These Things Take Time
be easy.
take your time.
you are coming home.
to yourself.
- the becoming | wing
I'm not a patient person. I am the kind of man who stands sentry at the stovetop, staring at the pasta water to see if it's boiling yet, possibly while drumming my fingers on the countertop. I find standing in any kind of queue almost unbearable, and I micromanage my Amazon deliveries to within an inch of their lives. And yet, there is a fundamental truth I know about waiting for things, especially when it comes to my children - things take the time they take.
When my youngest son was small, I became mildly obsessed with the babyhood "milestones" - when experts say that children should roll over, and crawl, walk, and so forth. My son, adorable and wonderful as he was, fell short of all of these benchmarks. He didn't crawl when doctors said he was supposed to, and didn't walk until he was nearly a year and a half old - so late that his pediatrician recommended that I actually start instructing him on how to walk. Though I myself attended a Sudbury School where I thrived while being trusted to manage my own education and measure my own progress against self-generated standards, even I wavered under the gaze of an "expert" telling me what my child should be like. I worried that he would suffer later in life if he didn't do things as quickly as other children or that, heaven forfend, he wouldn't ever walk at all. Should I teach him to walk? The idea seemed anathema to me after all my experience with children, and I resisted it. I decided to wait, to trust that he would come to the experience of walking in his own time, just as he had with rolling over, crawling, and unspooling every roll of toilet paper in the house.
It was very hard for me to watch and to not interfere, but I'm glad I did. My son started walking just weeks after that conversation with the pediatrician, and he did it all on his own. I will confess that I was relieved that he was doing what someone in a white coat told me he ought to be doing, but more than that I was very glad that I was patient with him, and myself.
“Our children are their own sovereign people; of us, but separate from us, and they need to be free to pursue their own ends.”
Big changes in our lives take time. I tell this to parents all the time at Alpine Valley School when they are worried that their child will never learn to do...something, whether it's learning to read, write, learn history, figure out how to get along with other people, and so forth. All the potential for all of these things exists inside every one of us, some just need a little more time to come to it. In the case of learning history, or math, or another subject that many of us were forced to learn in mainstream education, the fact of the matter is that students may not come to it all. If there are other ways to get what they need, and they don't harbor any particular love for the arts or sciences, they may not seek out the same subjects that you, their parent, hold dear. It's a hard truth to swallow, but we must accept it. My son may not love reading the way I do. Rather, he may find value in unraveling the mysteries of mathematics, or understanding the intricacies of physics (though heaven knows he won't have gotten that from me).
Our children are their own sovereign people; of us, but separate from us, and they need to be free to pursue their own ends. (Click to Tweet this) I used to say all of this in a cavalier way, brushing off parent's concerns by saying, "Oh, the kids will figure it out - I did, after all." But then I had children of my own, and I understood that the sort of trust that's required in the Sudbury equation is vast. It asks so much of us as parents every day, especially in a time where so many of our fellow parents are taking a different path. They get report cards that show them whether or not they are doing their job as a parent (she got an "A" - pat yourself on the back, Dad!) and parent-teacher conferences where they are made to feel inadequate (he "needs improvement" in reading - you've got more work ahead of you, Mom). Our attention becomes so focused on the achievement of our kids, the same sort of "benchmarks" I got sucked into when my son was a baby, only blown up and dragged out until they span the length of an entire childhood.
There is more to our children than that, so much more. And I truly believe that the only way they, and we, will get to see it in its full splendor is if we learn to sit on our hands, breathe deeply, and let them do the bulk of their living by themselves. It takes time, and time itself is often the greatest gift that we, as parents, can ever give our children.
Think Alpine Valley School may be right for your family, or for someone you know? Schedule a tour and come see for yourself!