This afternoon six of the kids went to help out for a community fundraiser while I stayed home with the baby and toddler. It was unusually quiet, and allowed me to have a very interesting conversation with someone who called during that time.
Remember when I told you we wanted to pull our oldest out of school for the afternoons? We got the approval for that two weeks ago. At that time, I asked the principal if all the teachers were notified so they wouldn’t think he was cutting class. Yes, they were all informed, I was told. A week later, my son was in school when his science teacher saw him and asked him where he had been. Turned out none of the teachers were told, and they all thought he was sick the entire time.
Anyway, the science teacher spent quite a lot of time talking with my son, then ended up driving him home since ds missed his ride because of the talk.
It was this teacher who called me today. My son mentioned in the course of their conversation that he’s interested in investing and real estate. His teacher lives off of the money he makes trading options, and just teaches one or two classes a day because he enjoys it. He’s willing to mentor him (for no cost) in trading stock options, but wanted to check with me first.
It’s an interesting idea. As I told the teacher, I leave decisions like this up to my son. I think that knowledge of financial stuff is both practical and empowering, so I would be inclined to encourage him to go ahead, but I think he’ll want to do it even without my encouragement. His teacher would come to our house, which I prefer, since it’s important to me to know who is interacting with my kids. I warned him that it wouldn’t exactly be a peaceful academic setting, since the computer where they would work is located in the dining room, right near the living room where all of the action is. And I also told him that it’s quite likely he would end up with other kids listening in and watching. He said he’s fine with that.
It was nice also to hear his feedback about our son. We, of course, think he’s a great kid, and enjoy having him around. But it’s nice to hear what others say, particularly since as homeschoolers, we’ve all heard ominous warnings about how homeschooled kids won’t be able to appropriately socialize. (I’m rolling my eyes as I write this since our personal experience is increasingly demonstrating exactly the opposite with all of our kids.)
The teacher commented about how comfortable my son was with himself, confident but not pushing himself on anyone. He was particularly impressed that as a 14 year old, he could have an intelligent conversation for an extended period of time with an adult on real subjects, and told me he would have thought he was 17 or 18 if he hadn’t known he was in the ninth grade.
I’ve so often seen that you can’t plan for the opportunities you’ll have in life; you can just be open and prepared when opportunity knocks. This is an example of that for my son. He really wanted a mentor in real estate or investing, doing a lot of reading and thinking on his own. But he felt he couldn’t move forward right now without mentoring with someone local. Who would have thought a science teacher would end up being a mentor in investing?
Avivah
