“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.
Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
Our children are clever. Especially our pre-teen, teenage and “young adult” children. As they push to become themselves they separate from their family, and strive to be more like their peers. They see so clearly what is wrong with the world and want to change it.
This is a hard time to parent them. On the one hand you want to encourage their curiosity, and independence. On the other hand you want to protect them from the potential dangers that you can see lie ahead of them as they get curious and independent.
It is hard to realize that we can no longer pick them up and move them when we want to change their circumstances. It is hard to accept that we have lost that complete control. Our relationship with them is best served when we change in relation to their maturity, when we give them the dignity of their own failures and successes.
We must step back (slowly, not not too far) and learn to accommodate and listen to their views of the world and how they would change it.
We don’t have to agree.
We merely have to give them space to find their own answers, until they get as wise as us and realize they cannot change us either.
