“Chanoch l’na’ar al pi darko – Educate a child according to their way.”

Every Jewish parent knows this verse. We quote it in speeches. We nod knowingly when someone else says it. We find schools with differentiated instruction, we get neuropsych evaluations, and we search for every possible clue that will help us understand our child’s particular “way.”

And yet, from the moment our child is born, we spend years quietly hoping their path looks suspiciously like the one we had in mind.

The minute my son was born, I had a blueprint for his life.

Not consciously, of course. No one sits in the delivery room with a five-year plan. But somewhere between his first smile and his first day of kindergarten, I had written a story in my head. I knew his personality, what he liked (Lego and Star Wars), what he didn’t (ketchup, cheese – unless it was on pizza), and I just “knew” who he was going to be. 

He would have good friends. He would like school. He would discover what he loved. There would be disappointments—because that’s life—but nothing that would fundamentally change the way he saw himself – which, if it was anything like the way I saw him, was pure perfection.

I wasn’t expecting easy.

I just wasn’t expecting this.

When those hard years started, I kept trying to solve it.

Was there something we had missed?........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)