bar mitzva prep thoughts

I've been pondering the bar mitzva again.  E is 11.5 now. It's creeping closer.  For the girls, I spent the year before bat mitzva preparing them to daven, running through mitzvos they weren't keeping yet and going through their chiyuv/obligations, making sure they were fluent at reading the brachos they'd need to say and the davening they'd be halachically obligated in.  E still has tremendous difficulty sitting, even for 5 minutes.  He is absolutely not interested in working on his Hebrew reading more than the once a week he does it now.  (Compare to A, 2nd grade, who spent 2-3 months dragging me the aleph-beis reader every single evening until he achieved the degree of fluency he wanted.) I know for a fact if we wait until he is interested, it will go faster, he will remember it better, and he will be excited about it.

I've also been thinking about radical unschooling.  One of the most beautiful things about unschooling is that you meet the child where the child is, not where you want him to be.  You have trust and confidence that what the child is working on now is useful and good.  And you focus on enjoying the relationship with that child and on partnering with the child to achieve the things that the child is interested in doing.  (Reminder to me: make plan to drop E off in semi-supervised wilderness so he can test his "survival" skills.)

Contrast that with the idea of the bar mitzva.  Many of my friends (this is my first boy, so I don't know how to raise boys) mentioned that they couldn't believe how their sons stepped up to the expectations of being a bar mitzva and navigated their responsibilities now that they went through the transitional rite of passage.  Would I be doing my son a disservice by "letting him off the hook" and not pushing him to lein?

On the other hand, the actual basic bar mitzva situation (he gets up, makes a couple of brachos, the end) is really quite manageable for him.  If we just do that, we would all be happy.  And he would probably even be happy to work on a speech and deliver it.

A friend of mine (who homeschooled 5 boys who are grown up now) said to me that I should just do his aliyah and make a big deal about celebrating the fact that he is now chayav in mitzvos.  This is a beautiful thing and a milestone and worthy of celebration on its own.

Another unschooling friend of mine has 3 boys, all high school and over bar mitzva age, and told me about how as per their wishes, their bar mitzvas were extremely low key, just the aliyah, and how their interest in learning and davening blossomed later--ages 15, 16...

An unschooled young man who now has children of his own told me last year that his youngest brother, still unschooled at home, really only began to "get more serious" after age 16, so he thinks bar mitzva may be young and there is no need to be nervous at that age.  This coincides with my own unschooling experience with my current 12th grader.

It's hard to let go of the leining.  All three of my brothers leined, did haftorah, and davened mussaf for the amud.  And Ari and all of his brothers leined (though not the whole parsha).  To me, a big part of being bar mitzva is being qualified to be part of the minyan, being able to lein and being able to daven for the tzibbur.

I remembered a post I wrote a while back.  It has excellent advice, and I have taken my own advice many times since I wrote it.  It has three pieces of advice: 1) Whatever it is you want your kid to learn but they won't, do it yourself instead.  This way, any "living through them" you may be unconsciously experiencing, you take care of by making it happen in yourself.  And by you being involved in it, it more likely comes up in conversation and is part of the natural home environment, so your child has exposure to it without being annoyed by being forced into it. 2) Daven. This will help you clarify your goals and bring emotional relief.  3) Make your relationship with your child your priority.  Stop focusing on what you want from him and focus on how your relationship with him is, and make sure the interactions are enjoyable and positive.

So I am about to embark on learning Elazar's leining of the first aliyah.  It took me 2 years (almost a decade ago) to teach myself how to lein.  My husband assures me that my skill level is that of a 12 year old boy.  My brother sent me the trope, and I shall begin learning.  I'm curious how long it will take me--and I am an adult with a marvelous ability to focus.  Let's see what I'm asking of him.

Further, if I get fluent and sing it around him a lot, he will likely learn it pretty easily.