In past blog posts I have talked about how my mother-in-law’s death influenced my perspective on possessions. I think significant events like that in our lives has an impact on not just the possessions we have, but on how we view life in general and the things that become more important and less important.

But time itself, along with aging change our perspectives as well. Once in a while something will happen and I realize that my perspective has changed significantly.

This winter has been quite odd for Alaska, and the kids have had quite a number of unplanned days off. Not because of snow, but because of rain and ice. I only have one child left in regular school, he’s a senior, and it’s not really regular school. He takes college classes and gets college and high school credit. Consequently, he didn’t have any interruptions.

There are quite a number of parents and students that have been upset by the school closures as they’ve had so many they will have to make them up at the end of the school year, or during spring break.

This got me thinking about when my kids were in elementary school and I the mom that made my kids go to school every single day. They had to actually be pretty sick for me to keep them home. I knew a lot of kids who missed at least 10-15 days per semester just because. Education is important to me, and I wanted them to get as much of it as possible.

But over the years I have learned that, while school is important, and keeping them in class as much as possible is ideal, there are other ways and places to learn. When everything was shut down in 2020, my kids really didn’t miss a beat in their education because we had learned how to have those learning opportunities outside of a school building.

Now, if I had to raise my kids again, I would still send them to school, I think there are benefits within the public education system, but I also wouldn’t worry about things like snow days and pulling them out for other opportunities to learn outside of a school setting. In fact, I would probably make finding those opportunities and taking my kids to them more of a priority.

I think the reason my perspective has changed over the years is that I have found so many ways to learn outside of a school building. I have also learned that how well I can regurgitate information for a test, that I will have forgotten a week later, isn’t as important as actually learning something that will stick with me for the rest of my life.

That kind of learning can happen in a school setting. If kids find the subject of interest, they are more apt to retain the knowledge. When kids can apply the knowledge they are gaining out in the world (like see where they’ll use that math problem), the knowledge sticks better as well. All of that can happen in school, but it can happen sometimes quicker, in places other than a brick and mortar school.

Is that the best way to parent? I don’t know. But I would definitely give it a go. What has your perspective changed on as you’ve gotten older?