I’m running out of time.

As I helped my son fill out his registration forms for high school classes, all I could think was how little time I had left to parent him.

Just four more years and a couple of months before it is time to let go.

We researched the graduation requirements for the Hawaii school system and the entrance prerequisites for the colleges he was most interested in. We discussed the importance of the electives he chooses, the progression of the core classes he is enrolled in and how in a highly competitive college-prep world, every high school grade counts.

Play time is over.

Even his physical stature has changed over the last several months. His voice is getting deeper and he stands just an inch shorter than me. I feel as though I could wake up any morning to find he’s towering over me after an overnight growth spurt.

There are so many things I meant to do with him in his childhood. I haven’t taken him camping in a national park under a star-filled sky. We haven’t visited the East Coast in autumn to see the trees exploding with leaves in fiery reds and oranges.

I haven’t even taken him to see snow yet. The chunky ice they spread across mall parking lots during the holidays in Hawaii is fun, but it’s no replacement for the real thing.

We haven’t finished reading the collected works of Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson.

I haven’t taught him to play the piano or to speak Japanese. To be honest, I barely know how to do these things myself.

He’s a boy from Hawaii and I haven’t taught him how to surf yet. OK, maybe that’s an unrealistic goal, as I’ve never so much as touched a surfboard myself.

But I’m running out of childhood to teach him all the lessons a mother should instill and give him all the experiences that shape a child’s world view.

Quick, where do I find some wisdom to impart?

And yet as I steel myself for the years ahead where he needs me less and less, I realize kids don’t become independent adults just because they are handed a diploma or mark their 18th birthday. And parents don’t stop being parents either.

I still phone my own mom at least several times a week. I call her for advice, help with the kids or just to share life’s little successes and disappointments.

And I know in a later season of life, he can take himself to experience the seasons, if he comes to value exploration and new adventures. And I think he will.

Because I taught him that.

“She Speaks” is a weekly column by the women writers of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Reach Donica Kaneshiro at dkaneshiro@staradvertiser.com.