1066 All Stars

The Monkeys Went In Two By Two...

It is a strange mixture of feelings sending your children off to school.

On one hand, they are embarking on a wonderful new adventure. They will make friends, learn about the world, discover themselves and their interests. It is exciting and in many ways the best time of their lives.

On the other, they are my little babies and they are growing up far too fast.

Unlike with nursery, it feels the right time for them to go. They are not little for their age and so don't look out of place. They will benefit from the more controlled, disciplined environment and the chance to split off and make their own friends.

Walking them to school this morning though, I was filled with anxiety, to the point that their excited chattering was grating on my nerves because I couldn't focus on my own procrastinating. But what made me nervous? When I stop to examine it, I realise that I was recycling my own thoughts and feelings and projecting these experiences onto them.

One of my great hopes for my children is that they are not shy. I am not an extreme case by any stretch of the imagination but shyness has served to repeatedly undermine me. From a reluctance to join the school football team, to making friends, to university, to girls, to pursuing my dreams or starting anew. It has held me back, the shyness developing into fear, the fear into anxiety and the anxiety leading, eventually, to depression.

I see elements of my character in my girls, understandably of course. But I must be wary of projecting onto them for I risk living their lives for them, in my attempts to protect them from fear and risk, denying them the very opportunities and experiences they will need to overcome such feelings.

They are at the beginning of their own journey. There will be detours, wrong turns and bumps in the road. But that is all part of life.

It is what makes it worth living.