Pulling up on the furniture

Hey parents, do you remember when your little toddler got past sitting up, crawling, and then started pulling up on the furniture? You smiled, laughed, shouted encouragement, so excited about the next thing, those first steps.

It’s kind of like that now, 20 years later, with your young adult child. She’s close to taking some independent steps toward college. He’s talking about maybe sometime going to apply for a job. But it doesn’t feel nearly as exciting as when they were pulling up on the furniture, taking their first steps, learning a new word every day, starting kindergarten, well, you get what I am saying.

Why is it so different? You’ve had 20 years, give or take a few years, of ups and downs. Some of those were literal ups and downs, falls from bikes, scraped knees, tumbles off the end of the slide. It’s all part of the process of growing up.

But by the time they get to be young adults, our expectations are that they will just take off and fly, be successful, bring us lots of joy. Can we remember our own young adult days? Was it easy? Did you take off and fly with no hiccups or difficulties? I didn’t.

So how about if we stop and look at our young adult children as just a few steps further along the maturity continuum? Smile, laugh, shout encouragement. It makes every day better, just remembering that we love them. We love them, not because of what they do or know or think. We love them because they are OURS. They will make it to the next step or phase, but it may take a while. Keep up the encouragement for yourself and for them!