From Headache to Intensive Care - A Lesson in Trusting Your Instinct

“Mum, I’ve got a headache”

It was a reasonably innocuous declaration for a typical Sunday evening and I treated it that way, initially.

“Ok hon. Well, lay down next me and have a rest”

As he lay there, wincing, I went through my tried and tested ‘Mother Triage’. No temp, no swollen or tender glands, no rash.

“Is there anything going on at school tomorrow that you’re worried about?”

“No. But Mum, it’s REALLY bad. And my head is super itchy!”

Oh. God. No. Itchy head = lice. Lice = my greatest fear (at that point). I begin, somewhat frantically, combing through his hair like a gorilla. It’s a totally clean, non-infested head. So I give him a dose of Panadol and have him rest his itchy, sore head on my lap while I wait for the paracetamol to take effect.

An hour later and he’s still hurting. And wimpering.

“It feels like there’s a war going on inside my head Mum. Like I’m being punched from the inside.”

Hmmmmm.

I sat and watched my youngest son, screwing up his face in apparent pain as he lay on my lap. He’s not one to complain unnecessarily BUT he is known for his drama.

“Ok, so what else do you feel? Can you see properly?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I mean I can see straight ahead but it’s fuzzy all around the edges.”

“Anything else?”

“My ears are ringing. Really loud.”

I sighed. I was looking forward to heading to bed early after TWO nights out in a row [unheard of these days] and now it looked like I had a late night ahead of me. I left him on the couch while I put my shoes on, grabbed some water and my phone charger and put my coat on.

“What are you doing?” asked Mark.

“I’m taking him in to emergency.”

“What? For a headache?? Why don’t you just call a locum and wait to see what they have to say?

“I don’t know. I just really feel like he needs to go to hospital. I feel like we need equipment or something to have a look at him.”

Mark frowned but he was used to me following my instinct, particularly when it came to our kids.

“Ok. Drive safe and let me know how you go.”

I have to say that bundling Stefan up in the car, just after 9pm on a cold Sunday night did seem a bit over the top for me too. I second guessed myself the entire way to hospital and continued my questioning of Stefan at every moment. In fact, I got close to almost threatening him with hospital, “Do you still have your headache Stefan? Because we’re GOING TO HOSPITAL you know and I’d HATE TO GET THERE and you suddenly tell me it’s gone away and then I FEEL LIKE AN IDIOT.”

“Yes Mum. I still have it and it hurts so much. Oh and my head is soooo itchy. I can’t stand it Mum!’

So I park the car and head into emergency. I almost apologetically tell the triage nurse why we’re there but I find more confidence when I tell her that I just feel that something is not quite right.

I have always believed in the power of intuition and it has never been stronger in me than since becoming a mother. I think that’s largely due to the innate sense of protectiveness and hyper-vigilance that seems to kick in once a baby starts growing inside your guts.

If nothing else, then this story is evidence that my instinct to trust my instinct is right.

The triage nurse did not bat an eyelid when I told her why we were there. She didn’t look at me like I was an overprotective mum or a fruitcake or someone there to waste her time. She didn’t make me feel like an idiot. She processed me quickly and efficiently and sent me straight through to paediatric emergency and within minutes we were ushered into our own bay and another nurse was asking what brought us to her on this cold Sunday evening.

As I repeated my story, she wrapped a Velcro band attached to a monitor around Stefan’s insignificant tri-cep as he lay on the bed and waited to record his blood pressure, all the while chatting to us about the symptoms that caused us to head in to emergency. She measured once and then turned the machine off and on again, repositioned the cuff and measured again. She asked how long he’d had his headache for, any other symptoms… y’know, the usual palaver. Then she excused herself with a sigh and returned with a manual blood pressure monitor. The kind you pump up with your hand and measure with a stethoscope and clock.

“That’d be right” I thought begrudgingly to myself “The fucking machine is faulty”

Of course, there was no rational reason for me to think that. I had never come across a faulty machine during any of my trips to hospital previously but it was Sunday night and I was tired and I was still second guessing myself for being there at all.

The nurse excused herself AGAIN (“what the fuck is she doing? Is she new? I don’t want to be here all night!”) and returns about 8 seconds later with a doctor in tow.

“FINALLY… some proper medical attention!” my mind roars as my face feigns holy mother patience.

The doctor is calm and gentle and speaking to me like I’m a mental patient which at the time just seemed like a very reassuring bedside manner.

“Hi” he says smiling kindly.

“Stefan has quite high blood pressure and we just want to check some things out” he says gently.

“Oh, I see” I say, though I don’t see at all. What does he mean ‘high blood pressure’? Can kids get high blood pressure? And so what if they do? He’s probably just a bit anxious about being in hospital. Don’t talk to me about high blood pressure, tell me what’s wrong with his head!

And then the world kind of tipped a bit as I notice, during my reverie, that the nurse is frantically writing down all of Stefan’s details [blood pressure levels etc] which in itself is not unusual. Nurses in emergency departments are always recording their patient’s details and statistics aren’t they? The correct answer is ‘yes’ but it was WHERE she was writing them down that caused a momentary lapse of reason in my heart.

She was writing his obs, in pen, ON THE BEDSHEET of the bed just by his feet.

What the fuck is going on here??

Meanwhile, the doctor is still calmly speaking to us all like Stefan has a runny nose and simply needs a box of tissues.

“Are they ready for us next door?” he gently asks the nurse writing on the bed.

“Yep, they’re waiting”

And just like that, they’re wheeling Stefan’s bed out of paediatric emergency and straight into an area called ‘RESUSC’ [that’s short for resuscitation people!] where two nurses and 750 monitors are waiting, expectantly for our arrival.

Shit. Just. Got. Real.

“Hello Mum” one of the nurses says kindly as they both buzz around the bed placing sticky pads all over Stefan’s, suddenly, tiny frame “What’s your name?”

It feels surreal for me to answer all the questions as I watch every move they make and follow their lead on tone and behaviour. My Stefan is the kind of kid that was born incredibly tuned in to the universe. Some would call him an ‘old soul’ and others may even tag him as a young ‘empath’. I’m not sure what to call him but he has always shown an innate accuracy when it has come to reading the mood of a person – and sometimes even an animal! I knew that he was looking to me for reassurance and guidance on how he should be responding to this very unusual and intense medical attention. So I did what any good mother would do and flat out lied to his face.

“This is totally normal hon. Every kid with a bad headache ends up in here. You’re FINE.”

But he wasn’t fine. He was very, very far from fine. The doctor explained that a boy of his age, health and size should have a blood pressure reading of about 95-100 over 60-70. Stefan’s current BP was 230/150.

He was going to explode.

“We’ve been liaising with the renal consultant on call and have organised a bed in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at Women’s and Children’s” the Calmest Doctor On Earth explained to me.

“Renal?? He’s got a HEADACHE and HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE. There’s nothing wrong with his kidneys! Why are you liaising with a renal specialist? And why have you organised a bed at WCH? If I wanted to go there I would’ve taken him there. I like this hospital.”

Don’t ask me why I was digging my heels in on that. I’m a bit closed minded on some things. I brought him to the hospital he was born in. I like it. I know it. Now they want me to go a hospital that I don’t know or like. But I have no choice. It is the only hospital that has a PICU. And it’s where the paediatric renal unit is situated. Why renal? Because, I have since learned, that any time a child has high blood pressure or hypertension then it is AUTOMATICALLY an indication of kidney issues.

“FINE. I’ll take him there then.”

“Ummmm…. YOU can’t take him anywhere. We’ve organised the MedStar team to collect him. He needs a doctor to travel with him.”

And at 3am that is exactly what happened. A team arrived with transportable monitors and wires and flanked my little boy’s stretcher as they wheeled him into the icy night and through the back doors of the waiting ambulance. The roads were quiet at that time on Monday morning and we had a doctor on-board so thankfully, this wasn't an emergency requiring the sirens. There was no room for me in the back so I rode up front with the very reassuring driver and heard, for the sixth time (at least) that night, just how important it was that I acted on my instinct to take Stefan into hospital.

“So if there were no other symptoms, what WAS it that made you decide to bring him in?” was the question I was asked repeatedly throughout our time in hospital. My answer has always been the same. It was quite simply a feeling that something wasn’t right. Something wasn’t normal. It wasn’t one thing but a combination of things that led to a deep uneasiness within me. And even though I second guessed myself the entire way in to hospital, I still kept going because I would rather be turned away for being over-vigilant than hate myself for all eternity for not listening to my gut.

I will forever be grateful to the very first nurse that met with us who caught the symptom immediately. Not satisfied with what she was seeing, she triple checked herself before referring it further. The whole process took less than half an hour from when she first said hello to being ushered through to RESUC. She didn’t falter, she didn’t panic and she didn’t cut corners. That’s what you want on your medical frontline.

From that very moment I have not been able to fault the medical care my son was given. In the three days that we were residents of PICU we came across an insane number of doctors, nurses and specialists. Stefan was seen and ultimately cleared by a cardiologist, ophthalmologist and endocrinologist all under the management of an entire nephrology team. He had a new nurse every shift who monitored him around the clock and their ‘handovers’ were conducted with the efficiency and detail you would expect for someone requiring intensive care. I know because I stood at the nurse’s station and listened to the reports and observations for every single handover.

Nothing was left to chance. As he adjusted to the frightening amount of daily medication required to suppress his screaming hypertension, he had a CT scan, a nuclear scan and an MRI. His blood pressure was monitored by a line that was inserted directly into his artery and connected to monitors which were checked every hour on the hour. They took urine samples, blood samples and saliva samples. They monitored his oxygen levels, his fluid intake, his heart rate and his neurological responses.

As uncomfortable as it was sitting (literally!) at the bedside of my son for days on end, there was nowhere else I would rather have been. I knew that we were in the best place for the safety of my son and the confidence that I had in the care he was receiving was everything that I could have hoped for.

So… WHAT was the problem?

Well, as it turns out, we have discovered that Stefan has one kidney smaller than the other (likely born that way) and therefore not operating at its full capacity. After a week on the ward, he was discharged as a renal outpatient and now lives a ‘normal’ life thanks to taking three separate medications morning and night to manage his high blood pressure. We visit the renal unit in hospital regularly where they keep an eye on any changes and readjust medications accordingly. The prognosis is that he will require medication indefinitely, however we have already reduced it several times as he levels out and I have faith that we will continue in this direction until he is on an absolute minimum.

Which all translates to him being just fine. But from big dramas, life lessons grow! And I’ve got a few pearlers, just for you.

First up is an obvious one. TRUST. YOUR. INSTINCT. Listen to your gut. When nothing makes sense, act. Do not wait. Do not fear over reacting. The message I got loud and clear from every single medical person I have come across since that night, is that my action saved my son’s life. A life that I had NO IDEA was in jeopardy.

The second one is also reasonably typical. SEIZE THE DAY. Spending days and nights in hospital with nothing but your suddenly sick child, the clock and heart monitors to look at is particularly sobering. There were a lot of thoughts that began with “IF we get out of here…” which thankfully progressed to “WHEN we get out of here…” and ended with all different versions of “I’m going to take the family on holiday/spend more time/be more present/work less/be more patient/eat better/be more active…” You get the drift. Since everything has settled down, I have indeed done a lot of those things and we’re all feeling better for it. But I know I shouldn’t have to wait for tragedy to nearly strike before I’m reminded of all those things.

The last one is a lesson taught to me by my 9 year old son. SURRENDER. It would be no surprise to any of you that a child has a very different perspective to danger than a grown up does. During those days in hospital we were learning new things about his condition hourly. When I heard new, scary things my mind went to some very dark places and my knee-jerk response was to take over. I needed to SAVE my child. I needed to PROTECT him. I needed to FIX him. But whilst Stefan was taking cues from me, I was also taking them from him. When he learnt new, scary things – he was calm. He didn’t go anywhere dark. He listened, understood, processed and laid himself bare. The lesson I learnt from him is that there is a peace in surrendering to vulnerability. His innocence and his faith in those that knew more than him kept him calm [which incidentally is very important when you have high blood pressure!] and they kept him positive. He went through some really confronting and terrifying things but he didn’t second guess them and he didn’t overthink them. It was truly an education in attitude and self-preservation which I am grateful to him for.

And hopefully, this is the last time I’ll ever have to learn those lessons.

14 things to know about sick kids

Eleven years and two sons in, I know a few things about sick kids. First and foremost – they are inevitable. No matter your lifestyle, diet or culture, your kids will get catch something, probably from another child, and get sick. Your best chance to survive their childhood is to be prepared.

By being prepared I mean I reckon every parent needs the following in their arsenal at all times: age appropriate paracetamol [Panadol] and ibuprofen [Nurofen], an age-appropriate and recommended anti-histamine, hydralite icy poles or sachets, bandaids, the number of an out-of-hours locum doctor, a reliable GP or local medical clinic, a list of any medications your child may be allergic to, a bucket, Glen-20 anti-bacterial spray, a thermometer and a thick skin.

If you’ve got all that, then you just need to remember these tips and you may get through the year without wanting to run off into the bush to escape all germs for the rest of your lives (though I promise that will cross your mind at least once when you’re drowning in the fifth virus your child[ren] have brought home that school term).

1. They get sick at the worst times

Right before a big event or just as you’ve booked an important work meeting or your bi-annual pap smear are the times that children are most likely to get sick. You can count on your plans being completely fucked at least half a dozen times a year and you can double that number with each extra child you have. You can’t plan for it either. Just don’t think you’re anything special when it happens to you. You’re not. You’re just a parent. Suck it up and cancel those plans buddy.

2. It’s always worse at night

This seems like pure sorcery doesn’t it? Kids can go from just being a bit flat and lethargic to a full-blown ebola outbreak the moment the sun goes down… or you fall asleep – which ever comes first. I don’t really understand the science in this. Perhaps there isn’t any but there really isn’t any escaping it either. If your kid is showing signs of illness during the day, then bunker down for the evening. This includes making sure you have enough medicine [yours and theirs] before the shops shut [learnt THAT one the hard way!]

3. Infections come on REALLY fast

This is another disturbing realisation. Bacterial infections multiply at a rate of knots in kids. It’s almost scary. I’ve watched my son complain of ear pain to having TWO burst eardrums in a matter of hours [at night of course]. The best thing you can do if you suspect an infection is to get a doctor to prescribe anti-biotics as soon as possible. Because as fast as those infections come on, the drugs seem to stop them just as quickly. Symptoms of any infection include: localised pain, fever, drowsiness, rash and extreme whingeing. In younger, non-verbal children they will often indicate where the infection is by pulling at or rubbing that area. In older children/husbands there may be declarations along the lines of “I think I’m dying.”

4. Panadol will become your best friend

Oh Panadol, how do I love thee? I have used age-appropriate doses of Panadol since my children were tiny babies. The effectiveness with which it stops a fever in its tracks is astounding and the most help a parent can get when their child is really sick. My eldest hated it when he was little though and would bring it up every time I gave it to him.

TIP: doctors recommend that you DON’T redose your child if they bring up their medication as you can’t be sure of how much they did ingest, risking overdose. 

I would not be thwarted though! They make Panadol in suppository form. *cunning smile* You know what that means right? Any time my son’s fever was too high or he was in pain from infection [throat, ears etc] I just popped him on the change the table and gave him a little paracetamol pressie. Yep, right up the kazoo. My husband couldn’t do it [soft] but I was the master… and ruthless!

5. You can give paracetamol and ibuprofen at the same time

This is a big tip and one that I’m surprised many parents are unaware of. You can give your child paracetamol [Panadol] AND ibuprofen [Nurofen] within the same dosage period. Eg, let’s say you give your child the correct dose of Panadol and after about an hour they are still in pain and/or their fever has not reduced. You can then give them the correct dose [within the usual Panadol dosage period of 4 hours] of Nurofen AS WELL. You DO NOT have to wait. They are two completely different medications and are often used concurrently by medical staff in hospitals. In fact, that’s where I first learnt about it. I have since confirmed it, regularly, with specialists, locum doctors and my own trusted GP. This is incredibly valuable information and could make all the difference during a night of sheer hell.

6. Locum doctors are travelling angels

I have had the best experience with on-call locum doctors. When my kids have been really sick outside of normal consulting hours travelling locum doctors have come TO MY HOUSE and carried out their consultation at my kid’s bedside. It is a sensational service and I highly recommend it. One doctor even let my youngest sleep through the entire consultation as he checked his ears and temp and listened to his breathing when he was really sick one night. It was seriously amazing and I would have hugged him if we weren’t both kneeling on the carpet in a lamp-lit bedroom in the middle of the night… #awkward. They often have at least a couple of doses of anti-biotics in their bag of tricks that will get you through til morning and the peace of mind they bring without having to traipse into an emergency department is worth its weight in gold.

7. The emergency department is hell on earth in the middle of the night

I have seen the emergency department in the middle of the night many times in my parenting life. It is never fun. I am usually there for HOURS, waiting, with any number of other parents with their sick kids. There’s screaming and crying and sleeping in every corner of the waiting area. All parents are processing their own internal triage to try to suss out where their kid sits in priority to others. There are lots of hot babies in nappies and singlets sitting on their parent’s lap. There are prams everywhere and exhausted adults and nurses who have seen it all before. Probably just last night. I get all OCD in emergency departments and won’t let my kid touch anything public that I haven’t wiped down first and when I get home I change them out of anything there were wearing in hospital in case they’ve brought home meningitis combined with gastro and polio. This is why, unless it’s an actual emergency, I call out a locum instead.

8. Back rubbing is certain

Oh the back rubbing that goes on when your child is sick. “Rub my back, Mum” is the chant of the sooky child.

9. Losing sleep is inescapable

Expect to lose lots of sleep and prepare for it. Go to bed early yourself if you can. Make sure all medicine is easily accessible and all syringes/medicine cups are clean for the midnight run. If your child has gastro [oh that hideous, hideous thing] do as I do and set up camp with a bucket in the lounge room. They’ll be chucking their guts up about every half an hour so settle in for a night vomitous hell.

10. Fevers can be scary

My kids have never actually convulsed from their fever but they do get a bit twitchy and glassy eyed.  Anything over 38 degrees and I go in HARD and fast to  try to get it down as soon as possible. This includes stripping them down to underwear and placing a cold flannel on their forehead and pulse points if required.

11. They won’t want to eat

Kids will listen to their bodies and will tell you when they’re hungry. If they don’t want a meal, don’t force it. Keep them going with crackers, jellies, mild fruits like watermelon and soups. Let them guide you, within reason but remember the most important thing is to keep them hydrated. A dehydrated child can get into trouble very quickly.

12. Gastro often presents at both ends

At the same time. It can be a total, revolting, explosive nightmare. The best way to tackle that, if your child is toilet-trained, is to pop them on the toilet when they’re ready to spew and let them vomit in a bucket while it comes out the other end straight into the loo.

13. Mother’s instinct is a diagnostic tool

You know your child. Trust that. I can tell when my kids are getting sick before they even know it. I also know what they’re susceptible to. One runs hot and one runs cold so their fever temperatures are different. I will happily question a doctor’s diagnosis if I’m not happy with it and will seek a second opinion without a blink of an eye. You know your child. If all you’ve got to go on is that they just don’t seem right then go with it and don’t stop until they’re right again. Better to err on the side of neurosis, I always say.

14. Kid’s germs travel

They will cry on you and sneeze on you and dribble on you and even vomit on you. The amount of germ-infested body fluids that you will be covered with will be hard to avoid. All I can say is wash your hands as much as possible. Don’t share pillows or cutlery and wash all the bed linen and towels as soon as possible without being a nutcase. But know that even with all possible precautions made, statistics show that you will get at least half of your kids lurgies every year. 

Just pray their father doesn’t get them too.

Parenting 101: A memory that became a lesson

My son is spending the day with his new teacher and class-mates today at his year 6 induction day, which is kind of a big deal in his life so far.

He goes to a school that has students from Reception through to Year 12 and the school is split into Primary School, Middle School and High School. Year 6 is the first year of Middle School so he’ll be graduating from Primary School this year with a real graduation ceremony and everything. It’s all a bit strange to me but both my kids seem to enjoy the structure of the school and so far it’s been a very positive experience for all of us.

The thing is, Nathan has a really tight posse of mates. REALLY TIGHT. Most of them went to kindergarten together and then started school at the same time. TOGETHER. They learn together, lunch together, walk together, play club-sport together, Skype together… you get the picture. And for Nathan, that’s extremely important. He’s the kind of kid who, despite being incredibly popular, really values the dynamic of having a small handful of close friends. So when he discovered yesterday that ALL of his mates were heading into one class and he was heading into another, the rug was pulled out from under his world.

And oh god how I felt for him. He was SO upset. Dejected and confused and then really worried about what lay ahead for him, especially because there is a huge intake of new [and potentially scary!] kids in Year 6. I talked calmly and sensibly and made all the right soothing noises but I was panicking inside. 

Why did they do this to my son?? How could they do this to him? How will I fix it?

I spoke to a couple of very wise mum friends who talked me off the ledge and I realised something significant. Nothing needed to be fixed. This may be well be the poster child for a ‘first-world problem.’ He just needed to understand how to manage it. I remembered my own quest to raise a resilient kid and I remembered how resilient I was when I was younger. Through necessity sure, but the end result was pretty decent.

I reminded Nathan that friendships don’t only live in the classroom but out on the oval and in the playground and on the footy field. I told him he would be fine and that he would be lucky enough to meet some new friends and when that didn’t work, I sat on the edge of his bed and quietly told him of a very special and important story...

When I was growing up, a looooong time ago, there was only Primary School and High School and they were two different schools. In different places.

High School started in Year 8 and the first time I met my new teacher in my new school with my new class-mates was on the first day of school.

I was SO NERVOUS. There was only one other girl, called Tara, from my Primary School in my class who was very nice but she wasn’t one my ‘friends’. Of course I sat next to her anyway but I was terrified that I wouldn’t have any friends in my new school.

I sat there quietly and watched as everyone’s name was called out for role call and they had to go up to the front of the class to collect something from our new teacher. I can’t remember what that something was but my surname started with B so I was one of the first people who had to go up the front. It was horrible! But over quickly and then I just sat and watched everyone else.

After some time the list got to W and I watched this girl, who I’d never seen before obviously, walk up to the front of the class. She was so confident! The boys in the class were saying silly things because boys are silly…

"No we’re not Mum!"

Well, SOME boys are silly and they were saying silly things to this girl [What I didn’t tell him, is that her windcheater had a picture of Mickey Mouse on it and the word Mickey printed randomly all over it. That was during the era that people in our neck of the woods called sperm/cum/ejaculation ‘mickey’ and those bastards were saying ‘ooooh she’s got ‘mickey’ all over her top”!] but she did not flinch! She didn’t rush and she didn’t fidget and she had no apology in her step.

I watched her and I thought to myself ‘THAT girl is going to my friend” and by the end of the day, we were friends.

"Yeah, that’s pretty cool actually. What happened next?"

Well… THAT girl is your Aunty Ilka that I’m STILL friends with today and if I hadn’t been alone that day I may not have noticed her. If I had all my Primary School friends with me, I may have only been with them and not had room in my heart for Aunty Ilka. Sometimes these scary days turn out to be the best things that could ever happen to you.

"Thanks Mum."

And just like that, my first day of high school became the gift that keeps on giving. A life-long friend AND a lesson in parenting.

The Playdate V2.015

We didn’t have playdates when I was growing up. We just went to our friend’s houses. Our mums often didn’t even check if that was ok with each other… or if they were even home. I’d leave the house on my bike [without a helmet] and say “I’m going to Liz’s” and Mum would say “ok” and that would be the entire logistical arrangement for the visit. Then when I arrived at Liz’s, unexpected but welcome nonetheless, we would tell her mum “We’re going to Allison’s” and she would say “ok” and off we would go. And at some stage [before the street lights came on] we would all end up home again. Tired but happy and already wondering what and who the next day had in store for us.

Kids from the neighbourhood would turn up at our front door, bold as you like and say “Hi, is Tania home?” and if Mum was in the mood, she would welcome them in and direct them to my room or the backyard or wherever I was and we would just hang out. There were no activities. There were no pre-prepared snacks. If we complained about being hungry Mum would tell us to have a piece of fruit or make a sandwich. Chips and packaged snacks were party food so there was never any of that in the house and if there WAS some, it was for special guests. Not bratty kids just dropping around hoping to freeload the ‘for special guests treats’.

When we were kids, fronting up at a friend’s house uninvited was so normal that we didn’t care if we were welcome or not. If they weren’t allowed to play that day, we accepted that and moved on. We then decided for ourselves whether it was worth trying another friend nearby or whether we should just head home. And every day we developed resilience. Being turned away from friends’ and neighbours’ homes were gentle and appropriate rejections that strengthened our emotional muscle. I never understood the importance of those rites of passage. Until today.

My eldest took himself off to his own playdate today. For the first time. In his ten years of living.

When I watched him ride off down the street, with nothing but his tennis racket on his back I felt a twinge of anxiety. I’ve written about letting go before so these feelings are nothing new. Except they are. Every time he takes another step toward independence there is a new feeling in my heart. Every time he makes another decision without my counsel I see his chest grow with the breath of the man he is becoming. I watched him overcome his own anxieties too. He did a dry run before the main event earlier in the morning and yesterday he asked me to drive past his friend’s place so he knew exactly where it was and how to get there. As he was preparing to leave at precisely the time we had worked out he needed to in order to arrive punctually [VERY important to this child] he ran through his own checklist with me “So Mum, this is the way I’m going to go [explains, in detail, his route]. It should only take me about 3 minutes [yes, he's THAT precise] shouldn’t it? And then I’ll come back the same way… but how will I know it’s time to leave?”

Whoa. At that moment I understood that there are so many important lessons in independence that our ‘new’ way of parenting is robbing our kids of. How can I expect my boys to make the right choices, when they are not given enough opportunity to make any at all. If I am making all of their social arrangements, for example, without their involvement what are they learning? Until today, I would tell him when we need to leave, drop him off and tell him when I would be back. Until today, I’m certain he paid no attention to any of that. He just went on his merry way until such time as I returned to collect him or his friend’s mum brought him home.

The way things were done when I was a kid weren’t altogether right, by any means, but I don’t reckon the way things are done today are either. I’m looking for the sweet spot in the middle of the two for my lot.

So today, for the first time ever, I made arrangements with his friend’s mum ENTIRELY by text. I didn’t send him off with a drink and BYO snacks. I didn’t settle him in and tell him when I would return. I texted the mum when he left home and she texted me when he arrived. It was ALMOST like the way we used to do ‘playdates’ back in the day. Almost.

#babysteps