What happens when the child we imagined collides with the child in front of us?

In this episode, we explore what it really means to let go of the child of our imagination, and why the middle grades make that work unavoidable. We talk about the fear underneath expectations, the quiet grief of releasing imagined futures, and the responsibility that comes with the power parents still hold at this stage. Drawing on my experience as a parent and educator, including raising a child with cystic fibrosis and type 1 diabetes, this episode looks at how to love without authoring, guide without controlling, and stay present when certainty is no longer available.

This episode is about learning to parent the child we have, not the one we planned for- and how this can be challenging- especially in the middle grades.