Rosie (my youngest daughter) is 18 today.
I feel a little bit bad because I don’t think I did a blog for Grace when she was 18 two years ago but it’s not my intention to measure every single personal success in these pages.
I just thought a little bit through the day today (mostly as I was driving back from Derby having dropped off Callum, my son who’s 14, on his second day of work experience).
Alison and I have now got a combined parenting age of 52 (Grace is 20, Rosie is 18 and Callum is 14).
I’m 50.
In theory I’ve been ‘combined parenting’ for longer than I’ve been alive and so surely, I should have learned something or other in that time.
Bearing in mind that this blog was started over 3000 posts ago by reading someone else’s short piece on advice of parenting with young children, I thought maybe I could put down just a few bullet points of things I’ve picked up over these last 52 years of combined parenting to see if it might help somebody who’s just a little bit further down the track.
1) Shouting almost never, ever sorts the problem.
If you’re in a partnership, parenting works better as a team.
2) It takes years or decades to show someone values by example.
3) There are always, always good bits that make you smile and cry.
4) Smashing phones with hammers never works (personal experience of that)
5) They will and must find their own way (probably from the earliest possible time).
6) Quality time with your children is on their terms not your terms.
7) You actually did sign up for this.
8) Other people’s expectations of your children are completely irrelevant.
9)Your expectations of other people’s children are completely irrelevant.
10) You forget the bad stuff really, really quickly.
11) It’s absolutely possible for your children to become some of your best friends.
12) Difficult conversations make for deep foundations and wonderful situations
And for the parents of younger children:
1) You can survive on 3 hours sleep a night; you think you can’t, but you can
2) That smell is always what you think it is
Happy Birthday Rosie!
Blog Post Number - 3045