Re-joining CAP: Maturity and Right Timing

It is a perfect fit for his techie personality and his love of rule-keeping. The funny thing is that he joined CAP three years ago but dropped out.

He didn’t feel like he fit in. He was interested, but not to the point of actually studying his cadet book or practicing anything he learned.

It’s an easy “out” and tends to teach a quitter’s mentality– if it’s hard or you don’t like it, just quit.

That’s not real life. Not the real world. But sometimes you just have to look at their maturity level and decide whether maybe this isn’t the right time for this particular activity.

It wasn’t, for my 13-year old son in 2013.

Something happened in him over this past summer. Maybe it was successfully completing the five-week Beginning Engineering program. Maybe he just wanted something else to do. I’m not sure. I just know that he told us he wanted to rejoin CAP and this time he’s gone all-in.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BNW9l-NA_J8/?taken-by=mommaknows

He had already received his cadet book before he dropped out in 2013, but he began reading it when he rejoined. A few weeks into September, he got his BDUs (the camo uniform), along with his name patches. They had ordered those for him last time too, so they were able to give him his patches as soon as his uniform came in. Talk about excited! He looks so official now, and he’s so proud to wear the uniform.

This has also given him motivation to be clean shaven, at least on Monday nights when he attends CAP. That’s a happy bonus for us, because even at 16 he NEEDS to shave as he has quite a bit of thick facial hair, and he doesn’t like shaving. I’m sure it’s a sensory thing, but he seems to be happy enough about CAP to shave on Mondays.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Letting a child quit and coming back to it when they have gained maturity can be a very good thing.” quote=”Sometimes letting a child quit doing something and coming back to it when they have gained some maturity can be a very good thing.”]

This week he brought home his dress blues.

Another big step, as he is going to be wearing them on Saturday for a special military wreath ceremony at the Veteran’s Memorial Cemetary. His squadron was chosen to place the wreaths on the graves. This afternoon he asked me to take him for a haircut. 😀

Sometimes letting a child quit doing something and coming back to it when they have gained some maturity can be a very good thing.

He’s so serious about it now. I see Civil Air Patrol as the perfect balance of his need for structure and his love of technical things.

I’ve written about Civil Air Patrol and Homeschooling before, and was contacted by Carl Lindberg, Director of Aerospace Education for the Washington Wing of CAP about how Civil Air Patrol Partners with Homeschoolers. If you have a child who is into aerospace or tech, who thrives with structure and/or is interested in joining the military, Civil Air Patrol is a great place to flesh out some skills, self-confidence, and motivation. Find a CAP squadron near you.