People who know me personally will tell you that I make decisions pretty quickly and decisively. Highly intuitive, I can almost always tell you what my decision will be before you're even done asking the question. As I've gotten older, I do tend to wait a little just so it doesn't look like I'm not even considering it. It's not like I can't be persuaded to change my mind, but it doesn't happen often. Gut rules all.
My husband is the exact opposite. He is also very intuitive, but he weighs everything. He guesses and second-guesses. He told me once that he continues to second-guess his decisions even after they've been made - sometimes for years. He then hastily told me that he's NEVER second-guessed his decision to marry me. I think that was in response to the furrowing he saw in my forehead.
So generally, I think we make some pretty good decisions between the two of us. I make him decide a bit more quickly and trust himself more, and he slows me down and makes me think things through a little bit more than I would naturally. My gut and his logic have done us well.
All bets are off, though, when it comes to the teenlet. Especially where his education is concerned. When faced with a decision to make, both of us sit there, completely incapable of making headway. We can talk the issues through until we've exhausted every option and thought, but to come to a decision has us stymied. Because it seems like every educational decision we've made for him up to this point has been the wrong one, with one exception. But in every case, we did what we truly thought was the best course of action. Looking back, we don't really see how we could have made a different choice given the parameters within which we were working. But somehow it's been wrong.
Except homeschooling.
This makes us very leery of making any more decisions regarding his education. But we are faced now with another educational decision - put him back in school at the strong suggestion of a knowledgeable and trusted counselor? Or continue to homeschool?
Neither of us wants to even face the question. DH's comment, when I said that I didn't want to make another bad decision, was, "it's too late for that." Is this another case of damned if you do, damned if you don't? Sure seems like it.
But in the beautiful innocence of childhood, when I asked the teenlet if he would like to look into this particular high school, he said, "sounds interesting!"
So I guess he can start making some of his own decisions now. We will still have to guide him and help him think through his options, but he can be part of the process instead of having to only live with the result. And that makes me feel better about making a decision.
We'll keep an eye on his anxiety level as we look more closely at what going to high school might mean (would be a one- or two-grade skip, easy for him since he's already done both of those grades at home), and would mean that he would have to start using some of those coping skills we've been working on so diligently. It means he needs to start caring about his grades, and work hard on learning to express himself in writing, and verbally when he's upset or overstimulated.
But if he wants to go, it won't do him any good to keep him back.
