I thought that parental adolescents would be easier than toddlers; I was wrong

When my son was born on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I had finished having children. First of all, we had a girl, then our son joined the mixture, and I knew that two were sufficient.

But like any parental story, things did not go as I had planned.

Three years later, I was surprised to find myself again nesting. This time, I exchanged a cradle for an office. When I Prepared for the arrival of my teenage nephewI imagined him leaning over the wooden table, piling up for a calculation test or writing his entry tests in college.

This vision really realized – he was studious and had a fairly stable head on his shoulders when he arrived at our door. But a large part of what I had planned for him was different from the detailed image that I had painted in my head.

I was training in the pot and raising a teenager

When my 15 -year -old nephew moved with us in 2020, even if I did not know at the time, I was honored with the gift of ignorance. I raised little ones, 6 and 3, Entirely immersed in a Poto trainingSleep regressions and wrapped in unhappy crevices all around my house. I was in the era of disorderly Littles, a period of physically trying parenthood.

Maybe I was stupid and naive to think that parent a teenager would not be much more difficult What to manage small children, but I like to think that going to the blind is what helped me to raise it during its high school years.

The parents of my nephew face dependence, and when we heard that he left his mother’s house and bounced between the enlarged family’s places, my husband and I wanted to help. We offered a safe and reliable place to finish growing, two hours from his hometown.

He left everything he knew, including his little half-sister, with his mother and boyfriend and started new with us. But, really, we have started again with each other. Over the next three years together, we would learn What a teenager would mean. We quickly learned to change our mentality often and to come with each obstacle from zero. I had to learn to let go. I had to learn to believe that he had to go out and make mistakes.

We had clear limits

I had to realize that a large part of this foundation built during its previous years is already there. I can’t change what happened in his past, but can I guide him on what to do with the cards he was treated? It was a question of seeing what it can do with it, without us. I learned to be there when the dry bones and partitions are nailed, and I let it decide where everything goes, with intelligent limits.

I have often rebounded between severe and serious or clumsy aunt, but I have always made the priority to make borders clear because I learned that these children in adult bodies need them, even if they are annoyed against you to do them in the moment.

Maybe it was easier for me to look at him in this way – after all, he was not my son, we did not start together from the very beginning in these disorderly and practical days. Some may say that I was not so invested, but that may be what worked for us. I could better delete this layer of overprotection mode, I think, when I am with my own children.

I tried to remember what it was to be a teenager

Because he was not my son, I could change speed more easily. I am not a risk lessee, but this dynamic of the goalkeeper made me work more as a startup, by changing with changing market conditions. This meant that I made many calls to close the family and friends who treated with the teenagers and asked them for their advice. I learned as I went, and when things became really difficult, I relied on the memory of what it was to be a teenager.

We have treated all of this with him: to move, to deal with his parents, friends, daughters, sex, fire coverage, drugs, alcohol, his license, driving, notes, sports, jobs at home, house jobs, the choice of colleges, the possibility of applying for colleges and, in the end, to move it to the next chapter in the next chapter in the next chapter.

I made a lot of errors along the way, like losing my composure or trying to microchip the pieces where I did not belong. While I died on certain problems for too long, I tried to continue and reconnect when I could. I made an effort to make special outings, just me and my nephew. It was always simple; I nourished his favorite foods, I took him raising, or I did things that he just likes to know that I care. After all, it’s not about me.

Will anyone remind me of this when my children become teenagers in a few years? THANKS.