My kids my friends

So many parents these days want to be their kids best friend, I get it your kids are awesome but they are not adults they are children and children become great adults by getting a firm understanding of responsiblities and boundaries as these 2 things underpin the rights we are entitled to. A number of parents through the act of being friends with their kids neglect to teach them rules, respect, and boundaries. Then when the child runs into trouble they issue them an adults get out of trouble pass when trouble, struggle and angst are the shaping grounds for breeding character. This is not to say that a parent cannot be a friend to their child but the friendship is reserved for the last years of the relationship where the foundations have been laid and the groundwork to establish an awesome adult is mostly done.

I have 3 beautiful very different children of my own. My goal for each of them has been for them to respect authority, understand why we have rules and to understand themselves know what makes them tick what motivates them. In this I have been mostly successful.

My eldest is working as an enrolled nurse and in his second year of university to become a registered nurse and thinks he might also go to study medicine, He loves the company of a select few and currently like his father before him when he was 20 spends to much time with computers. My daughter is also walking down this path and is nearly finished her enrolled nursing diploma. She is beautiful vibrant and loves hanging out with people like her dad. My youngest is extremely creative and loves a chat with a random stranger. He creates whole worlds inside his mind, he still doen’t know what he wants to do but is slowly getting through year 10.

For many parents their whole desire is to have their kids live in their neighbourhood and to pretty much continue living with them till the day they die, which I totally get after all your kids are the most awesome thing you will ever get the opportunity to create and mold….

however I also believe in a life well lived and it is an amazing world out there I hope that my children scatter to the wind and have adventures that they can come back and share with me. I hope that they live in places that I can visit and share adventure with them. I hope that they imbibe a sense of passion and adventure and share it with those around them

“When all is said and done all you have left is the memories of a life you lived”

I have tried to put a lot of time into the relationships I have with all my children in preparation for the time when they leave home. This is because I desire to have a strong friendship with each of them as adults and it has been one of the greatest joys of my life being their dad.

Lately my daughter and I have been “getting each other”

My youngest and I are training together and doing some gym work whilst my eldest asks me for advice that he then doesn’t follow 8-)…