (refusing to take a swimming lesson then he was locked out of boating activtities and deep water swimming with his friend at Cub Scout camp right around his tenth birthday) I changed my procedure. For him I carefully considered options then sign him up without him knowing. Shortly before it starts I inform him at which point he'd throw a fit. Then he tries it and every time, he loves it. This is because I know my son deeply and investigate the program and look for a good match.

That son has learned he is closed-minded when he says he doesn't want to do that thing. Starting at age 12 he started opening his mind after I pointed out all the times he resisted something I thought he'd love then he found he did love it. This is probably brain-development based given his developmental stage, he can incorporate logical thinking more into his decision making (especially when I work this through with him, not leaving him to his own devices).

Now I seek more of his buy-in ahead of time. I don't think it is in my son's best interest to turn down new things without a logical reason so I push him to just try it out, after outlining all the good things about it, saying what I think he'll love about it and why the program is high quality and a good fit for him. In case you are wondering, when he attended the new things he blended right in and showed no anxiety while doing the activity. It was more of a power struggle thing between me and him.

Even that son's resistance to trying something new is not an apples to apples comparision to the three kid's stories that inspired this post. Those kids say they want to do something but they are so afraid of various things that they will not do it. They have an internal desire and they do not make the choice to make it happen in their real lives. I also suspect that perhaps the parents don't even know their kids think this way. I don't know why but some kids I know open up to my kids and sometimes to me also and say things they don't tell their own parents. I know this as sometimes I ask if they have talked about this with their parents and they say they have not.

I don't know what has happened in those boy's lives to make them think their options are limited, that it is scary to try new things, or that it is best to stay within a safe cocoon group of known acquaintences than to branch out to do an activity in the town that is one mile away. I can't help but suspect that the school mindset is partially to blame. How else would a child learn such things? (These are kids living in an upper class wealth level in nice homes with good parents with degrees ranging from bachelor's to masters to medical degrees. These kids are not underpriviledged and are actually, possibly over-indulged.) I know the parents and they seem to be willing to do almost anything to provide their kids with enriching extra-curricular activities and to provide their kids with a great education so that seems illogical. I think this issue is something within the child that they learned someplace else, maybe at their common denominator: school.

If one of the things that results from homeschooling is my children feel more free to explore the world and pursue their interests and educational experiences, then I'm satisfied with that outcome. I don't exactly know what I did to instill my kid's minds with the idea that they can pretty much try anything if they want to, perhaps all I did was live this in real life with them and they internalized it. Well, I'm thrilled that my kids have a different attitude and outlook on their life experiences. (At the same time I'm still sad about how the other kids think and make decisions for themselves.)