My child's first day of High School made me feel like an awkward teenager again and why I'm at peace with the discomfort.

My child started secondary school. All Summer there's been excitement and countdowns, ending with the normal butterflies in the stomach in the final days of the holidays, before the big moment arrived. I'd prepared her, ironed her uniform, filled her shiny new pencil case with biros and batted away most 'what if' questions like a seasoned parenting pro. But what I wasn't prepared for, was the rearing of all my teenage high school trauma. It hit me out of the blue when tears fell from eyes after a long, overwhelming first day. What she experienced in those first 'rabbit in the headlights' days was normal. No one was mean to her. Nothing terrible happened. She even enjoyed much of it. Her highly sensitive soul simply needed to release built up emotions and process so much change in this huge milestone moment. But suddenly, whilst holding her, I stepped into the shoes of my awkward tween self and was flooded with feelings of self doubt, intense self consciousness and high anxiety. I remember the fear like it was yesterday and my heart broke. I thought it was for her. It wasn't. My heart broke for my teenage self. ​

I was unprepared for how huge this milestone would feel for me as well as my daughter. I realise now that so much of my own emotional response was triggered by memories of my own journey from primary school into secondary. It wasn't an easy transition for many of us and I certainly found it traumatic (with a little t).  Although she has navigated the early days with more resilience in her emotional toolkit than I did, it's still challenging. Watching her go through that felt intense and vivid. As if I was going through it myself. In someways I was, triggered memories and emotions replaying and responding to your child's experience as if your own were happening again. Psychologists and coaches will point out that your mind doesn't distinguish between real and imagined experiences, or current and remembered experiences and so the emotion is palpable.

Initially I didn't recognise my response to her distress and overwhelm as being so intertwined with my own. But as I pieced it together it was clear I needed to process my experience and had some healing to do to ensure I wasn't imprinting my (teenage) perspective onto my daughter's experience. 

To be at our best for our children, and support their experiences through their lens takes intuitive reflection and a level of self awareness. When we become emotionally reactive to our children's experiences it's helpful to ask ourselves why and be brave enough to go there. Even just being aware of why is an important and substantial step in itself. So, as I coach her through this challenging rite of passage, I'm also coaching my inner teenage self. These are some of the steps I'm taking:

• Working on some unhelpful beliefs that have popped up during this time and working on my own from that time too. For example, in this current era of my life, I can see that people can't connect with you when you don't believe you are likeable so I'm applying that to my inner teen self . We also work together on being OK with not being everyone's cup of tea.
• Asking my daughter what she needs when she feels overwhelmed with emotion and asking myself too. Acknowledging that much of what I feel in relation to my child's milestone moment is actually about my own experience of that moment (even though it was 30 years ago!) and allowing them to finally be free rather than suppressed, (what I did at the time) helps me to process them so that I'm less triggered when she has challenges.

• Using affirmations. A little self belief goes a long way! We've created affirmations to help both of us feel stronger and grounded. "Difficult moments help me become more resilient."

Finally, I've been reflecting more deeply on how difficult, awkward teen moments, helped me become who I am today so I can be at peace with them. It's a reminder that I don't have to take away my own child's pain as they can serve us in the future. But I can learn from them too and give her more of what she needs to grow from them. Things my tween self needed too. ​

As Maya Angelou says, "When you know better, do better." So it's OK. My early secondary journey felt difficult, but I'm at peace with that because the journey led to here. Today, where I'm parenting differently for my daughter. Where I've been guiding and teaching her for years so that she is far braver, stronger and more resilient than I was at this point in my own life. It led to now, where we're parenting a generation that will know themselves and what to do when challenges arise.