Making progress?

This is a bit of a follow on to my September wobbles post. After acknowledging to myself that I do get all academical at times I found myself pondering about learning in general and how it applies to my 10 year old son in particular. I wondered whether one of the reasons I get a bit wobbly at times is that I find myself thinking of other children of my children's ages and what they might be doing in school, and how my children aren't doing that stuff and that maybe if they don't do those things maybe they'll never learn them. Obviously I had to sit myself down with a cup of tea and give myself a stern talking to at this point. In order for this line of thought to be productive it had to go somewhere, so I gave myself the task of trying to come up with what I thought 10 year old children ought to be able to do. So what should a ten year old be able to do? Hold an intelligent conversation, be able to build a den, make a cup of tea, cook a simple meal, add and subtract, know a few times tables, if not all of them up to 12, read to themselves? I haven't really reached any conclusions which will help me to find ways to enable him to learn what he 'needs' to know.  Maybe I could think about what he ought to be able to do by the age of 18 and work backwards from there. Still didn't get me anywhere. It's impossible to think in those terms. I was always urged during my teaching career to be proactive. Home ed seems to be the opposite of being proactive ( I never really did figure out what 'they' meant by that). It's about observing and enabling children in the moment, not at some hypothetical point in the future. It's about seeing the joy in what they are doing right now and not always wanting them to move on or 'progress'.