Real KiddyCharts #3: How your kids growing up messes with your head

Kids growing up is a bit rubbish, isn’t it? I know that is horribly simplified, but, quite frankly, it’s exactly how some of us mums feel at the moment.

Perhaps you have always thought two things about your kids growing up:

• You’d be able to go to the loo on your own, and
• They’d stop needing you quite so much generally and so you would be able to actually DO stuff, well you know, the stuff you actually WANT to do, like have lunch with friends, and read a book that doesn’t involve cute mice meeting monsters in the woods, or boy wizards.

There was a time when it was meant to feel a bit like this…..

Kids growing up makes us all too dam sad

See, we all mistook the situation when we thought this, because though the kids don’t need us in quite the same way, like to put their shoes on, or wipe their lovely pink bottoms; they still NEED you. They have to feel that you are around, even if they don’t actually want to blooming talk to you anymore as a tweenager.

It’s actually really, really hard to watch this – and are we ever prepared for that break for freedom that our children start when they enter junior school, and really need to have completed once they leave?

It’s just the little things, isn’t it – that start that sadness, and from those first words that they said that were oh so cutely mispronounced, down to the gradual refusal to give you a morning cuddle before they go to school. Culminating in the need to be as far away as possible when you drop them off at the school gate. Their journey to independence is a wrench, and it hurts us all, but we’ve got to do it, no matter how sad is actually makes us all feel.

Making that break for independence

Part of our role as parents is to teach our children how to be independent, and to offer them a safe place, and a helpful ear as they grow. Having our kids growing up isn’t easy for them either. Think of all those hormones; actually, don’t, it’ll put you off your food. But you know what we mean, having kids isn’t just about changing the nappies, and wiping the cuts, it’s about building their confidence, their hopes and dreams, so that one day they leave, forever. Hopefully, in a grand position so that they are able to find their own path, with a little help, but more of less, on their own.

We do our best not to totally mess them up, meanwhile they are totally messing with our heads, making us all sad about how they really don’t need us in the same way again.

Getting their path right without you

From those little babes in arms to those independent adults we will them all to become, we want them to choose the right path, and to blossom. However, do we ever really want them to stop needing a cuddle once in a while, or asking for advice at bedtime?

We don’t really, do we?

This is part of the series of cartoons on KiddyCharts casting a humorous, but truthful eye on the joys of parenting. Do check the other ones we have out on why your kid is out of bed, and what they really want to eat. Why not subscribe to us too, so that you get these, and all the other free resources that we have for you.

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