It’s been one week since our big day, and while I didn’t know it at the time, our big day was the beginning of one of the proudest weeks of my parenting experience. My little boy has started to grow wings and I’m getting glimpses of how he will use them and where they will take him. I’m not so scared or sad to watch anymore either, because along with his wings I’m watching him develop a calmness, a new strength and new confidence all in line with who he has always been. And I am just so happy for him!
As I’d promised, we took this last big week at our pace and our amazing kinder teachers couldn’t have been more supportive. With more time apart from each other I’d feared the relationship with my son, our closeness and our connectedness might not be as strong. But a week on I think the opposite is true. I think that by sharing this journey together we might even be closer.
It’s as though all that we’ve tried to teach him up to this point has been tested, and he discovered there was truth and security in it. When mum says she’ll be back after snack, she is always back after snack. When mum says she wouldn’t leave until I felt safe, she didn’t leave until I felt safe. And then there is what he proved to me. He understands our agreements and can keep his side of them. He can identify people to help and support him when I’m not available and he can express himself clearly when he needs to. So when my brave boy said he wanted to stay at kinder today instead of coming home early with me (an option I offered because it was so hot), I knew he was making this decision confidently and happily! What an amazing feeling it gave me – his wings have sprouted!
And when I picked him up to find he’s painted a picture of “Mummy, under the sun and the sky” I felt a rush of love. How special that he thought of me when we were apart and his representation of me was with a big smile under the sun.
So as much as I liked the poem going viral on Facebook last week ‘A Mothers First Day of School Prayer’ I am thankful that I don’t connect with the last line “…this is the first step in letting you go” . I don’t feel like I’ve started to let my boy go, I just feel like I’ve let him grow. And thankfully his growth hasn’t been away from me but it feels as though it’s in part been towards me and an even better shared relationship. How lucky I feel to be his mum. Leah Henzen (Psychologist, and mum).
