 |
| Where my sons will be this summer. Hopefully, in better, less rainy weather... this is not summer weather, but it sure is green out! |
We’re
about a week away from summer vacation, and like every other parent in America,
I’ve been busy making summer plans for the boys. This is what it looks like: we
have no summer plans for the boys.
No
summer camps. No sports. No music. No languages. No robotics camps or maker
groups. I’m not even trying to force them to do the reading program, like I do
every year.
I
told them one thing: one morning a week is mine. They are going to be forced to
do some local outdoorsy thing involving biking a dirt trail, hiking, going to a
reservoir to swim in water, ride their bikes the full path, something,
anything, that gets them out of the place they are sure they want to be: Their
room. The garage. The basement. The computer.
Both
boys despise structured activities of any kind. They always have, with the
exception of Turbo’s good 3-year-run of gymnastics. Soccer? No. Music? No.
Drama? No. Chess? No. Field trips? No. Climbing? No. Wrestling? No.
So
fine. They win. They get a summer doing what they’ve wanted to do for years. I
know this is what they want, because every year they tell me it’s what they
want to do. Stay home. Sleep in. Lounge. Be bored. Ride their bikes to 7-11.
Whine about the heat. See matinee movies. Go to the local, overcrowded city
pool. Wander around looking for other kids to play with. Complain about the
pool. Draw. Flop about the house. Watch reruns. Go on a few long camping trips.
It’s
not a bad summer. It’s every summer I ever had growing up, and I loved my
summers, though I do remember being bored a lot. I’m not looking forward to
the hours of bored-ness. It’s probably good for them, though, a bit of boredom. I’ll
also admit it shows a lack of ambition for my sons’ future. They’re not
learning anything useful! They’re not developing valuable skills! They might
fall behind in school!
Anyone
who knows me knows I don’t believe in half the crazy things most parents
believe in. School days are long enough. Childhood is fleeting. Intensive
sports before middle school sucks the joy out of weekends and ruins play time.
Growing up is about exploring the world and their place in it. Finding an
identity and something to strive for. It’s hard enough to do that without
adding Mandarin classes or nightly practices because no really, the children so
enjoy it…
They
do have ambitions, though, my boys. Pure ambitions not placed on them by anyone
other than themselves. Engineer. Professional YouTuber. Scientist who studies
space (space scientist - astrophysicist? whatever). Director. Comedian.
I
can hear the thoughts now - oh they have tons of summer camps for those! You
can put them in a maker class, and they have camps for kids on how to make
movies, and there are space camps and theater… except no, because I don’t want
to crush the dreams of my structure-despising, free-thinking, independent-minded
sons just as those dreams are beginning to take form. I could send them, could
tell them this will teach them how to do all the things they want to do, but
it’ll feel like work to them: assignments and projects and guidance and
following rules can feel like work. I’d rather have them dream of it, play
around with it in their heads, and experiment with it on their own time, as
they do with their Lego and Hero Factory creations, their drawings, their
writing, the storyboards they create without realizing they are storyboards,
the notes about monsters and creatures and powers and the descriptions and
drawings of islands and planets and environments - all the world-building that
goes on late at night when they don’t know they’re world-building, the
introductions to a future YouTube channel that gets practiced when no one’s
around, the creation of an online persona… all these are more valuable and
useful to the pursuit of their future dreams than a structured class that will
teach them what they can easily learn later, when the desire is more fully
formed.
Summer
will include a lot of the above, in between fits of boredom, biking, and
playing in the creek. Maybe we’ll even paint their room.
And
I can’t help it, but a small part of me thinks it’s going to be a great summer
for us, precisely because of its lack of ambition.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment