If only raising kids was that easy......

I've often wondered why I wasn't supplied with a 'how to' guide when my children were born.  I thought that I really would have been better off if I could turn to page 3565 to see how to handle sulking (yeah I reckon any book on child rearing worth its salt will be more than 400 pages long!)
But now that I am older and more experienced I know why they didn't give me a book - because the information would be out of date within a week of publishing it!  Am I the only one who finds that what worked last week has absolutely no effect this week?
I have a situation now with Divan where he wants to change schools.  Looking at the situation there are a few pros and a few cons.  (Being an A type personality, I have made my list.....)  The pros being:  Its closer for me to drop him off; he won't have the same teacher Dennis Jnr had and therefore not the same issues as we experienced last year with art; it might be better for him sport wise.  The cons: I don't think it would be better socially for him (although he says that ALL his friends are in the new school); I don't want to move Dylan because he is in matric next year and I don't want two children in two different schools. 
But I understand that at his age, this is an important decision and he thinks his arguments are valid and noteworthy.  But I wonder if he understands that making this decision, for me, is not such an easy one.  I am not thinking about the next two months when I make this decision.  I am thinking how this decision, which is up to me to make, will influence him in twenty years to come.  I undertook an oath to bring him up in God's ways, to guide him, protect him, and do what is best for him.  I cannot make this decision based on whether he will be happy with me or not.  I cannot make this decision based on his short term 'happy' factors.  I need to make this decision on whether or not it will be beneficial to him in the long run.
And the same goes for Dylan.  He has wanted to go to this other school for four years now and each time I have had to weigh the pros and cons.  I don't want them to come back to me in ten years time and say, you know what, why did you listen to me?  It was a spur of the moment decision.  They might not see the big picture now, but I do.  And I need to do what I feel is right. For them.