Why Kids Don’t Want To Be Grown-Ups

Posted on March 15, 2016

“Happy birthday, my darling! Eight years old! How does it feel?” I asked my daughter, Nitasha, as I cuddled with her the night of her eighth birthday. We had started the day with her waking up to balloons all over her room. Then there was a birthday cake at school and what seemed like a hundred phone calls from family and friends, and we ended with a nice family dinner at an Italian restaurant.

“It feels great, Mom. Do I look different today? A little older?” she asked. “Yes,” I quickly replied. “You’re all grown up!”

“A grown-up-girl, I hope. Not like a grown-up adult, right?” she asked me seriously, taking me completely by surprise!

“Yes, yes! A grown-up-girl,” I quickly answered. But I couldn’t help probing a little. “A beautiful grown-up girl who will one day be a beautiful grown-up adult,” I said, as I bent to kiss her good night!

“Well,” she said, “I’m actually not looking forward to that, Mom.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. What grown-ups wouldn’t do to be kids again, and most kids can’t wait to be all grown up. So where was this coming from? I wondered.

“Yup, I’ve been watching you. You have so much to do. You are either taking care of us, or Dad, or Grandma, or making dinner or buying groceries or taking us to birthday parties or some school event. And you go to work and drive and all that stuff. It’s always go, go, go. You must always be tired of thinking, “What do I have to do next?” So many times you’re not even listening to what I say. Sometimes you relax or see friends—but just on the weekend. I don’t want that. And you have such a beautiful smile, Mom, but I don’t see you smiling much, except on the weekend. Being a grown-up is hard. I’m okay if I don’t grow up for a loooong while.”

My jaw dropped, and tears blurred my eyes. I was speechless. She was right. Nitasha had mirrored me to a T. And it was one thing to find out what my life looked like to an eight-year-old, but I couldn’t bear to hear that she didn’t want to be grown up because of it. The demons of guilt, doubt, worry, and fear hit me like cannonballs. I cried all night and fretted that my kids might be irresponsible, intentionally, in an effort to put off being grown up.

Still weighed down by these emotions, the next day I called in sick at work, told my husband to get the kids ready, drove them to school in my pajamas, then came back home and sat around the house until noon. I felt like I had been hit by a ton of bricks.

I was sitting by my window, staring blankly at the trees when I saw two beautiful bluebirds fly-dancing. I looked up and saw a heart-shaped cloud in the partly overcast sky. New flowers had started to pop in my backyard, and I hadn’t even noticed. It was March, and spring had arrived. At that instant, my inner self asked its usual question: “What next?”

Intuitively I grabbed my journal from the nightstand and started to write down what I needed to do. As I wrote, I found myself taking deep breaths and felt my burden release. I smiled and continued to write more of what I was going to do next.

I vowed to make a conscious shift that day and to model being a grown-up in a way that would leave positive impressions on my children. Here are a few tips that I have lived by and that have worked very well:

1. Check your frown crown (your forehead wrinkles). Take a deep breath, release the thoughts behind that frown crown, and be in the moment.

2. Carry your own beautiful smile through the crazy days of parenthood as often as you can. I tried to smile at least ten times a day. It was easy and personally uplifting.

3. Coloring with my kids was real therapy for me. I’d grab a paper and crayons when they were drawing and join in, even though I didn’t consider myself a good artist. When my kids were young adults, I stopped for a while, but I recently ordered some amazing coloring books and pencils from Amazon. It’s a trend! So go ahead and be trendy while having some fun!

4. Play, play, play with your kids every day—hide and seek, charades, monkey in the middle, whatever. Make board games a nightly activity. This invites the kid in us to come out and play. Research says that playing board games as a family helps both young and old grow.

5. Laugh, sing, and dance every day. Dr. Jay Kumar calls this LSD for the soul. Do away with always behaving like an uptight grown-up!

6. Practice the magic of touch. Give big hugs and big kisses for no reason at all. We have all gotten into a habit of sending our kids out or dropping them off to school with a verbal “love you.” Build on that. Taking the extra minute to add a hug or a kiss keeps us connected with kids in the way that they relate to best.

Children need to see adults lighten up—to watch them play, laugh, hug, kiss, and have fun—so they see that being a grown-up is fun as well. We create lifelong impressions on our children every moment we’re with them. Yes, we will make our fair share of mistakes. But if we only focus on task completion and multitasking, our children will inherit our stressful and anxious attitudes. How our children handle stress and busy-ness in the future is exemplified by how we handle it ourselves.

The truth is, our children want to be grown-ups because then they will have independence to do what they want. They will not want to be grown-ups if they feel they will have to give up having fun. Role model an adulthood that will inspire them to want to be grown up.