Do you find that there is often nothing for your son (s) to do at home? Are they restless, looking for physical activities, things to make, break, or throw? Yes, of course you do. That’s because they were made to do these things. How do we enable our young lads to do things that teach them definite skills and provide a bit of confidence in something mastered? They all yearn to be a “lore master” in their own right. It is natural for instance for the son to get restless when the dad is always telling him what to do, showing him how to do it right, or expostulating on this and that branch of knowledge that he has down pat. Now, it is the humble son though that listens, watches, and appreciates. However, the dad has to learn to let go, to enable, and to permit accomplishment.
At home, we need to create spaces for achievement. They need to work physically on different projects. We need to give boys real challenges or else they can grow soft and domesticated.
So, I heartily recommend at website that has tons of ideas for interesting hands on projects that he can work on. It is called www.diy.org
On this site you will fine a whole assortment of craft and tech projects for your son. They might not all be part of his school curriculum, but that’s probably a good thing. Schools have done away with much of the hands on physical work that once was part of a normal boys life–a whole element of work that boys for centuries had in front of them has disappeared. We now have ream upon ream of paper sitting on rows and rows of desks. And the sheer amount of writing–much of it inane since the classics and masters of literature have been put away on dusty bookshelves in place of dry scientific texts–leftovers of a dry analytical age intent on stripping away narratives to somehow get at the core–all the while missing the whole.
Find active projects for them to do and you will help boys wake up from the stupor of passivity that our learning institutions have sent them into. Please do not think in anyway I am anti-intellectual. In fact, I reminisce about the old medieval days when ordinary folks in guilds could recite poetry and tell bible stories from memory. What if we took up this wonderful ora et labora style learning again? What if boys were reenacting Shakespeare in one moment and feeding the goats, and mending a fence in the next?
I think we might regain a proper perspective of work and study–and the natural ways which boys once learned.
