Keeping Up With Who They're Becoming

Their needs go from needing a diaper changed and a bottle, to needing to be held as they learn to walk. Then we're helping them hold a spoon and feed themselves, or teaching them how to hold a pencil.

Then there are the things that are harder to see. Wiping their first tears. Giving them the approval they need but don't want to ask for. Sitting with them when they're taking the long way to really telling us what they want us to know.

As parents, we are guides and coaches, trying to be there every step of the way. Of course, life doesn't always allow us to be there as much as we would like.

And keeping up with the changes in our children can be challenging. Because they are changing as we are changing.

The child we knew a year ago isn't exactly the child we know today. Their interests change. Their worries change. The things they need from us change. Sometimes we notice right away, and sometimes it takes us a while to catch up.

That's why the feedback between us and them is so valuable. It helps us keep knowing them. And they count on that feedback just as much as we do. Perhaps more.

They are so dependent on our reactions to assure them that they are managing their world right. A look on our face. The way we respond to something they've told us. Whether we listen or dismiss it. Whether we make something feel bigger or smaller. These things tell them something.

And over time, our feedback becomes part of what they learn about life.

Not the things we deliberately teach them, like how to read or write. The unspoken things.

How to feel about themselves. How to be confident with others. How to be kind. How to trust themselves. How to know that what they think and feel matters.

Maybe keeping up with our children is really just continuing to know them as they change. Paying attention to who is in front of us now, rather than assuming they're still the child they were six months ago or a year ago.

Because they keep changing.

And so do we.