Changing of the guard

As my children get older, I am noticing a shift in our family dynamics. Our once authoritarian household – ‘put down that toy and get in to bed now!’ – is shifting to a democratic regime – ‘I acknowledge you want to stay up but is it wise since you have a game tomorrow morning and you know you’ll perform better with a good night’s rest’.

It’s a scary feeling realising that as my children’s capability increases, that in-turn, their dependency on me lessens. At the same time I also feel really proud. I feel proud when one of them has achieved something new such as no longer needing help tying their shoelaces or not wanting to be shown how to do something they’re unfamiliar with because they want to figure it out unassisted.

I started losing running races to my eldest a couple of years ago. Last week, I lost to my second eldest for the first time. Our close finishes over the past month let me know that beating her was no longer an easy task as I consoled and encouraged her to keep practicing when she was upset in defeat.

She was ecstatic when she had finally won. I was now the sad one in defeat but also really proud of her accomplishment. As we caught our breath she told me how she had been practicing on the school oval during sport and lunch times. It was amazing to hear how she had consciously worked on improving to get to this point. On the way home she taught me some basic greetings and numbers in Mandarin which she had also practised at school. That afternoon, while helping her younger brother with phonetics and basic spelling, I could hear her using phrases I had previously encouraged her with… that was another proud moment.

I think of my relationship with my parents and how our dynamics have also changed over the years. My role as a son has altered from one of taking to one of giving. Sometimes I feel like the parent such as a recent event where I was pleading with my mother to see a medical specialist and her defying the visit because of not wanting to discover bad news.

I think our roles and dynamics in the home shift because that is what our children need in order to properly develop into well functioning individuals. The saying ‘if you love something, set it free’ seems applicable here. We can’t hold onto something because we are scared of losing it, we need to put the time and energy into developing it and then watch it grow. If we hold on too tight children won’t get the necessary opportunities to try new things, learn from their mistakes and mature into the adults we hope them to be.

At the same time, life is always producing new challenges and events we are unfamiliar with. Whenever I find myself in need of counsel with personal or parenting matters, my mother is my first point of call. We will always be parents to our children, and children to our parents.

PDR