Last week, on social media, I shared a post about discernment vs. control for homeschooling parents. It struck a nerve with many parents, so I wanted to share more here, plus the book list I created.

Here’s the gist:

In the early years of parenting, our job is control.

We control:

what they eat
what they watch
where they go
who they spend time with
how and what they learn

When we do these things faithfully, we are being good parents, fully owning our God-given authority, stewarding our children's health, safety, time, and knowledge.

When our kids are young, they aren't meant to govern themselves. They lack many of the skills to do so well. So, we hold that space for them. We survey the risks. We filter, direct, and protect.

It's our God-given responsibility to create a healthy, safe environment for our children. But the goal of parenting isn't lifelong control.

In fact, the goal of parenting is to help our children become faithful disciples, responsible adults, and good citizens.

(It's so easy to lose track of the big picture when we are deep in the weeds.)

The goal is to teach, lead, and equip them so that they learn how to survey and calculate risks themselves, deal with the consequences of their decisions, and provide for themselves and their own (eventual) families.

When the Transition Gets Fuzzy

But it often gets fuzzy, right?

We understand the calling to govern and protect when they're little. And we know that the ultimate goal is self-governance and self-sufficiency. But we often don't know how to get from point A to point B.

Psychologist Kenneth Wilgus describes adolescence as an “orderly transfer of authority” from parent to child.

In other words: Parenting older kids is about handing it over … on purpose.

In his book Feeding the Mouth That Bites You, he calls this process “planned emancipation.” Instead of our child's autonomy exploding all at once at 18 … parents gradually release control while their children are still at home.

In this way, mistakes are safer and wisdom is still nearby (helping to support and to intervene if necessary).

This is where I have noticed that many homeschooling families struggle ... including our own.

We began homeschooling to protect and steward. We began it because we were called to it, and this is a good calling.

But sometimes protection slowly becomes control when we're afraid to release the reins ... when we are governing our children with a spirit of fear rather than intentionally onboarding them into the world of self-government. (I can't express how profoundly this was us in our first round of parenting adolescents.)

And then we mistakenly called it “discernment” ... because that sounded far better than fear.

What Real Discernment Asks

Real discernment asks harder questions:

Am I protecting my child… or protecting my own sense of control?
Am I protecting my child ... or am I teaching him/her that they're incapable of making good decisions on their own?
Am I protecting my child ... or am I teaching them to fear everything that's unfamiliar?

When we don't trust our children to make decisions—even small ones—we're also telling them we don't trust them to handle disappointment, mistakes, or failure.

And when we hold so tightly to control that they begin to believe they can't make good decisions or recover when things go wrong, we're sending an even deeper message: that they aren't capable of living in the world.

This results in anxious young adults who struggle to “launch” into adulthood.

Building “Adulting” Muscles

When autonomy is gradually practiced, teenagers learn:

judgment
responsibility
consequences
self-governance

And this should all happen before they leave home, because responsibility can't suddenly appear at 18–19 years old without the work of developing their “adulting” muscles along the way.

Our goal can't be perfectly obedient children. It has to be capable adults. And getting from "great kids" to "capable adults" can often be a messy process. (You know how much I know this lol.)

But the solution isn't tighter control. It's wise stewardship that slowly releases the reins.