This week my twins started ninth grade. I’ve been looking at two photos side by side: the two of them on their first day of preschool, and the two of them this week, walking into high school. For so long, high school feels like a destination until suddenly you’re standing there.

Raising kids is an experiment. You try the same thing with both kids and get two different results. A tight sleep schedule worked for one and did nothing for the other. The same rewards system that calmed things down with one kid made things worse with the other. Fourteen years of this taught me that even with the same parents, the same house, the same school, kids need different things from you.

Looking at those two photos, what hits me is not “time flies,” even though it does. It’s that my kids who are really different even though they have spent most of their lives doing the same thing, are both more independent than I imagined they’d be. They’re confident. They’re excited to learn. Some of that is who they are. A lot of it is this place. My wife and I did not raise them alone. We raised them with you, with this Friends School community.

What I feel right now isn’t just gratitude. Everyone who graduates from Friends feels grateful. That’s our job. We educate kids well, and families feel it. 

What I feel is regret.

I probably spent more time with my kids than most parents get to. As Head of Middle School, I drove them to school every day. I saw them at breaks, at lunch. In seventh and eighth grade, I taught them. By any normal measure, I had more access to my own children than almost any parent I know.

And I still wish I had slowed down more.

That’s the part I keep sitting with. It wasn’t a lack of time. It was what I was doing with the time I had. I was in the room, but still moving too fast to actually be there.

So when I say slow down, I don’t mean do less. I’m not stepping back from anything. I’m still teaching three classes this year, while running the school. It’s a lot, but I’m doing it anyway, because teaching is one of the things I love, and because it keeps me close to what actually matters here: kids, in community, being pushed to think critically and for themselves.

Slowing down means bringing a different kind of attention to the things I’m already doing. Being in the room instead of just occupying it. Connecting with the people in front of me instead of managing the next thing.

Maybe that’s one of the greatest gifts Friends School has given my kids, and me, and every kid who walks through these doors: the chance to practice being here. To slow down enough to notice each other. To sit with a question instead of rushing toward an answer. To really listen. To know the people around us, and to let ourselves be known, part of a true community. We only get a short time with our children when they’re this age. We only get a short time with each other, in this particular community, in this particular season of our lives. Friends has reminded me that the point isn’t to get through that time as efficiently as possible. It’s to be here for it. Now. To pay attention. To be present. To make the most of the ordinary, fleeting, remarkable gift of being together.