Loving Them Into Adulthood

I have been given a heart for kids, no really, I love kids. They don't have to be mine, I still love them and want to encourage them. I am that annoying person at the store talking to your children, we're having a full conversation and before you know it they will be inviting me over for dinner. :-) I am always noticing kids, watching them and thinking about them.....and I mean ALWAYS. It is a blessing most of the time, but it can also get me in trouble.

Something I have noticed recently is a large number of parents doing things for their children and/or taking responsibility for things their children are responsible for. I agree 100% with the understanding that we are only going to have our little ones for a short time. They will be grown before we know it and we will no longer have small footsteps to listen to. However, I don't think we should encourage our children to stop growing up and stay little just because they are "so cute." One of our primary jobs as parents is to prepare our children to do things on their own....we need to prepare them to live on their own and grow into responsible adults that can start their own healthy, loving family.

I find encouraging my children to "grow up" challenging sometimes. For example: when our son says "peas" instead of "please," it is very cute and does it really hurt anyone? well, yes, it actually hurts him and his natural speech development patterns; when our daughter works incredibly hard for something and is not able to achieve her goal, I don't want her to see the pains of growing up, I want to protect her and tell her everything is going to be ok; when someone leaves their "important item" they need at home, it is tough to decide whether to bale them out or let them learn more about responsibility. These are just some of the times when I want to ignore the opportunity I have the help our children grow and just keep them small, I want to put aside my responsibility to help them become the best person they can be and just hold them tight in my arms.

Recently I heard on the radio that the age of adolescence is now being defined as age 13-27. The speaker went on to explain how parents need to give their children more responsibility to help them make the journey from childhood to adulthood. I was floored. I still cannot believe that children are not leaving the adolescence stage until 27 years of age. What are they doing for over a decade in adolescence? That just seems crazy to me.

It is great to hold our kiddos tight in our arms, and I know without a doubt that an empty nest is hard and scary.... but is our holding them back helping THEM or is it just making US feel better? Watching our kiddos as they fail and correcting them when they make mistakes are difficult tasks, but in the end, our children will be stronger, more prepared adults because we loved them enough to teach them how to grow-up.

Let me encourage you today to take a new look at your relationship with your child. Are you making the tough choices and loving them into adulthood? Or, are you holding on a bit too tight? The transition might be a difficult one, but when your 24 year old is living on their own and not stuck in adolescence, you can look back and declare that it was worth it! You loved your children enough to love them into adults!