Enjoying the ride while raising dot com children

I visited a friend recently and as we talked, she shared how she was grappling with the fact that while cleaning out her room, she had found a note from her 10-year-old daughter. The note detailing some of her favourite things in life made interesting reading but what stood out was the little girl’s description of her parents relationship which went somewhat like this; “My parents have fun but most of the time, they argue; ” She continued to say that she wishes her mummy was more available for her instead of being out working or at functions all the time.

Clearly the mother was shocked and hurt at the same time. As I got myself to quickly recover from the many implications of this statement, I consoled her urging her to be thankful that her little girl is able to express her feelings mainly because it helped the girl not bottle up waiting to explode at some point with all the related consequences, but also because it helped her mummy know what she was thinking and be able to do something about it before it got too late.

I have not stopped thinking about this incident because I have equally expressive children. Just the other day, one of them decided they had had enough with what they termed as “mistreatment” from the nanny and cousin and had decided it was time to pack up and go elsewhere.

You will notice that I’m careful not to mention which child for “security reasons”but how a child who is under 10 decides they have had enough and pack all their belongings never mind the fact that they never acquired these belongings in the first place, place them in a suit case and get ready to match out of the house at about 6a.m. can only be done in this era of dotcom children.

As you can imagine yours truly was tempted to put the fear of God into this dear child but I decided that maybe there might be a better way of handling this situation. Opportunists say there is an opportunity in every circumstance so I too need to see how to maximise this time and see what lessons I can draw. Clearly, the drama is not about to end so I need to figure out how to continuously enjoy the ride!