In this paper, I will discuss variations in the methods and approaches by which the mothers I interviewed and observed socialize their children into participation in new, non-traditional educational models in a peripheral city in southern Jordan. Dealing with new realities imposed by globalization, economic liberalization, and a volatile labor market, youth in Al-Rawda enroll in a myriad of private education programs in topics outside those of the established public schooling, such as ‘life skills’, robotics, social innovation, and foreign languages. My paper discusses four areas where mothers influence and guide the behavior of their children and facilitate or impede their children’s participation in these programs. These areas include a changing value system around the role of families in education, the issue of raising and socialization of boys in a changing society, the response to discourse on religiosity and respectability, and lastly the drivers for more women’s presence in public spaces and how it is facilitated in the new models of education and the spaces they create. I argue that families, especially mothers, play a central role in elucidating and making sense of the aims and possible outcomes of education. I also argue that in the case of informal education, the more youth enroll in these programs, the more control families will have over education outcomes, however this is mainly led and facilitated by parents of middle-class families with higher education-attainment. Throughout this change, more women are taking part in leading the public sphere and gender roles in society are gradually shifting. My future work in al-Rawda will further investigate these conclusions and examine the content of these programs, their reception, and how young people and their families are making sense of the changes taking place in the city and its labor market.