This November, my son turns 18. Whoa! When did that happen? To be cute, it happened over 18 years. In a sense, I have homeschooled him for 18 years. Officially, for 13. My husband and I are incredibly grateful for the young man our son has become. He scored in the 99th percentile for the SAT and received admission with generous scholarships at all universities he applied to. He is healthy and physically fit. This church elder asked him to preach a sermon next year. Mentally, physically, and spiritually, our son has become a leader.
My son, in whom I am well pleased
In 9th grade, our son became a state champion in two Science Olympiad events: Circuits and Solar System. He got into the Top 1,000 cubers in the nation. If you think that’s not that impressive, try solving Rubik’s cube in less than 9 seconds. My best time? 1 min 35 seconds. My son taught himself how to go under 1 minute and then under 30 seconds and then under 10 seconds. It’s wild.
The Power of Homeschooling to Free up Children
This is the power of homeschooling: it frees up time for children to embrace their passions. Kids find the time to improve the skills they want to focus on. If I can give you one piece of advice about cubing, start with this: buy your child (boy or girl) a Rubik’s cube. [affiliate link] Let them pull up YouTube videos about solving it. Cubing is its own universe. This activity will help your child develop memorization skills and resilience, among other things.
GAN Rubik’s Cube – my son’s favorite
My son studied violin for 10 years and piano for 8. He taught himself how to compose music in FL Studio. I didn’t even know what FL Studio was. But he learned to code with blocks when he was 7, and while watching a tutorial about coding, he heard about FL Studio. He got curious, researched it, and by age 10 he asked if he could have that software. Today, he has his own profile on Soundcloud but does not want me to share his screen name with anybody. He is humble.
Corollary: Music makes your child smarter. There is a book about that. [affiliate link]
Homeschooling set the stage for my son to find his own interests and passions. In some ways, he even looked up his own resources. I still guided him in his choices. His dad and I still coached him through many of his paths. The open-ended quests which homeschooling allows for can give a child a lot more options to experience the joy of exploration than any other schooling option.
Happy birthday, son! Welcome to the world of adults!
