ntil Jake was twelve years old, he hated reading. He loved lots of other things, but language arts, in general, was his archnemesis. We regularly took him and his seven siblings to a large bookstore to choose any book they wanted. Darryl and I beamed with satisfaction as the kids proudly held the treasures they got to take home. Each time, Jake was the only one who walked away empty-handed because he said he couldn’t find anything interesting.

Seriously? I couldn’t even count the number of times I’d had to restrict myself from buying books I thought looked interesting, and this kid couldn’t find a single book in the entire store that interested him? I truly couldn’t relate, but I also knew that more than likely, all he needed was time—he would eventually find something. Yet as time wore on, I started to get nervous.

I’m definitely not one to force learning, but this was getting to be a bit much. At what point should I force the kid to get with the program? And yet every time I was tempted to apply the pressure, something inside of me said, “Just wait. Be patient.”

Finally, it happened. During another bookstore visit when Jake was twelve, he walked up to me with a book in hand and asked if I would buy it for him. I could almost hear angels singing the “Hallelujah Chorus” as he handed it to me. I was on the edge of my seat, wondering what amazing literary work had finally grabbed our boy’s attention.

I looked at the cover: C++. My first thought was, “That’s not a very gripping title.” I had no idea what this book was about.

“What is this?” I asked.

“A book on computer coding,” he said.

My mind reeled. As I thumbed through the pages, I could only wonder who in their right mind would ever want to read a book like this. Of course, I said none of this out loud. The wheels in my homeschool mom brain were turning, and I began to think about how I could use this to his advantage as well as my own.

“I will buy you this book on one condition,” I said. “You have to promise to read the whole thing from cover to cover.”

Don’t get me wrong; he was already doing some reading every day—reading I assigned out of a sheer sense of responsibility as a homeschooling parent. But I was really trying to avoid causing him to develop a complete hatred for it, so that assigned reading time was minimal. In making this deal, I figured the worst-case scenario was that C++ would buy me some required reading time that I didn’t have to feel guilty about.

“I promise to read the whole thing,” he said.

Guess what? He read the whole thing! Then, he read another book on computer science, and then another. Four years later, Jake started college at age sixteen, and he is now a successful software engineer. Today, he tells me that age twelve was a defining time in his life. He suddenly knew he wanted to be a computer programmer. From that moment on, it was this passion that drove his desire to learn. Naturally, it involved more reading and writing.

To be clear, Darryl and I are not tech savvy. Neither of us has a computer science background. To pursue his dream, Jake had to eventually do some serious upper-level math. I could help him only until about seventh grade. His dad could help him a little beyond that, but our eventual inability to help him ended up not mattering. Once Jake zeroed in on his goal, nothing stopped him. He found resources online to help him when he got stuck on a math problem. In fact, he seemed to take sheer delight in overcoming and solving complicated equations on his own.

Reading and writing never became a passion for Jake, but his passion for computer coding drove him to learn more about reading and writing. Still, he did minimal work in formal language arts over the next four years. It felt a little like we were limping along, with my goal simply being not to extinguish his drive to become a software engineer.

Then came the day when Jake took the entrance exams at the local community college. I was sweating bullets. This was the moment of reckoning. I felt certain I would find out what a failure I really was.

“So? How did the English entrance exam go?” I asked later.

“Oh, I aced it,” Jake said absentmindedly.

“Excuse me? How?” I was trying not to sound too shocked, but we were both aware of his lack of enthusiasm for language arts.

“Mom, you taught us how to speak well at home,” he said. (It’s true, I am a proud member of the grammar police.) “And you made me write summaries of what I read every day. That’s pretty much all I needed to know.”

Once again, I heard angels singing the “Hallelujah Chorus.”

Jake’s first quarter of college landed him in a rigorous English/history class that required him to write exceptionally involved term papers. I asked him if I could read the first one he completed, and I honestly couldn’t believe he had written it. It was so well done. I had no idea he could write like that. I don’t think he had any idea he could write like that.