Daily Picture Grade 5 - Day 5

Second week of school already. Today, the plan was that Natalie would walk to school on her own. She made it as far as that door. Then she said "What do I do if a stranger is on the sidewalk?" My first inclination was to tell her to punch them and run. Then I realized a stranger could be a neighbor walking their dog and that punching them was probably a bad idea. So I walked her two blocks to where she could see the crossing guard. I did catch her looking back at me a couple of times. At first I thought it was sweet that she was not grown up enough to walk on her own. But within minutes I was pushing her out of the nest stating "You are fine to walk by yourself. Nothing will happen and you know what to do if something did." So this is what parenting is, right? Finding the balance between independence and support. Holding back the breaks in your resolve to raise a confident child until you are in front of your blog. Just proves that your children continue to challenge and amaze you even when they can cook their own soup and get all the shampoo out of their own hair. And in the end, they know when they can fly!

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them” --  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry