In episode 109, I’m talking about how moms have to learn how to let go of our children regardless of if we want to or not. One thing that I know for sure is that our babies are born completely dependent on us. Then they grow up and eventually become independent.
How do you let go when your teenagers are more interested in hanging out with their friends than the family?
How do you react when your college freshman asks if s/he can stay at school or go with a friend’s family for the holidays?
How do you pull back the reigns and gently advise your teenager when you’ve been so used to laying down rules and regulations?
What’s the fine line between giving them some freedom and becoming too lenient?
How do you’ land the helicopter’ after so many years of hovering over your children?
What do you do now that you have more free time on your hands?
Letting go isn’t easy – not even for the most tenured moms – so there are no simple answers to these questions.
In preparation for this episode, I spoke to women with adult children and they still miss their kids. It’s even more challenging for them around the holidays when their adult children can’t be at home with them for family meals, quality time and family traditions.
I’ve been dealing with the mom dilemma of letting go with my teenagers. My youngest son is a junior in high school, my second oldest son is a senior in high school and my daughter is a freshman in college. As I had conversations with other moms of teenagers, I realized this is a universal thing and I decided to talk about it here on the podcast.
In this episode, I discuss 3 major shifts that your teenager is experiencing, painting a bigger picture that helps you understand what they’re going through right now.
I also share 7 tips to help you get through this stage of motherhood without feeling like your kids don’t love you as much as they did when they were little OR that you’re losing them to the world (both thoughts that I had and still have sometimes – just being honest).
I hope you find this helpful. As always, I’d love to have a conversation with you about this. Simply leave a comment below and let me know what you think. If you have a personal comment that you don’t want the world to read, you can email me directly at Erica@momswithdreams.com.
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Find resources for this episode at http://ericablocker.com/109