This week, Soul Thursdays is doing something special. Register for Soul Thursdays LIVE!
Two guests. Two stages of development. One larger conversation about what it takes to help our children become thriving adults.
We often talk about education, parenting, adolescence, career readiness, and adulthood as if they are separate conversations.
But they aren’t.
What happens early matters later. The environments we create for children shape how they learn. The opportunities we expose them to shape what they imagine. And eventually, those children become young adults who have to answer a much harder set of questions:
Who am I? Where am I going? And am I actually prepared to build a life of my own?
This Thursday, we’re exploring both ends of that developmental journey.
PART ONE: When Parents Become Educators
Featuring Nicole P. Doyle
Nicole P. Doyle is a homeschooling advocate, nonprofit strategist, co-founder of the Georgia Black Home Educators Network, and host of the Flourish Family Homeschool Conference.
But this conversation isn’t simply about whether families should homeschool.
It’s about something bigger:
What changes when parents begin seeing themselves as educators—not simply caregivers?
Nicole and her husband have homeschooled four children, including a college graduate, two sons currently in college, and a daughter in high school.
Her work has also helped families gain access to technology, career exploration, workforce development, neurodiverse learning environments, and alternative educational models.
We’ll explore:
What does Parent-as-Educator actually mean?
Why are more families exploring homeschooling, hybrid schools, microschools, and other alternatives?
What can traditional-school parents learn from homeschooling families?
How can parents recognize learning needs that schools may overlook?
What happens when education becomes something families help design rather than simply consume?
How do we connect education to career exposure, opportunity and adulthood?
Because homeschooling may be the doorway into the conversation.
But parental agency may be the bigger story.
PART TWO: Boys to Men — What Research Reveals About Black Emerging Adulthood
Featuring Dr. Christopher C. Collins
Then we’re going to move forward along the developmental timeline.
What happens when childhood ends?
School provides schedules.
Sports provide coaches.
Parents provide oversight.
College provides structure.
And then, eventually, much of that structure disappears.
Yet we often assume:
You’re 18 now. You’re an adult. Figure it out.
Dr. Christopher C. Collins’ research gives us an opportunity to slow down that assumption.
His work examines the experiences of Black emerging adults, including achievement, development, support, coping, and the complicated transition toward adulthood.
And one of the first questions we’re going to ask is deceptively simple:
What exactly is emerging adulthood?
Because somewhere between adolescence and established adulthood is a developmental period that many families recognize—but may not have language for.
We’ll talk about:
Why ages roughly 18–28 can be such a complicated developmental period.
Identity, purpose and belonging.
What achievement means beyond simply graduating or getting a job.
Why mentoring, emotional support, coaching and guidance still matter after adolescence.
What happens when young men have ability but lack consistent developmental support.
How families can begin shifting from protecting young men to preparing and consulting with them.
What research can teach communities about helping young men navigate adulthood.
This conversation also connects directly to the questions behind the developing 1828 Academy and our work around emerging adulthood.
Why Put These Two Conversations Together?
At first glance, Nicole Doyle and Christopher Collins might appear to be talking about two completely different things.
They’re not.
Nicole’s work asks us to think differently about how families participate in a child’s education and development.
Christopher’s research asks us what happens when those children reach the years when they’re expected to begin directing their own lives.
Put those together and an interesting question emerges:
Are we simply trying to raise successful children—or are we intentionally preparing children to eventually become capable adults?
That’s the bridge we’re exploring Thursday.
Childhood → Education → Identity → Independence → Adulthood
And somewhere along that journey, the role of the parent has to change too.
Maybe we begin as protectors.
Then become teachers and guides.
Eventually, we have to learn how to become consultants while our children increasingly become the architects of their own lives.
That transition isn’t always easy—for children or parents.
And that’s exactly why we’re talking about it.
Join Us LIVE
📅 Thursday, August 27, 2026
🕗 8:00 PM ET / 7:00 PM CT
🎥 Live on Zoom
Soul Thursdays LIVE with Calvin Creates
Bring your questions.
Bring your experiences.
And especially bring another parent, educator, mentor, or community member who has ever wondered:
Are we preparing young people for the next grade—or preparing them for life?
Register for Soul Thursdays LIVE
This week: two conversations. One developmental journey.
Nicole P. Doyle
When Parents Become Educators
Building the Bridge from Home to Opportunity
Dr. Christopher C. Collins
Boys to Men
What Research Reveals About Black Emerging Adulthood
Come for one conversation. Stay for the connection between them.