Dear all, I don’t think there’s a mother out there who hasn’t felt overwhelmed at some point – touched, hugged and kissed so often that it became too much. How many times have I thought at night that I needed more personal space when yet another child crawled under my duvet?
How often have I thought: Why are they always clinging to me? Why does someone always want to be on or in my arms? Why are they hanging onto my legs, not letting go, even when I’m sitting on the loo? When you have small children, you’re practically in physical contact with them non-stop – whether you’re helping them get dressed or undressed, changing nappies, applying cream, brushing teeth, hugging, comforting them with a cuddle, carrying them, rocking them, or bobbing them up and down…
And then… without us even realising it, it starts to ease off. The children might suddenly lock themselves in the bathroom when they’re washing. They no longer need help pulling their jumper over their head; they’ve been brushing their teeth on their own for ages. At night, they no longer crawl into bed; they don’t want goodnight kisses anymore either; they no longer need a hand to cross the road. In short: we touch older children far less than we do younger ones.
Teenagers set boundaries
On the one hand, this is of course perfectly natural, because it’s part of a teenager’s process of establishing their independence, but suddenly, as parents, you somehow miss that physical closeness, don’t you? In my family, it’s always been the case that we’ve cuddled a lot and hugged and touched one another. My older children used to go for walks holding my hand for ages, or we’d all sit together in the bath. And I myself still snuggle up with my mum on the sofa when she’s there.
With my 15-year-old and my 12-year-old, however, I’m now clearly noticing that these cuddly moments are few and far between. And I’ve been wondering whether it has to be that way, or whether you can’t actively keep it going – in an age-appropriate way, of course. When my 12-year-old had a rubbish day at school the other day, I simply asked him in the evening if I should give him a bit of a back rub. He just lay there, completely relaxed; we didn’t talk much at all. I rather had the feeling that this relaxation helped him bring the day to a better close. And the whole time, I just kept thinking: When did he get so big? Those long legs, those huge feet???
And to my eldest, who’s been out and about with her friends a lot at the moment, I said the other day: “Ohhh, I’m missing you a bit right now, can we have a loooong hug?” And then we just stood there in the kitchen and held each other. When I was in a bad mood shortly afterwards (PMS aggression), she came over to me and said: „Need a hug?“ And boy, did I need one!
I’m really sticking with this conscious use of physical closeness at the moment. Because I often feel that it gets the children talking too. Even if it’s just a few strokes over the head or – my children all love this – a foot massage. When I told my 12-year-old as I was picking him up that we were having pizza that evening, he was so happy that he gave me a stormy hug in front of his mates and planted a big kiss on me.
Of course, there are also teenagers who completely distance themselves for a while and won’t let that happen anymore, and then that’s probably fine too. But when we still get the odd cuddle from our older kids now and then, it’s particularly precious, isn’t it?
How is it with you? Do you still get physical contact with your teenagers? Or is it something you’re not used to at all from your own family – hugging and cuddling a lot? A good friend of mine, for example, always greets his parents with a handshake – which I find totally baffling. When I once asked him about it, he said that’s just how it is in his family and that, as an adult, he’d never hugged or kissed his parents. Do tell us how it is for you!
