My teen son did something great the other day. He changed some of our plans at the last minute and I was more than a bit frustrated by his “immaturity” only later to find out that his reasons were very mature.
It is another example of a time when I as the parent of a teen “forgot” that he was fully capable of making adult type decisions and wearing “big boy shoes”. For whatever reason, in that moment, I didn’t come down on him hard but I am sure he could feel my frustration with him. Later, I had an opportunity to tell him that I thought his decisions and actions showed a lot of maturity. He seemed rather nonplussed by this.
The realization that I had later that evening was that as a parent of a teen we can better practice letting go and trusting in the “foundation” we laid when they were “wee-ones”. If we do our job when they are little we have less of a job to do as they grow into young adulthood. Continue reading »