It has been quite a while since we have posted on the blog, but I am happy to say we are back at it, and we have some exciting plans for the next few months. We are hoping 2022 can be a great year despite the rocky start with the ongoing challenges we face as moms and just as people still dealing with the pandemic. While this is a struggle for all of us, I feel like the young adult population has been affected in a very significant way. Our "kids" in their late teens moving into their early twenties are missing out on many milestone moments while entering this already stressful phase of life. Sadly, they continue to deal with many limitations and disappointments. Graduations and proms were missed or significantly altered. Time in the last year or two of high school and normal social interaction outside of school has been limited. Don't even get me started on how different college has been compared to the norm. It is very sad to think that this is a time in their lives which cannot be postponed or redone later. Some decided to take gap years and wait to start college, but even if that was done for the 2020/2021 school year, the return in the fall of 2021 still did not look anything like a normal college experience for most.
So how do you prepare your young adult children for this?? I suppose you hope that the tools you have given them to deal with ups and downs, manage stress and make good decisions will be enough. These years are such an important time which involves the transition to living away from home and taking on all types of additional responsibilities. It means meeting new people (now behind a mask...at least at first) and trying to figure out how to navigate so many different types of situations.
I am so proud of both of my daughters for how they have spread their wings in a big way and handled this transition with great maturity. I describe them both as being extremely capable. My older daughter is now a second semester college senior in Boston, and my younger daughter is starting the second semester of her sophomore year in New York City. They are doing the best they can to safely experience as much as possible in these amazing cities. They travel by plane or train with ease, and walk the streets of these cities as if they grew up there. They have faced moments of disappointment, cancelled events, and the full college experience has not truly been there for either one of them over the past two years. Despite this, they have succeeded. They are resilient. They are responsible. They understand the value of hard work and have managed to excel with their classes whether fully virtual, hybrid or finally (mostly) in person. This is a time when they need to do for themselves and deal with unexpected things and plans that change last minute. They have to adapt to what is out of their control related to Covid. They have done it time and time again, and I applaud them. I look forward to an amazing Emerson College graduation ceremony in May, and I have high hopes for the next two years at NYU as well. They more than deserve it!
Give your kids as much guidance as you can when you can...but then let them go and make you proud.
With high hopes for 2022...Happy New Year!!🤗🎊
