Your child has grown up!

It is not uncommon to find sudden tensions in the airs of many a familial environment when the child in the house suddenly stops ‘listening’ to elders and acts as if she is all-knowing. There is suddenly a lot of ‘You will not understand’ and ‘Whatever’ with the ‘child’ revolting and rebelling against the smallest of things.

This is the period during which the ‘child’ is in the transition phase and growing towards becoming an adult. She is like the fledgling trying to take off with her wings having grown. She is like a butterfly trying to break free and fly into the heavens above. The manner in which parents handle this phase of their ‘children’ goes a long way towards not only their own relationships with their children but also the emotional and mental development of the ‘child’.

Many a time, parents do not accept that their child has grown up. As a result, seeing their ‘child’ rebelling and being more expressive creates a sense of panic in the parents and they tend to step up their efforts of overprotecting their child. Being treated even more now as a child, the child reacts and rebels even more and thus a vicious cycle is established.

Once this vicious cycle is established, it has implications for the way the parents and child see each other and behave with each other. The relationship can become strained with each person getting on each other’s nerves. The child may start seeing the parents as ‘children’ with whom they cannot share their feelings and experiences and who do not ‘understand’ them. A negative environment is created at home which is mentally stressful. Taken to its extreme, it may result in the child leaving her parents and going her own way.

So I would urge parents and would-be parents to take a step back and think about whether their child has grown up!!!!