I was supposed to celebrate my birthday, which fell on the seventh night of Hanukkah with my husband Cameron and son Sammy. We were going to light the hanukkiah, exchange gifts and go out for a sushi dinner. The plan sounded ideal to me–I love Hanukkah, sushi and spending time with my guys.

But the celebration did not turn out as planned. The night before, as we were getting ready to leave to go to Sammy’s string concert at school, we got a message from the dad of one of Sammy’s friends with a last minute request. Could Sammy come to his older son’s bar mitzvah tomorrow night?

Apparently, cousins with children the same age as Sammy’s friend just cancelled, and Sammy’s friend was not going to have anyone his age to hang out with at the reception. He would love Sammy to be his running mate for the evening.

It would have been easy for me to call back and say, “I’m sorry, Sammy can’t make it. We have plans,” or “It’s my birthday tomorrow and we are celebrating as a family.” As a parent, I could have made an executive decision. But I did not. I shared the invitation with Sammy and let him decide. I knew we needed to start to loosen the strings that tied Sammy to us and empower him to make decisions for himself.

Sammy’s reaction to the invite was excitement followed by a blank stare. “It’s your birthday tomorrow,” he said. I could tell he was worried that the decision he wanted to make would upset me.

I said, “There will be many more birthdays and Hanukkahs to celebrate together. If you want to go to the bar mitzvah, you should go.”

I realized that now that we were in the tweenage years there would be many more of these types of requests–requests that came with choices. I also knew that as commitments go, a quiet Hanukkah and birthday celebration were small. There would be times when the answer had to be “no.” Call it a good parenting day, but intuitively I knew that saying “yes” now was like putting money in the bank. It would make the necessary “no’s” easier to take.

Sammy said he wanted to go. I called the friend’s dad and told him that Sammy would love to celebrate with their family.

As we drove to the strings concert, I told Sammy that I would be happy to go with him to the bar mitzvah service and then he could go on the bus to the party with the other kids. “No thanks,” he said. “You don’t need to.” My little boy was now an independent 11-year-old.

Saturday night, Cameron dropped off Sammy and another friend who was invited at the bar mitzvah service. He walked them into our synagogue, got them seats and left. They were now responsible for navigating the evening themselves.

Later, as Cameron and I celebrated my birthday over dinner, we talked about how this was Sammy’s first “night on the town” without us. And the various parenting questions that arose when you entered this stage—should you send them with a phone and if so, what are the appropriate usage guidelines; in the absence of anything illegal or dangerous, when do you rescue your child from a situation and when do you make them stick it out—dominated our dinner conversation.

We knew we were entering rookie territory. As we toasted the occasion and I reflected on the year ahead, I realized that it would be a year of learning, learning to parent to a way more suited to Sammy’s new stage of life, and learning to let go.