Fixing the Playstation and growing up

Recently my son, Nick, told a friend's parents that he thought he could fix their PlayStation 3. They said they were watching a movie on it and it just died. Now it won't turn on at all. They figured, what the heck, they would let him open it up and look at it. They didn't expect that Nick would be able to fix it, but thought it would be a good education for him to see the inner workings of the thing.

However, in my family we have an electrician and a certified electronics technician. My son brought the Playstation home and we all opened it up to take a look inside. After much tinkering it was decided that the power supply was dead. After much research (YouTube searching) we found out that it's easy enough to buy a replacement and fix it ourselves (assuming it is the power supply).

When it finally came in, I decided I'd have Nick watch a video on replacing the power supply so he'd know what we were doing when I got home. I gave explicit instructions to not attempt to replace the power supply without one of us adults supervising. It wasn't that I thought he might hurt himself, because I know he knows better than to mess with it while it's plugged in, but I was just trying to play it on the safe side.

So while my friend, the electronics technician, was in the other room, Nick decided to go for it. He totally believed in his ability to do it and just did it. He kept the YouTube video on the computer and paused it at every step so he could follow the instructions carefully. And then he called me at work. He needed to know where the power cord was to test it.

At first, I was surprised my friend was helping him because I thought she was going to leave it up to us to fix it. Then Nick explained he was doing it all by himself. He had so much confidence in his voice and was certain he had done it correctly because he did everything the guy in the YouTube video did. So, I didn't really get mad. I was just a little nervous.

But when it was all said and done, it worked. He plugged it in, turned it on and got signs of life. So, there you go.

Realizing he's growing up
This isn't the first time Nick has put something together and got it to work, so I really should have trusted him more. He knows his way around electronics, that's for sure. I just get nervous because I still see this little boy in my mind, when he's not anymore. And knowing that he can take things apart and put them back together again, especially electronics, means he's getting older and maybe I can't handle that very well.

I know I need to let him try things, so I'm happy that he did it all by himself. I know he learned a lot in the process too, so that's good. But my little baby boy is growing up and while I'm very, very proud of him, at the same time I'm a little sad too.

Is anyone else going through this?

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