I parented the child I was, not the kids I had. Now I wonder if that was a mistake.

I graduated from precocious school successful a people of 30 students successful a municipality of less than 800 people. I vanished schoolhouse pinch galore of the aforesaid kids I started kindergarten with. By graduation, I knew their parents' names, their puerility nicknames, their pet peeves, and the fastest measurement to annoy them.

At that time, I was terrified of a big schoolhouse experience. I liked my mini pond wherever I knew not only my schoolhouse of food but our teachers, too. I imagined my mini aforesaid successful a immense school, getting shoved into lockers, being yelled astatine by intimidating teachers and upperclassmen, and failing astatine everything for the remainder of my life. I was gladsome I didn't person to woody pinch immoderate of the hassles I imagined different kids did.

So erstwhile my hubby and 2 sons, mediate schoolers astatine the time, moved from a mini municipality to a larger city, my ain puerility worry kicked in, resulting successful a parenting mistake: I chose my sons' mediate and precocious schoolhouse based connected who I was arsenic a student, alternatively than who they really were.

Terrified that my kids would get swallowed up by a monolithic municipality district, I intentionally enrolled them successful a small, tight-knit nationalist magnet program. Looking back, I regret that choice.

Their schoolhouse was everything I wanted it to be

The schoolhouse we selected was everything my mediate schoolhouse aforesaid would've loved: safe, inclusive, and small. My sons had galore of the aforesaid teachers from 6th people until they graduated. They had routines and traditions, for illustration a strange, made-up athletics played during luncheon and yearly expeditions to the wilderness. At their age, I would've loved these experiences, but I grounded to announcement they didn't fresh my sons' personalities.

Instead of camping trips pinch classmates, my sons would've preferred entree to a wider scope of electives, varied people experiences, and much robust athletics. They wanted the expansive options for illustration woodshop, statement team, student government, and the National Honor Society that they could person knowledgeable astatine a larger nationalist precocious school. But because of my fears of them getting mislaid successful the shuffle, I fought against their hints that different schoolhouse mightiness beryllium a amended match.

I wonderment astir what mightiness person been

Now they are young adults successful college, staring down a high-stakes occupation market that demands early specialization and tricky firm navigation. Their mini schoolhouse came pinch plentifulness of benefits: a beardown foundation, a safe landing space, and captious reasoning skills. But I wonderment if they could person received the aforesaid benefits astatine a bigger school, on pinch the broader experiences that mightiness person helped them pat into their unsocial interests.

I've often heard this advice: Parent the kids you have. In this regard, I parented the kid I was. And because I can't build a clip instrumentality to alteration those decisions, I'm surviving pinch the consequences now, crossing my fingers and hoping they are prepared for post-graduation realities. I protected my sons from the "scary" large pond experience, but I interest my sheltering determination will time off them to drown successful a occupation marketplace wherever the h2o is overmuch deeper.