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I always anticipate the long days and sunshine of summer but – like many of us whose professional and/or personal lives are governed by school terms -I usually find myself wilting by June.
A little part of me wishes life away in what feels like a limp to the finish line, while a bigger part of me has the simultaneous urge to slow down the relentless march of time.

That feeling not could not have been truer for me this week, as I saw my only child off to his secondary school transition day.
Instead of honking the horn or even giving a little wave, knowing it would likely embarrass him, I blanked him as I drove away, trying not to look as bereft as I felt.

Childhood is such a short window, and yet we expend so much energy willing the time to pass.
From day one, as parents, we’re waiting for our baby’s first smile, then to to walk and talk, and to please, please, please just sleep through the night.
Every little increment towards independence is applauded and celebrated.

And conversely, the lack of progress – the umpteenth time we’ve asked them to tidy up, to take responsibility for their stuff, to clean their teeth without being asked – can be beyond frustrating.

So when we finally see signs of long-awaited change – organising their belongings, planning ahead, getting their own drink without lengthy negotiations – every step can feel like a reward for all the sacrifices we’ve made to raise them.
And that’s always time well spent.

But we also live in a world that seems to be forgetting that children are allowed to be young, that being young is good for them; that childhood is neither a race, nor an 18 year training programme of ‘readiness’; for school, for exams, for the world of work or, god forbid, for ‘adulthood’.

What do you want to do when you grow up?

So much attention is channelled into what they will become, instead of who they are, right now.
And that doesn’t just steal their childhood, it steals our parenthood.

IMO, we rarely acknowledge the emotional upheaval of continually being outgrown, bit by bit.
How often do we sit with that; what it feels like to bid farewell to the pieces of childhood we know will never return?

I’m not suggesting we infantilise our children, stringing out childhood for all we can, or that we suppress their very natural urges to mature.
But nor do kids need to be ushered through their youth in such a hurry.

Their changing bodies only tell a small part of that journey. And it’s deceptive.
Because, while physical transformation is a one-way – and often rapid – trajectory, social and emotional growth it not.
For that, children are at the mercy of very complex brain development, and it’s a different beast entirely; one that can’t be fast-tracked, whatever the mis-claimed merits of ‘kicking them out of the nest‘ or ‘chucking them in at the deep end‘.

Yes, some of them may need more guidance and support than others, but when we adjust our expectations of what it means for them to ‘grow up’, it is possible – and perhaps necessary – to hold onto our children, while we also let them go:

Babying them vs Nurturing them
I fully acknowledge that children need to be exposed to challenges to learn how to overcome them, and so it is always a balancing act.
But the prevailing belief – that ‘mollycoddling’ them will make them helpless and dependent, forever refusing to stand on their own two feet – is nonsense.

It is normal for a child, or even adolescent, to want to be cuddled sometimes, or to fall sleep next to you, to cry over the seemingly insignificant, or insist they can’t when we know (and they know) that they can.

If these behaviours become pervasive and problematic, they may need a different kind of attention, but by and large, this is how young humans who don’t yet have the skills of the adult world often express their needs, albeit not in the most articulate of ways.
They’re not asking us to decide whether their need is valid or not.
And yes, we want them to learn how to meet their own needs, of course. And they will.

But by helping them, or cuddling them, or letting them cry etc., far from ‘making a rod for your own back’ or ‘babying them’, you are simply meeting their needs.
Let’s always be the person they can trust to do that for them, until they can – or choose to – do it for themselves.
Because they are all wired to grow up, but in their own time, not necessarily in ours.

Progression vs Regression
Once a child has demonstrated a particular skill or competence, it seems logical we should expect them to maintain it, perhaps even develop it further. Not necessarily.

Stress, sleep, hydration, diet – not to mention the turbulence of brain development and biochemistry 🧠 – are all determining factors in the practice and mastery of any kind of learned skill.

And because all of these can vary enormously from – day to day, even hour to hour – it means that what our kids (and ourselves) are capable of in any given moment can vary enormously as well.

In our own moments of frustration or tiredness, how easily do we forget that, as adults, we have bad days, or feel defeated, or just don’t always function at our most effective?

So if your child returns to ‘can’t, don’t or won’t’, it doesn’t mean they’ve stalled, regressed or must be faking helplessness (although they might be).
But mastery takes time, and often much more than time.
We may just need to muster up reserves of patience we didn’t even know we had in the meantime.

They don’t need you anymore vs They still need you
As children get older, they can easily give us the impression that they ‘don’t need us anymore’ (apart from our financial and taxi services, perhaps).
And of course, there’s truth in that in many respects. Especially as they progress towards adolescence, we may not just find ourselves unneeded, but unwanted.

In the face of their apathy, when they reject the support or connection we try to offer, when they fail to appreciate or reciprocate the love and kindness we want them to feel, it’s hard to believe that they need us at all, but the chances are, they do – even if they don’t know it themselves, much less, be able to articulate it.

But it’s a well-documented truth that a relationship with at least one mature adult is a hugely protective factor in our kids’ emotional health, especially as they navigate stressors or challenging changes, even more so during the often chaotic and volatile teenage years.

Growing up takes a long time. Brains are still maturing at 25+ years 🧠, long after our ‘child’ is no longer a child.
So instead of just thinking that your child no longer needs you, think differently.

It’s less about them not needing us, or needing us less, and more about them needing us ‘differently’.
Differently, not less. 

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