Glazed

My eldest daughter is a few weeks into her high school journey. She’s having a marvelous time.

When she researched this school, applied, and got accepted all on her own, I was partially excited and partially relieved. High school was an abysmal time for me, overall. It had its bright moments, of course – my childhood in general was good, so naturally those years weren’t all bad. But the time spent in school specifically was miserable. It was a prison – one I barely escaped from. I worried for a long time about my children repeating that experience, and I’ve spent a lot of time trying to prepare them for it.

But here’s my eldest, my Beanstalk, and she’s already made a dozen friends. She’s landing smoothly in her academics, and she’s a delightfully social creature; she’s much more like I am now as opposed to being like how I was then. She’s planning a birthday party for one of her new friends as I write.

She’s a perfect example of something so often hard to remember: Children are people. From the moment they can walk and talk, they’re living their own lives. You, as a parent, are a big part of those lives, but you’re far from the only part. They aren’t clones of you, no matter how much of you they inherit.

Be a stable base for them, and they’ll be so, so much better.