Robinm - Your children are only a part of you. As I said in something I wrote, “Sometimes we have the strangely naive attitude that this is a new being who has entered the world. But what is there new in nature? Can we say, if we plant an acorn, that the oak tree growing is new? Well, yes. The body and leaves of the tree will be unique. But millions of years in the lives of other trees are involved in the growth of this particular oak. It cannot, it hasn’t, simply emerged from itself. Whatever way we explain birth, the baby carries with it the influences of an immense number of men and women who lived, struggled, loved, in the past.
But boys are more expressive of their drive to become independent from you, although it is often achieved by them switching their dependence from you to another person. Girls are often more quiet, but if they are healthy will strive for their own independence.
I have lived a long life with four boys and a girl as my family. So I have experienced a complete cut off by all my children, which has changed into a wonderful family feeling. One son told me that I was a heap of shit and would never have anything it do with me. Fortunately I had remembered the awful things I had done to my mother, and saw it as him growing up. Now he rings me up regularly and talks with complete man to man feelings, and is so full of vigour.
Another friend whose daughter had nothing to do with him and totally cut off from him, was certain it was forever and was in great - unnecessary pain - and I told him it was often a part of growing up. A few years later he phoned me to say his daughter was again a loving person for him
Many of us seem to forget how we became independent and the tricks we play. We often have to feel our parents are hateful or awful to get the courage to make break the tremendous emotional bond we had with mum. And mother’s and father’s should respect this and be patient. Letting them free means they are free to fly back to you as an adult, or training adult.
That is what parent hood is about. See
http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/individuation/ The trees may also be those around you that you see failing to live up to your own expectations. So do not put out fear to your children because they will feel they are not capable to face life.
Your children, even adventurous boys, are a blessing, so tell them or show them so.
Tony