Maintaining Relationships as Seasons Change
Changes will happen all throughout our children’s lives. From a baby to toddler, from child to teenager and into adult life these changes can all be daunting. Often we’re going to feel like we don’t have the answers and we’ll be questioning what comes next. This allows the fear of failure to start to set in as we question how our children will deal with these changes.
Life isn’t perfect! Let’s be real and authentic about life and parenting and accept that we won’t always get it perfect. It doesn’t always go smoothly.
When we’re going through the different stages and changes that they’re going through you as a parent are also going through changes as well. Hopefully none of us are the same as we look back at who we were in our teens, 20’s, 30’s and so forth. We have to realise that our children will not be the only ones that change. If we expect our family and friends to accept us and encourage us as we go through changes in our adult life then we need to do the same for our children. This can be challenging but the outcome is beautiful. And that is what life is all about. It’s important to value and support our children, partners or friends as they go through different seasons and changes.
You know the saying you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family. That is so true however, you can choose to love your family.
One of the big things for parents to remember about challenging changes is that we need to take a deep breath and remember that the time will pass. When children are going through their pre teen angst phase there is often a lot of fear around what they are going through about the changes they are experiencing. And we as parents are also fearful because of these changes. Because children don’t know how to work through this fear it is up to us as parents to position ourselves to calm down and work through the fear. One of the ways to do this is to ask questions to people who have experienced these challenges before.
Sometimes it’s going to be messy but messy is okay. Along the way we’ll be developing our character and our children will be developing their own as well. We need to accept the mess, because it’s always going to be there, in order to move forward and work through the challenging seasons.
Being authentic, honest and open is the key to working through these seasons. We need to be open with our children and allow them to be open about their fears and messiness. When they’re going through these changes they are struggling to understand themselves so no wonder we don’t understand what is happening either. Don’t pretend you have all the answers.
Although these changes can be scary it’s a sign that our children are growing. They are developing and becoming their own person who thinks for themselves. If we can look at change from this perspective then we can be less frustrated about the challenges that come with it.
I wanted to share my overall encouragement to give to parents who may be experiencing a change in season. So here it is.
Recognise that change is a good, normal, healthy thing, go out and do the research whether that’s talking to friends or reading a book and finally have an honest conversation with your child telling them that you don’t have all the answers but you will support them through the changes they are going through.
Blessings,
Susanna