When I practice releasing those I love, I think about Cheryl Strayed’s beautiful phrase, “Acceptance is a small, quiet room.” Those words soothe me, every single time.
Today I need to hold this idea close, as William left this morning with 70 over-excited grade 7 kids on an outdoor ed camping adventure. My son is not a person who enjoys rugged outdoor activities, new culinary tastes, sleeping away from home or doing anything remotely challenging or stressful. These factors all added up to why he desperately needed to go.
When I dropped William off with his sleeping bag, pillow and suitcase in the gym, one of the grade 7 teachers said to me, “These kids are anxious because they think about stuff instead of actually doing it.” I’ve been spouting a version of this for years and intellectually I know it to be true, but the emotional pull of our children’s fear is a powerful magnet for a parent.
When the trip was first discussed at a meeting early in 2019, several parents gasped audibly when the teachers said NO cell phones would be allowed on this outdoor ed trip. We’ve all become accustomed to reaching our kids to check in or help them solve problems. The concept of the kids being on their own for three days is a harder sell in our texting world than it would’ve been in my own childhood thirty-some years ago.
I know he’s going to do fine. They all will. At thirteen, kids need to practice building memories and skills apart from their parents. Jason was willing to sign up as a chaperone, but William insisted he wanted to go on his own. So we took him at his word, even as the trip drew closer and his anxiety began to bloom.
These next three days are a wonderful opportunity for me to release William. He’ll need to solve his own problems, create his own memories, confront his own fears. We’ve helped him get to this point, and we believe he’s ready for this step (even if he’s not entirely sure). I will continue to think about him, wondering how his activities, meals and bedtimes are going, but I will stay in that small, quiet room of acceptance.
As parents, we have to practice for the next stage along with our beloved kids. We cannot hold on, begging them to stay small and dependent. The job is to nurture a dependent baby and turn them into an independent adult. Each step the parent and the child takes toward this goal is important, so that when the day comes for them to pack up and move out, we have all improved at releasing those we love to find their own way.