Modeling: Do As I Do

This afternoon, I sat down to an episode of The West Wing with my 11-year-old, my historian/writer with an interest in politics who took to the show after watching a short clip during the election cycle. It’s odd fare for a preteen, but I’m considering it educational.  As I generally do, I brought my phone with me to the couch while he searched Amazon Prime for our next episode.

“Put it down!” he emphatically requested.

I turned the phone over onto the couch next to me, but that was not sufficient.

“Down there,” he said, pointing at the floor, just out of reach.

I mentioned something about waiting for his dad to text about pick-up time tonight, left it by my side, and pointed out the popcorn on the end table. The phone stayed face down on the couch, but his point was made.

While “do as I say, not as I do”  is fine to say, it’s not really the best in parenting methodology. We are models of adult behavior for our children. What we do matters far more to our offspring than what we say. Personally, this disappoints me. My behavior is less than ideal far too many times, and I realize that I say one thing and model another, constantly aware that my actions speak louder than my words. And while my younger son is still phone-free and my phone-wielding son shows restraint with his, I can’t think that my attachment is likely the healthiest behavior either child could observe.

My too-regular responses to texts and checks on my Scrabble games are just two of the types of distracted behavior that serve as poor models for my kids. When working online, I tend to keep one eye out for email and another out on Scrabble or Facebook, not because I’m waiting for anything important but simply because my own ability to focus on one thing at a time is becoming challenged. I dispense advice to my older: Keep only your work on the screen. Close Facebook. Don’t read with windows open on the computer. He has a fair amount of the inattentive type of ADD and is easily distracted. I have no native ADD and am, perhaps, even more distracted. And yet I say one thing and do quite the opposite, with predictable results — he keeps screens open and flounders to finish tasks while I also accomplish less than I could if I minimized electronic distractions.

My modeling of mealtime is similarly poor. We’ve always been a meals-at-the-table-together kind of family. That worked well when dinner found us all at the table at the same time and the boys woke at dawn, making these natural family times. But with classes in all directions at all hours and three differing interpretations at what constitutes morning (and thus breakfast time, which influences lunch time), this meal bonding time has become less secure. And with online classes running over meals and hurried people with work and homework, eating at the computer became a new norm. Sticky keyboards aside, this practice also leads to meals consumed without thought and appreciation. The part of me that embraces at least the idea of intentionality and mindfulness shudders at this new trend of ours. Periodically, I’ll make a demand to return eating to the table. And for a while, we do so. But when the kids aren’t there, it’s easy to take my meal to the computer (lentil soup tonight), and when my older is busy with homework or Minecraft, he doesn’t want to remove himself from his lair and ascend to the kitchen.

Reading is another modeling opportunity gone bad. Now, I read, but much of the reading I do is while at my weekly allergy appointments, in the parking lot during my younger’s piano lessons, in bed before sleeping, in bed before waking, and at other points where no one is around to see it. So while I’m doing what I say, I’m not doing it visibly. My younger is quick to read without being asked, although coaxing him to read new material takes work. My older, who read prolifically when younger, hears the Siren’s song of the computer more loudly than the whisper of a good book or even an edifying magazine. So in addition to making reading a book previously unread number one on the summer list of tasks for the day, I’m making more time to read in front of my offspring. Given I’m three weeks from my recertification exam as a PA, that’s mostly medical journals and books, but it is reading they can see me doing. (To my defense, moms who sit down to read, write, talk on the phone, think, or sleep are seen as infinitely available to appreciate witticisms, field complaints, and receive requests that require leaving one’s chair. My public reading time diminished as a result of some sort of conditioning gone wrong.)

I model other bad stuff, too. On occasion, I’ve been known to yell for a child rather than walk to find him, despite telling my own to do the opposite. I even sometimes yell at a child (gasp!), and my mouth is not the font of always-genteel language that is was when they were smaller. My younger son loves to call me on all of this and more, having appointed himself the Master of Civility and Manners. Well, of Mom’s civility and manners. He feels free to follow his id while experimenting with the milder end of foul language and innuendo, behavior somewhat due to age but also a product of a mom with a loosening tongue. According to him, Mom, it seems, should be all superego, restrained, calm, and utterly consistent. I suppose in theory I agree, but that’s just not the mom the universe brought him.

This is not a cry for perfection from parents. We are human, despite what our children may say. We have our foibles and failings, and our ideals for our children often rest in the hopes that our children will have different ones – somehow better ones — themselves.  Somewhere in the first third of this post, I closed the split screen, with Scrabble on the left and this post on the right, switched to full screen for this document, so the email wouldn’t show, and set to doing one thing at a time. There is no one around aside from a rather silent foster cat on my lap to know about my focus, and she’s unlikely to tell. But tonight I’m modeling behavior for myself, reminding myself that at one point, I could attend to my writing, my work, my meals without other stimuli. I’m trying to do as I say, to do as I want to be, to do as I want my children to do.  And tomorrow, when the boys return, I’ll try that again.

Summer at Sixteen

It’s summer. Not the calendar kind but rather the school kind. Well, my younger son is finishing three Online G3 courses while my older strolls through the ends of a writing course, but it’s mostly summer.

Summer vacation once meant a break from school entirely. Aside from problems from the Math Can, weekly piano lessons, and plenty of time for reading, summer meant no planning for Mom or regular work for the boys. But last summer, we decided to move some of my older son’s study to summer, freeing up some time in the fall for the college coursework he had planned. He started a Coursera literature class towards the end of July. I started teaching Physics at the start of August, partly as security against the inevitable illnesses that would interrupt our study and partly hope that we’d finish before May. (We did.) Thus summer as free and light ended and some form of year-round homeschooling began.

Summer remains simpler than the school year, at least a bit. For my newly sixteen-year-old son, it offers a chance to focus on a few subjects, some  passions and some despised necessities, but without the distraction of five or six other areas of study. By age, he’s a high school junior. He has 19 college credits from the past year, although acquiring more isn’t the agenda this summer.  For the next three and a half months, he’ll focus on a few carefully chosen subjects, along with the usual piano study, balancing what he needs with what he wants. I like to think of it is the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down. He may have a different analogy.

For the remainder of May, he’ll study for the SAT subject tests in Physics and Math Level 2.  It turns out Calculus 1 and 2 don’t help you recall the vagaries of trigonometry identities, probability  and matrices, so those are receiving the bulk of his time. Physics is fresher and going well on practice exams, so less work is required there. Why bother with the standardized tests? Because some colleges like proof of mastery, plus studying for exams is a skill that could use some practice. Plus, as many homeschooling parents know, no matter how much we feel we’re getting this homeschooling right, a bit of outside evidence doesn’t hurt.

My older will also start driver’s ed, albeit with much anxiety from both of us. He’s not that eager to drive. I’m eager to have another driver, but I’m not so excited about it being from that tiny, helpless baby that slept in my arms sixteen years back. Growing up is hard on moms. He’ll also finish a programming course in Python through Computer Science Circles (University of Waterloo). He’s resisted programming for years, figuring like foreign languages that it was not accessible to his brain. For once Mom was right. It’s different from a foreign language and is now a preferred activity of the day, done first each morning. And after Python, he’ll move on to another language, possibly Java, although through what route of study remains to be seen. He sees it as fun, making just about any route effective.

With a friend and fellow electronics nut, my older son will work his way through Make: Electronics (Charles Platt), an instructional electronics book with plenty of photos and fun. (The first of 36 projects is to lick a battery.) From there, they move on to building progressively more complicated circuits, exploring transistors, logic chips, magnetism, and a host of electronic wonders I don’t understand. To document the work done, the boys will make a series of YouTube videos of their projects. He’d been dabbling informally for much of the past year, and formalizing the study encourages him to fill in holes, complete projects, and allows me to issue some credit for the amazing amount of learning that went on when I turned my back.

The “medicine” end of summer includes finishing an online writing course. With two assignments remaining, this shouldn’t take long, but somehow writing is always his last priority. After that, we’re moving to a literature study of a hopefully appealing kind: Online Games: Literature, New Media, and Narrative, a Coursera offering. It’s not his mother’s literature class, but he’s a very different learner than his mother, so that makes sense. In my most optimistic mode, I’m picturing adding a history/English hybrid, with readings about scientists, mathematicians, and the history of science and technology. While I initially wanted to start that this summer, I’m becoming overwhelmed with the list of confirmed summer study, so perhaps that will wait for fall.

On top of his studies, my older has started repairing computers (PCs) for others. He received certification (TestOut PC Pro) by exam after completing a PC Troubleshooting and Repair class at a local community college. While this isn’t likely to produce steady work, it’s something he enjoys and does well. We’ve discussed communication with clients, turn-around time, rates, and other business practices, and are hoping for the best.

As I read through his plans for summer, I’m awed. He’s come so far in the last year, a time when I was frankly hoping he was reaching the bottom of the teen slump, since I couldn’t imagine him dipping any lower. Clearly, he’s on his way up and out. Along the way, he’s found his passions — computers and electronics. His passions match his skill-set, and he knows he’d like to pursue computer and electrical engineering in the years to come. I’m relieved. He seems to still find plenty of time for Minecraft, sleeping, and goofing around, top activities in his niche in the teen boy culture. And he still seems to like his family, at least most of the time. At sixteen, that’s a fine sign for our summer together.

Review: Getting Started With Latin

We have a language gap around here. I’m not a natural at foreign languages, and my one year of high school French, while not harmful to my GPA, hardly enamored me with the work involved in learning them. My older son’s learning challenges made learning a foreign language close to impossible. We tried home-based and online-based programs for Latin and Spanish, but we had no success. He’s moved on to American Sign Language courses at the university, a kinesthetic language that works well with his strengths and avoids his weakness, such as rote memory and attention to spelling.

So as my younger son approaches middle school age, I’ve panicked a bit. I don’t have the brain space to deeply learn a foreign language with him: general awareness is my only hope. My French was never terribly useful, and nearly 30 years later is nearly nonexistant. My younger had mentioned learning German, but I knew no way at this point of his life to make that successful and could provide no assistance. So I gently mentioned Latin. He’s a fan of Michael Clay Thompson, with his stem-based vocabulary, and he’s a master at grammar and memorization, and he appreciated my concerns about finding an appropriate setting for him to learn German. So Latin it was.

Getting Started with Latin (Beginning Latin for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age), by William E. Linney has been our starting place. Linney approaches Latin gradually and, over 132 single page lessons, introduces the learner to basic Latin grammar. It’s not a full year of Latin, but it’s a fine grounding.  I’m using this book with my younger son, now eleven, who will start formal Latin study with Karen Karpinnen through Lone Pine Classical School, an online school based in Colorado dedicated to high school level Latin study for homeschoolers. Our purpose is to build comfort with the language, especially the ideas of declension rather than sentence order driving meaning and gender in language.

With only one new idea per lesson, this is a gentle approach to a complicated language. Linney covers the first and second declension, two conjugations of present tense verbs, the concept of gender, and a handful of adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, and conjunctions. The vocabulary is relatively small – farmers, sailors, beasts, and women build, sail, swim, and plow in a variety of combinations, but this decreased vocabulary allows the learner to focus on learning the grammar itself rather than on memorizing voluminous vocabulary lists. I’m decent at the former but not so strong in the latter, and with almost no study, I’m keeping up with the poets who carry writing tablets (but never desire to swim to the island) and the farmer’s stories, told often to the girls. That’s miraculous.

It may not be the most scintillating material to translate, but this sound beginner’s text is entirely nonthreatening, an essential feature for this foreign language-phobic mom. It’s also easy to teach. A motivated student could move through the 132 lessons solo, translating from Latin to English the 10 sentences at the end of each lesson, but we’re doing this together, sitting on the couch and reviewing the lessons together. He does keep a notebook of vocabulary, with each noun written in its ten forms and each verb conjugated (first person). While we’ve not been chanting the conjugations and declensions together, he’s figured out that that step helps and does it on his own. (Did I mention he’s my self-motivated and highly driven child?)  If we’re stuck, the answers are in the back of the book, but so far, we’re rarely stuck.

The lessons are never longer than a single page, and the black-and-white pages with plenty of white space keep attention from drifting while making it easy to see the lesson at hand and only that lesson. Some lessons are reminders about English grammar, which we skip, since five levels of Michael Clay Thompson have given him firm grounding in that area. A learner who was less certain about subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, possession, and English verb conjugations might want to spend more time on those sections, although I’d not advise starting Latin without those ideas firmly in place in one’s native tongue. In addition to the 132 lessons are 18 notes about commonly used Latin phrases, such as ad hoc, summa cum laude, and caveat emptor. It’s a nice addition, reminding the user that Latin is in use today, beyond its role in naming genus and species and providing many of roots of English words.

Linney’s website provides files for pronunciation, both classical and ecclesiastical. Occasionally, pronunciation is covered in the book itself, but the website contains far more. We’ve not been using that resource regularly, I’ll admit, but it was initially helpful. We’re also not exactly speaking Latin to each other (what with the poet, sailors, and beasts not much applies to our daily life), but I have had my son compose sentences in Latin, which he also translates. It’s up to me to figure out if he’s correct, and this is only possibly because I’m learning along with him.  Like I said, I’m keeping up, a testament to how clear this book is.  I’m not giving tests, but given the material is cumulative, I can tell from his translation during lessons how he’s doing. If testing is desired, Linney recommends taking sentences from past lessons for translation or having the student translate from the recordings on the website.

We’re working through three lessons four days a week, a pace determined by our start date and desire to be done by mid-May.  We complete more chapters if one is an idea alone with no translations or an English grammar language, with the limit being three chapters requiring translation. Any fewer and I doubt we’d immerse enough to learn much. More and we’d likely retain less. My son then puts new vocabulary into his notebook and, if needed, later reviews that vocabulary.

At  twenty dollars for a nonconsumable text that is easy to use and effective in teaching Latin basics, Getting Started with Latin is one of the best homeschooling bargains around. My only complaint is that it is his only Latin text. Linney has a series of audio lectures based on The First Year of Latin, an 1902 text by Gunnison and Harley covering, at this writing, half the text. That’s a far less user-friendly text, however, and lectures have been slow to come out. But it is a free offering and, if reviews are any indication, well done. I’ll know better how well prepared my young son is for formal Latin study come fall when he starts high school level instruction. But given the breadth of material covered so cleanly and clearly and the rate of retention my son and I have demonstrated, I’m betting it’s done what I needed it to do.

Teaching Other People’s Children

I never planned to teach children. At different points as a kid, I wanted to be an archaeologist,  an astronaut, a brain surgeon, and a social worker (although I didn’t know what they did). So naturally, I spent college as an English major. My inner scientist emerged a few years later, and I found myself as a Physician Assistant with an inkling that writing professionally and teaching in a PA program would come later.

It’s eighteen years later, and I write for free, don’t teach at the Univeristy level, and do teach children, my own and Other People’s Children. Oh, and I still practice as a PA. Of all those, it’s teaching other people’s children that’s stretched me the furthest and taught me the most.

My movement into the education of offspring other than my own (beyond a bit of Sunday School) started four years back, beginning what is now known as MacLeod Biology or Quarks and Quirks Biology.My older son, then 12, was ready for high-school level biology, and I had a history of flaking out on labs and formal science study. His buddy, another gifted kid, needed Biology as well. I knew I’d not flake with two, so after a summer of reviewing biology books, chatting with my biology professor of a father, and making then unmaking plans, I started teaching my two charges.

I’ve not looked back. Teaching someone else’s child increased my follow-through as well as my drive to find supporting materials for classes and labs. I did, after all, have two hours once a week to fill, and being responsible for the education of another’s offspring brought out the more responsible  me. I kept a list of labs, videos, assignments, and readings on a website, thus (ideally) fostering some independence on their part as well as a record of what we’d done.

Delighted with our success, the boys and I moved on to high school level chemistry. I was nervous. Where biology offered the comfort of the familiar, chemistry brought the promise of review. My chemistry over 20 years old, dusted off only in the context of medicine and revisited only lightly as a homeschooling parent of children under the age of 13. I expected a rough time of it and was surprised how quickly the material returned. My son and his friend brought enthusiasm for the subject matter. I brought the discipline that comes with maturity and far better discernment when working with fire and potentially hazardous materials. They distilled spirits, made black powder (not an official lab, but safely done), and regularly reviewed lab safety while learning an impressive amount of Chemistry. As a teacher, I honed my test design skills and learned when to stretch my students. It was a fabulous year.

Last year, without a science to teach (having drawn the line at physics), I taught six weeks of bioethics and team taught six weeks of research paper writing. With a group of ten, classroom management issues appeared. Faced with a spectrum of skills and experience, I was stretched further than previously to make a concept clear in several different ways for the varying learning styles of my students. When teaching them to write a research paper, I learned to discard global expectations and simply work with each student individually, attempting to improve a few skills during our six weeks of writing.

The lessons learned with those students led me to start teaching writing one-on-one this school year. Most of my writing students are profoundly gifted, and some also have a learning disability. Familiarity with my home-grown versions of twice exceptionality gave me only a hint of how to start approaching other people’s children with similar challenges. The first weeks or even months with each student can be littered with my missteps and mid-course corrections, and patient parents, tired from the battle, become my allies as we pick our way through the labyrinth of their children’s complicated minds. Generally, we find a way through, a pace that works for the family, and perhaps even a bit of rhythm.

Teaching writing to other people’s children informed my work with my own sons’ writing. As one who loves to write, my older son’s writing challenges and resistance have frustrated me. After teaching other people’s children,  I began to think differently about the process of teaching him to write. I now work with him through Google Docs, making notes in the margin and through the text, just as I do with my distance students. This seems a bit less personal than red marks all over a paper. It provides some distance we both need, which helps both of us.

This year also found me teaching physics and physical science. Both boys needed the material, and both had a friend or two also in need. My one and only physics class was 25 years back, but, alas, several of the topics we’re covering were not in that semester of coursework (electricity seemed to be a second semester offering, for example). It’s work. Hard work at times, explaining what I’ve just only figured out. But teaching as I’m learning drives me to reach deeper understanding faster than if I were learning the material on my own. Additionally, I’ve become more familiar with the workings of the universe. More of the world makes sense, and that delights me.

Teaching other people’s children offers an opportunity to share what you love, to hone a skill that’s been dormant, or to learn new material, even the type that scares you. It broadens your appreciation for the differences between kids and between homeschooling families. It can even help you educate your own children more effectively, if you can bring the patience cultivated from that experience back home. That’s the benefit the whole family can appreciate.

Twice Exceptional: When Exceptions are the Norm

I realize that after three years of blogging about my twice exceptional boys, I’ve never written about what twice exceptional means. The conventional definition of twice exceptional, or 2e, is gifted with learning differences. Parents would tell you that it’s a life of contradictions and contrasts, often pulling against each other resulting in a child who looks, well, average, whatever that is. They’d also tell you stories of advocacy twice failed, kids who work twice as hard with half the results, and twice the concerns about where a child will fit in the world. And the kids? Some might tell about wondering who they were, wondering at why life seems so hard, and perhaps about just feeling not so smart.

Until my older son struggled in school with handwriting tasks, I didn’t know a child could be learning disabled and gifted. Since he was my first child, I took much of his way of being in the world as normal kid stuff. Well, I knew he was ahead in areas, largely in the academic realm, but I also knew he lagged in fine motor skills, from writing to tying shoes to buttering bread. The diagnoses of his level of giftedness and dysgraphia, a disorder of written expression, arrived in tandem, making sense out of what we’d noticed while making the job of finding an appropriate educational setting that much harder. The poor fit of school was made no easier with those pieces of information.

So eventually we came home from school. Three years later, the ADHD diagnosis came along for the ride, with a trail of question marks still following, challenges undefined and unexplained. And three years after that, my younger was formally diagnosed with Aspergers, changing everything and nothing in a few sentences that were too long in coming.

That’s what those second exceptionalities do. They change everything. And nothing.

Ideally, they how we frame our children’s challenges. What was once seemed stubborn is now likely anxiety about what just doesn’t come with effort alone. What looked lazy is avoidance of what just feels bad or is simply beyond one’s skill set. What appeared to be neglect is a brain that struggles to make sense out of time and space. When I knew that my older son’s refusal to write more than the briefest phrase was because holding the pencil hurt and that making each letter took intense concentration that made it impossible to focus on content, I stopped thinking of his resistance as stubborn or lazy. It was a reasonable reaction to facing a Herculean task. When I found out that his trouble following a list of tasks, never mind create his own, came from a frontal lobe that was taking its time maturing, I stopped seeing his day as strewn with neglect.

Or at least I mostly did. Truthfully, it’s hard to look at a kid who started to add at three and explore the details of earth science at four and understand why the trajectory of learning that came so easily when no product was demanded comes screeching to a halt when it seems to be time to write a simple sentence about the moon. It’s not much easier at 15, when detailed monologues about computer guts dominate conversations but writing a list of tasks and following it still requires Mom.

Parenting a gifted kid often means parenting a child who was somewhat like you. Even if time and thousands of questions without answers seem to have beaten the giftedness out of us, apples don’t fall far from trees, as my father would say. For many of us, there is something familiar about the intensity of our gifted children, if only in shadowy images as we remember our childhoods.

But if you are not also learning disabled — and my children’s father and I are not — the dichotomy of the 2e kid is frankly mysterious. I don’t know what it’s like to be unable to write  with ease, to be unable take notes during a lecture, to look for my homework that I’m sure I did only to find that I never did it, or be stymied by the social norms of conversation. I just don’t know. It’s an unfamiliar way of being in the world.

Now, that’s expected to some degree. I don’t expect my kids to like what I like or see the world the way I see it. They are individuals. But when their operating systems seems so foreign, it’s sometimes hard to parent effectively and respectfully. In a fit of frustration, I once asked my older if the world in his head was as chaotic as it appeared from the outside. “It’s much worse,” he replied, without hesitation or, thankfully, frustration with his stymied, frantic mother.

Having a child who is twice exceptional means school will never be a sure fit. Or at least not a simple and comfortable fit. Mid-second grade, when my older came home, I was exhausted by meetings where I tried to explain what seemed like impossible partners, my son’s disparate needs for more information and challenge with less written output (although a keyboard would have been welcome). Having mercy on my son, myself, and even the school, I took the challenge home. That doesn’t make any exceptions vanish, but it does return your child to being your child, free of as many comparison points and evaluations. The dissonance with the world persists when field trips are missed (too loud, too many people, too many places to go in a day, or just too something else) and when reading through boards for parents of gifted kids, but being at home is a respite from the expectations of the world, where “gifted” and “learning disabled” mean different classrooms, methodologies, and outcomes. And as I’ve returned one to school (dual high school and college enrollment), I’ve been reminded that the differences persist, causing different challenges than eight years back, but still making fit difficult.

And for the kids? It’s even harder. For my older, having learning disabilities has caused him to question his intelligence. How can being smart and a quick learner coincide with forgetting to do assignments and struggling still to write a legible sentence? It seemed a more likely explanation that he wasn’t very smart at all, I suppose, and at an age where being “normal” is valued above being oneself, it seems reasonable to want to wish both away. Having both his giftedness and other challenges negated by school didn’t help, either, although by now I thought time would erase those feelings fo poor fit. Thankfully, college experiences in schools with strong disability resource offices have somewhat ameliorated of those feelings. (See Accommodating Disability, College Style for more on that adventure.)

My younger, at least on the surface, has an easier time. At home and in online classes, his difference doesn’t often interfere. After all, a preference for no eye contact, fewer bodies in the house, and a tight routine all mesh well with homeschooling. He’s also comfortable in his own skin, embracing his difference. (Don’t you dare call it a disability, Mom!) But I worry. The accommodations for him are largely invisible to him — careful scheduling, plenty of time for transitions, and adequate downtime happen without him realizing it. And while he’d likely be eaten alive in a live middle school classroom, he’s just one of the pack in his online classes. I’d not say it’s been easier to parent him over the years (oh, it’s not been), but out of school, the social issues just don’t cause as much difficulty day-to-day. He sees himself as smart and capable and enjoys the friendship of some wonderful children and adults who accept him as is. I’m grateful for his comfort within his own skin.

There is no ending. Twice exceptional kids become twice exceptional adults, and with guidance, support, and a bit of luck, they enter adulthood confident in their talents and equipped to seek and use supports for their disabilities.  I keep my fingers crossed, admittedly, but mostly I just keep guiding and supporting. And loving.

If you want to know more about supporting 2e learners, follow the links below. 

• Hoagies Gifted: Twice Exceptional
• 2e Newsletter (school-oriented but useful for homeschoolers)
• Davidson Institute for Talent Development (see the lower right corner)

Accommodating Disability, College Style

I was a lousy grade school advocate. I tried my hand at speaking up for my oh-so bored (but don’t use that word) older son during his first grade year, asking for assignments that took bigger bites with less repetition. I didn’t get very far, and even when we handed over the testing they requested to prove that he really didn’t need that, the testing that showed that he very much did, nothing happened. We were welcome to keep him in the school, but with the understanding that they had nothing to offer him.

Thinking that getting little for nothing was a better deal than getting nothing for 10K a year, we tried a public gifted program. Now we had more information. In addition to a quick mind, my older had a writing disability. Intervention via a scribe or keyboard wasn’t available for a gifted kid, it seemed, so while free, he was stuck with education that was boring and unaccommodating to his disability.

So eight years ago, we went home.

Last spring, it was with great trepidation and a good amount of encouragement from a psychologist who “gets” twice exceptional (gifted and learning disabled) kids that I made the call to Madonna University  a small private college just minutes away from home. With my son just months from 15,  called their designated admissions advisor for dual-enrolled students (a good sign of an open-minded institution). I spouted a few scores and what we were seeking — Calculus I and Sign Language and Society (a liberal arts intro class with no signing). Yes, they’d be glad to have him. Then I asked for what I’d not asked for in the previous seven years – accommodations for dysgraphia and ADHD (and assorted executive function disorders.

I held my breath.

“Of course we can accommodate him,” she began before spouting off a list of accommodations I’d not known was even possible. I exhaled, thanked her profusely, and nearly cried on the line.

A few weeks later, after scheduling his classes, we were walked down to the Office of Disability Resources (ODR) to meet his advisor. This would be a first for the university, a dual-enrolled student using the ODR, we were told, with a smile and not a small amount of enthusiasm. I could hardly believe it. Two grade schools had met him with doubt of the validity of his gifts and his disabilities, despite reason, pleading, paperwork, and repeated meetings. This place — this college — was ready to help as soon as we presented ourselves.

Well, not only ourselves. We’d brought the latest evaluation from his psychologist, complete with diagnoses and specific recommendations. We had ACT scores and more, hoping that the high scores on those measures wouldn’t negate the very real challenges my son faces. My son and I were both nervous. Me because I’d failed every previous attempt to advocate for him. Him because he was sitting in a college advisor’s office and was not yet 15, plus he felt that somehow his disabilities negated his intelligence. Being twice-exceptional is quite the head game.

The rest was easy. The advisor chatted with both of us, getting a feel for what worked and didn’t work for my son. Note taking was the biggest concern. Dysgraphia affects the ability to write by hand but also the ability to organize thoughts. Note taking in college classes require a rapid hand and an ease with sorting out what is relevant and noteworthy from what is just interesting. It requires constant focus, which in these classes, meant attending for up to three hours at a time. Note taking is his greatest nemesis.

And the box was checked for a note taker. A paid — by the university– note taker chosen by the ODR was available. This service could be done anonymously or more openly, with carbon copy notes either handed over after class, sent via email, or placed in a numbered box in the office.  If the first one didn’t work out, a replacement would be provided. Either way, a student already in the class would provide him with notes. I exhaled again.

What else did he need? Quiet testing? Okay. Time-and-a-half for testing? Just in case. Keyboard for testing anything longer than a single-word answer? Definitely. Permission to use a laptop during class for in-class writing assignments? Yes.  We were handed the list of possible accommodations to consider, encouraged to take what might be needed. It was overwhelming. And encouraging.

College accommodations come with a caveat: it is up to the student to enact them. The student needs to approach the professor with the paperwork for scheduling a test in the testing center then file the paperwork with the ODR secretary. The student needs to ask to use a keyboard for an assignment in class instead of writing it out. No teacher or advisor will come after the student, meaning that it all can be in place on paper but go unused in reality. For a student with executive function issues (difficulty planning and organizing), this seemed a daunting task.

Fast forward to fall, with nine credits on the schedule, a nervous mom, and plenty of adrenaline for my son. Only the note taking accommodation was used, and without that, he’d have been lost. Thanks to long class times, extended test-taking time wasn’t needed. While offered a reader and a scribe for tests, he decided to use neither, and thankfully his Calculus teacher assured him she’d dealt with far worse handwriting than his (somehow his numbers are legible where his letters aren’t). He was sure that telling someone what to write down for math would be far more challenging than just showing the work himself, and he was likely right. But just like most security blankets, knowing the accommodations were there for the taking was a comfort.

Accommodations even when enacted, don’t solve all the problems of the learning disabled student. Poor executive function — the skills of planning, organization, and impulse control — isn’t easily accommodated for. I’ve served as his frontal lobe for a good long time, and I’ve had to continue that role as he moved some learning to the college classroom. While we’ve worked on ways to keep schedules and lists, these skills still aren’t used to anything close to their full potential. Additionally, a few tests went bad — or at least weren’t that great — mostly due to poor self-monitoring and a tendency to be overly optimistic about what he knew. An assignment was missed (miraculously just one), likely due to wishful thinking that he’d already done it paired with a lack of follow-up to assure that was true. In short, the  usual problems persisted.

So this semester, he’s taking three classes, carrying eleven credits between two colleges. I hold my breath again and again, wince regularly, and cheer whenever appropriate. The second school offered similar supports, including audiobooks, preferential seating, advance copies of in-class reading and writing assignments, and speech-to-text software for writing assignments and tests. None of those are necessary in the PC Troubleshooting and Repair class he’s taking, but it’s good to know they are there. For a reading and writing heavy class, he’d need it all.

Accommodations are readily available at the college level, even for dual enrolled students. While they can help with some of the challenges of the child with disabilities they can’t touch the underlying executive function issues many kids with learning disabilities experience. Twice exceptional kids who need the intellectual stimulation of the college environment will still need support at home to meet deadlines, hone studying skills, and provide organizational support. It’s a continual balance between those disparate needs.  Disability resource offices offer some substantial support, but parent will end up offering a good amount, too. At least for me, that job doesn’t seem likely to end soon.

 

Review: EEME Genius Light Circuit Kit

A completed Genius Light

It’s a physics year. Both boys are studying the subject with friends under the tutelage of yours truly. It’s been a good deal of work (see Working at My Edge), given my one and only physics course was over 20 years ago and was the semester on kinetics and heat transfer. Having convinced myself that I could indeed do well in the course for engineering majors, I moved on to other pursuits that didn’t involve hinky lab equipment and equations to memorize. When electricity came up in both boys’ curriculum (CPO Foundations in Physics for teens and CPO Physical Science for the preteens), I knew I had some studying to do. I’m keeping up well, thank you very much, and some of my sense of confidence came from a small circuit kid from the start-up EEME.

EEME pairs hands-on projects (just one now, the Genius Light) utilizing real electronic components — a breadboard, four wires, two resistors,  one white LED, a photoresistor, a battery box with a switch and wires, two AA batteries, and a box to hold the Genius Light. Not sure what some of that stuff is? No problem. EEME provides video instructions including explanations of the why behind the steps on their website for no extra charge. According to the website, the activities are appropriate for ages 7 to 12 with the intent of teaching electrical engineering concepts. I picked up my Genius Light kit during a promotion, paying only $10 for a kit that retails for $50. At this writing, this is the only kit available, although two more appear to be coming soon (a DIY Display kit and Buzz Wave kit).

So how does it work? Essentially, you watch the video with the kit in front of you, building as you go. There are 45 minutes of video broken into 22 bite-sized pieces. After two introductions, including a review of the contents of the kit, each piece of video is either an activity (building something on the board), a question (a single multiple choice question about material learned), or informational (labeled ”learn” and designed to teach about circuitry).  In general, the activity comes first, with the instructor giving step-by-step detailed information about what to put where. Explanation of the path of the circuit is repeated at the end of the step, with further information about the hows and whys appearing in the “learn” sections. The instructor speaks clearly and at a reasonable pace, with only his hands and the equipment visible. He doesn’t joke but he does keep it interesting and moving along. It’s clearly the circuit that’s center stage, not the instructor. By the last step, you’ve built the Genius Light, a light that comes on in the dark (or even just a normally lit room on a cloudy day) and turns off in the light.

I integrated the project into the electricity study of my three younger (ten and eleven years old, all gifted learners). In previous weeks, we’d discussed electrical flow, had heated debates about the conventional direction of flow and reality of that direction, studied Ohm’s law a bit, and build circuits in series and parallel. In short, they were a prepared audience with plenty of ready knowledge. I had them preview the video at home before the build day, preferring familiarity with where we were going so the project would fit in the hour we have allotted for class. Any of them could have built and understood the circuit on the first pass through, however, but this did help our process as they built on Genius Light together.

I’d been concerned about the fine motor control required to work on such a tiny board. Finding one’s place on the breadboard isn’t easy and, at least for my eyes, requires good light. They managed far better than I thought, and what they lacked in coordination they more than made up for with good eyesight and smaller fingers. As they progressed through the activity, they grew more comfortable with the (real) electronics and how to make them fit the space of the board. They were even quick to pick up the way a breadboard works, which isn’t easy, since the connections aren’t visible.

Overall, the quality of the kit was good. The electronic parts were standard, with the wires cut to the necessary length for the project, which made for easy identification (“Now take a short wire…”), made even more easy by the match of color of wire in the video to those in the kit. These small details make a big difference, as does having a kit ready-to-go out of the box. Warning: the thumb pins that hold in the battery pack and breadboard are as delicate as the instructor says they are, and I broke one putting in the battery pack despite  thinking I was heeding the warning to be careful. This has no impact on the project, but I’d not expected the plastic to be that brittle. Be gentle with the case!

So what didn’t I like? The online information mentions eight quizzes. In reality, this is eight single questions. They’re pertinent questions but not worthy of the word “quiz.” Second, as  clear as the video instructions are, I’d like to have a written set of instructions with diagrams to go with them. While it’s not hard to stop the video while building, I’d like a hard copy of the instructions to refer to, rather than just the audio. I’d also like circuit drawings and a diagram of the connections in a breadboard for teaching purposes.

Finally, and most significantly,  I feel the $50 price tag is far too high, even with an excellent video (which is free to those not buying the kit). None of the electrical components are at all expensive or hard to obtain. If the containing box for the device is the big cost (It is clearly manufactured specifically for the product.), I’d gladly do with a piece of wood on which to mount the battery and breadboard with, if desired, a cardboard foldable top to display the lights.  It’s just too much money for a single, hour-long project. Better yet, I’d like to see the kits bundled, with many projects in one box. While it seems it’s designed to be a permanent project to keep, I doubt this is a priority for many families. I’d rather have a kit I can reuse, creating new circuits after disassembling the old. After all, that’s the beauty of the breadboard — alterable circuits without the permanency and work of soldering.

Overall, the EEME Genius Light is a fine product with excellent instruction via video. There is nothing needed from the user to complete the kit, making it truly and open-and-do project. That’s appreciated. The electrical instruction is sound and clear, although an instructional insert with diagrams would add more to the learning experience and support those who don’t follow auditory directions well. Additionally, its price point is too high for a single-project kit. This makes it unlikely I’ll purchase the kits to come despite our enjoyment of the first one. If it fits your budget, however, the Genius Light from EEME is an excellent way to introduce your young learners (and yourself) to circuit building.

There are other options for taking education about circuits to the next level. Snap Circuits, while simple to build, contain advanced circuitry in even the 300 level kit. While I’ve heard many parents dismiss them as “too simple” for their kids over the age of six, I doubt they’re utilizing them fully, as there is far more to the sets than following the maps to build the circuits. The highest level kits include software for computer interface. While the instructions for Snap Circuits are scant, there is information along with the directions to help the learner grow their knowledge.

For students wanting more breadboard work and the ability to control a circuit with computer code, check out the Arduino. My older son’s been tinkering with that, relying on an excellent starter kit and booklet (a bit hard to find in the US but worth the search). This isn’t designed for the younger set, but the booklet provides excellent directions and information about the components included (tons of bits and parts, all reusable) as well as information about the circuits and programming. I don’t see him outgrowing that anytime soon.

Developing Yourself: Planning for Post-Homeschooling Life

What are your plans for yourself after you’re done homeschooling? Are you returning to your old career, searching for a new path, or feeling completely uncertain? What do you do to develop yourself while educating your children? Join the conversation.

In an online group I frequent, a mom recently asked what other parents did to assure they would have a life past homeschooling. It’s a pressing question for many of us who have suspended or altered careers to develop our young. Many homeschooling parents leave careers to tend to their children’s needs that are unmet in school, while others educate at home because they see homeschooling as a natural extension of parenting that is worth pushing the pause button on a career. They leave jobs in law, medicine, engineering, academia, and more, jobs preceded by years of (expensive) education and training. Many, including myself, never planned on leaving the workplace after having children, at least not for more than a few months. And many never dreamed of homeschooling at all.

I planned to work. After an undergraduate degree in English, I earned a Masters of Science as a physician assistant. I married, went to work full-time in family practice, and some years later, had a child. After four (long) months off, I returned to part-time work at the same clinic, stopping again four years later after my second was born. Chance, choice, and circumstance, as well as a seat on a corporate step stool while my then husband was climbing the corporate ladder led me to stay home full-time  A year later, three years before I started homeschooling, I returned very part-time to a PA position some Saturdays. I’ve maintained that position for over ten years. My younger son wasn’t the type to be left with anyone, and neither my then husband nor I wanted to return to the push-pull that comes with two demanding jobs and kids who become ill at daycare when Mom has three rooms full of patients and Dad is in a meeting.

I’m a bit restless by nature, and staying home with two young children didn’t come naturally to me. I soon became a La Leche League leader, which gave me a chance to use my diagnostic acumen in another way, helping moms troubleshoot when breastfeeding didn’t come easily. As well as stimulating my mind and helping me keep some rudimentary social skills, it provided something for me to do that worked with my job as Mom and gave me more sense of purpose. No, I’m not the type who reveled in the stay-at-home mom job. I missed adult contact, and this volunteer work gave me that while making me feel useful to adults. It kept me sane.

Nine years ago, my older son came home to learn, finding little intellectual stimulation in the gifted second grade classroom he’d attended, which, ironically, overloaded his sensory circuits quite handily. I’d done my research, connected with others, read everything I could, and dove in. It became my job. I loved lesson planning each weekend, and I perused catalogues and websites too often, seeking for whatever might be the best. Being a homeschooling mom became a large part of my identity, although my sometimes-PA work and often-La Leche League work remained parts of who I was, too.

I’d like to say I planned it that way, always maintaining more to my life than homeschooling my children. I didn’t. I worked because the job fell in my lap, although I’ve long been grateful to have that opportunity to maintain my skills in a career I still enjoy. I went to LLL because I was having breastfeeding problems (we worked them out) and was soon asked to apply for leadership. Keeping my world bigger than my boys was accidental rather than wise, but I’ve reaped the benefits anyway.

Somewhere in the last nine years, I became more intentional about my pursuits. I still take phone calls from nursing moms and work in family practice some Saturdays, but three to four years back, I started to write. I started one blog, Finding My Ground, where I explored the questions life was raising while dusting off the skill I’d honed in undergrad, although this time in personal form. A year later, I started this blog as a way to share my journey homeschooling separately from my personal walk through life. Something had changed.

Actually, a lot changed. I was homeschooling two twice-exceptional kids. I’d left the religion of my youth. I was separated and nearing divorce. My role at spouse had finally died after a prolonged, painful illness. I was, as corny as it sounds, looking for who I was outside of all that. I started teaching another person’s child along with my own biology followed by chemistry. I wrote more and learned to knit. With my boys, I started fostering cats from the Humane Society (there isn’t much volunteer work available for young children).  I found a Unitarian Universalist church that worked for my boys, and I and took an active role within in. I taught more kids who were not my own, which led to me finding the gumption to ask for pay for that work rather than volunteering. I became a writing instructor.

I found more of me. In the volunteer work, the writing and knitting, the new business, the old career, and the search for meaning, I found more and more of me. No, doing isn’t being, but doing can help one figure out just who one is and how one fits in the world. I was driven somewhat by the passage of time. The boys keep getting bigger and more independent. Mostly. One takes college courses. The other cooks for himself and reminds me often that he can do it all himself. They aren’t getting any younger.

So I’ve worked under the assumption that they’ll leave at some point. At times that unnerves me a bit, because I don’t have the full picture of what I’ll do then and because they still must just be seven and three. I don’t think I want to return to full-time PA work. I’m not sure I want to teach in a PA program, a goal I’d held when I started work almost 20 years back. I’m pretty sure I can’t make a living writing, even if I start submitting more than one article a year. I don’t know how I’ll feel about teaching writing in six and a half years, when my younger will be an adult. There’s time to figure that out.

Developing oneself benefits one’s children. My boys have watched me pursue my interests, give my time to others, start a small business, go into the office, study for re-certification exams, work in our church, and otherwise do things that aren’t all about them. While I occasionally sing a chorus or two of, “Mom’s a person, too,” my pursuits in the world clearly show that to them. They know they are valued. They know they are home because it’s the best option and something we usually enjoy. And they know I am someone  – an individual — in addition to the amazing job of being their mom and educational coordinator. There is value in that, this teaching our kids that we are part of the world which we’re sending them into.

After reading through the online thread on how to plan for life after homeschooling, I was astounded by the paths of others. Some had changed careers. Others were fostering pre-homeschooling or pre-child careers.  Several volunteered. A few returned to school to launch new careers. Many followed passions that had developed in the course of homeschooling their children.  And some were scared and struggling, unsure of what would happen when the kids left home. The question of self-development was on everyone’s mind.

We return home or start at home for our children. Sometimes we find we like it better this way. Sometimes we just do it because we’re out of other acceptable options. However we start, at some point our job ends. We work with an aim to put ourselves out of business. So if you’ve not already, join me in developing yourself. Learn a new skill. Volunteer. Take a class. Follow a passion. Someday you’ll be forced into retirement as a homeschooling parent. Prepare, and enjoy the process.

Introverts at Home

I’m an introvert raising two introverts. They have an extroverted father, but the genes ran strong from my side of the family, with my parents both being introverted as well. Not shy, but introverted. Not socially incapable nor fearful nor hermit-like (well, perhaps in January and February, but it’s just so cold and dark then). Simply introverted.

Those of you who are introverted know what I mean. We find our energy from time alone or in small groups of those close to us. We are drained by crowds, new experiences, and loud, busy places, even when we had a fantastic time while in those situations. We do partake in crowds, new experiences, and loud, busy places, but we return home and slink to our own corners for a few hours of restorative silence. We are sociable people with friends, but we prefer to be with them one-on-one or in a small gathering. We know how to get along with others and work in a group, well, most of us do most of the time. And we all talk incessantly, which is a problem, since we each need a fair amount of silence.

Our collective introversion has led us to a quiet type of homeschooling. School exhausted my older son. With so many people, an emphasis on collaborative learning, and a generally noisy environment, it simply took huge amounts of energy for him to get through each day. Once we came home, I envisioned field trips and play dates sprinkling our schedule. Not because I desired all the action, but because that’s what homeschoolers of elementary children do. They sign up for classes at the nature center, sports at the rec center, story hours at the library, and park days with the homeschooling group.

It sounds exhausting even now, and if it had not been for my younger son, whose tolerance for crowds and noise was even lower than that of my older son’s and mine, we’d have likely gone to far more than made us comfortable. For years, I bypassed most invites to museums and classes, knowing my younger couldn’t manage it. Instead, we’d walk down the street and spend time with homeschooling friends or hit the library as a family. The boys took piano — individual lessons. We attended small morning karate classes, forming friends in a manageable setting. Religious education classes at our Unitarian Universalist church gave some classroom time for each, and science studied with a peer offered experience working in a (small) group.

I have to work not to feel apologetic for our wiring. Reading the daily digest of our local homeschooling group can panic me some days, wondering if I’ve left out a major part of our education all those years, the part where we get over ourselves and jump in the giant pool of people and noise every chance we can get. After all, the real world has lots of people and noise, so shouldn’t we just suck it up and learn to enjoy it? Or at least tolerate it?

Except it doesn’t work that way. Our introversion isn’t something to be fixed. It’s a good part of who we are, and for that, no apologies are needed. By respecting our needs (yet still meeting our commitments), we’re learning important lessons in self-regulation. I’ve often told my kids to recognize that rising feeling of discomfort that can occur when one is overloaded with the sound and fury of an extroverted world. I’ve encouraged them to listen to their bodies and brains and to plan for time for solitude around points that demand being in a crowd.

To be quite clear, we go to parties and regularly have others over. Fridays are especially full of folks, with a friend and parent coming in the morning for physics, and two friends with moms arriving in the afternoon for more physics (middle-school style). By dinner, we’re tired and ready to retreat to our corners. We’re happy, too. These are friends in small groups, the easiest kind of interaction for all of us.

However, once a month, that Friday routine has an ending that challenges my younger son — Friday Fun Night at his fencing salon. Now, he does love Friday Fun Nights, events with friendly (but serious) competition among clubmates and kids from other fencing salons. But it’s a good-sized crowd of people making plenty of noise, which, at the end of a people-filled day, is daunting. So my younger and I have developed some plans for coping with this extroverted day. First, he retreats in the morning. (Yes, it’s also easier for me to teach physics to the older kids if my younger isn’t wandering in to comment every ten minutes, but really, this is all about his comfort as an introvert.) This allows him to bank some time alone, which, at least for us, can be helpful when facing more extroverted situations later in the day. Second, we spend the days before mentally prepping. Those of you who are extroverted may be rolling your eyes by now. Prepping? For being with a group of people?! Laugh away. It works for us. Being aware something may be challenging or uncomfortable helps. It’s a mental nudge that says, “Yes, you may feel like it’s too much, but overall, it’s something you like (or need to do), so you can get through.”

I’ve long accepted my own introversion along with that of my kids, but there are points where I wonder I should schedule more out and about. My older, now in three college classes and two classes with other homeschoolers, would say no. As his time with others in those settings has increased, his drive to meet casually with others has dropped. Initially, I worried, but then I realized that he’s doing what I’ve taught him to do — he’s respecting his limits. And he’s thriving.

Introverts at home are doing more than respecting limits and shoring up energy. We’re reading, thinking, and writing. We’re sinking into projects and diving into our imaginations. We’re nurturing our inner selves. We’re not lonely, and we do have social skills, although likely not the smoothness most extroverts possess. If we’re given room to recharge, we’re likely to function well. If not, we’re likely to become anxious and irritable, or we may just shut down. We’re no fun then, and we know it. So here we are, three introverts at home. We’re happy, healthy, and, quite often at home.  And that’s what we like best.

A Letter to my Older Son: Homeschooling a High Schooler and Just Being Mom

To my older son, who’s mom who feels a bit out of sorts while wondering best be Mom while homeschooling to her teenager

When you were young, when we started homeschooling, educating you seemed a natural extension of parenting you. After all, it’s at home that you learned to walk, talk, and run. It’s at home that you learned to add, subtract, read, write, and ride a bike. Homeschooling you, a choice made when traditional school failing you, seemed easy in comparison to sending you to school only to know it exhausted you. It seemed simple next to watching your face at the end of each long school day. It seemed tranquil compared to meeting with teachers and school staff at meetings that never got anywhere.

Of course it wasn’t perfect. I made mistakes. But overall, it was fairly easy and almost always fun. We learned together about history, a subject that had never interested me. We read together and watched documentaries together and even managed some science experiments when your younger brother was otherwise occupied. We both relaxed, and you finally seemed happy again. Perhaps most significantly, most of the time I was being Mom the way I’d always been Mom — showing you the world and talking to you about it, playing with you and watching you play, and giving plenty of hugs and snuggles along the way.

Time passed, and life became more complicated. Homeschooling two seemed more than twice the work of homeschooling one, and by the time your brother was working on a task list of his own each day, I was emotionally stressed by problems beyond which math curriculum to choose.  I’ll never be able to take that time back, those years where my worries about my marriage to your dad didn’t take my head and heart away from the two of you. I can’t remove the yelling you heard and the times you saw me cry. There are parts of when you were ten turning to eleven that I can’t even remember. I don’t know what we studied. I don’t know how you felt about it. I can’t recall anything but hurt, anger, fear, and sadness. Knowing you and your brother needed me to be strong kept me going, and I hope you knew I loved you more than ever during those years. I’m sorry, though, for that rift in our lives.

But time went on, and we gradually healed and saw ourselves as a family. Homeschooling continued, and high school loomed. Homeschooling became more daunting but no less wanted or needed. You did better at home than at school academically and emotionally, and I appreciated that. What’s more, I enjoyed having you in my presence each day. I marveled at your growing skills at math, piano, and science. Your kindness and compassion touched me, and watching you play with your brother each day brought me warmth and assurance that growing up deeply within family had value.

But high school scared me. It counts in high school. College comes after high school, and then comes Life. Or graduate school, if you’re looking for a way to delay Life. High school mattered. Before it formally began, parents of your peers talked transcripts and tests. And I grew scared. What I’ve wanted for you and your brother has always been modest — I’d like to see you reasonably happy with your jobs and personal lives, giving more than you take and being people others actually enjoy. I don’t care if you end up rich or famous or accomplished. I do want you to have choices and know how to meet challenge. Did I mention I want you to be happy?

It’s easy to lose the happiness, what with the worry about what colleges and the world will think of you. Or, more precisely, what they’ll think of your transcript from me (the one with no grades) and the ones from your dual enrollment college courses (the ones with grades). What they’ll think of the tests required to prove that we weren’t studying our navels all these years. What they’ll think about the on-paper you that you’ll present them in just under two years.

Sometimes, in all that worrying, I forget about the not-on-paper you. The young man who is always eager to help at home and outside of home. The one who charms me with his banter when I’m edgy and fighting the charming. The one who is both man and child at the same time and sometimes a distant teen. The one who is sensitive to the world and the people in it, caring deeply and, possibly at times, overwhelmed by all of it. The one who doesn’t want to offend or bother anyone, even when it is in his best interest to do both. Sometimes, I forget that one.

And that’s the heart of this apology. Out of fear about events years away, I worry. In that worry, I forget to attend to my boy, my baby. (Yes, I can see you cringe, but you will always be my baby.) I fail to remove my hat of teacher and school counselor and just be Mom. It’s hard for me to do that, since teacher and counselor are only two of my hats, and it seems like the Mom one is buried under those and a dozen more. In the days when I tucked you into bed, reading to you then snuggling in for a chat, the Mom hat was firmly in place and rarely hidden under other. When life took less organizing and arranging and more sitting and playing, I found myself wearing only that hat for much more of my day.

But now, when your bedtime is after mine, and you are the one who peeks in on me to say goodnight, I’m not as sure always what being Mom means. It doesn’t mean snuggles and stories anymore, nor does it mean kissing hurt knees and applying band-aids. Some of it still means reminding and correcting, but I don’t really like those parts, necessary as they are. (moms whine, too.) I know it means listening openly and working to know who you are becoming. I know it means letting you fall…a bit…so you can learn to catch yourself or at least how to avoid the more dangerous edges of life. I know it means that well-timed hugs and back rubs will likely still be accepted…and needed. I know it means that bringing you a sandwich or snack is a reminder that I love you, more potent than the words we share each night. I wish I knew more.

You are a remarkable young man — kind, compassionate, sensitive, smart, capable, funny, creative, and more. I’m a fallible, well-intentioned mom working continually to remember my real-life son requires more of me than the on-paper son for whom I want to have so many choices. It’s not easy, parenting a child who is in this stage of life, and I’m certainly not doing it perfectly. But I love you, with every breath and every fiber of my being. And that’s forever.