Children seem so grown up at times

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget how young our children really are. With kids growing up with computers and mobile phones – things that were new to us just a few years ago – and seeming to take to them like ducks to water while we still struggle to set the Sky+, it can occasionally seem like we are the children and they are the adults!

Even the youngest children seem so grown up at times – my 4-year-old daughter diligently brought me a glass of water every 12 hours while I was ill in bed recently, and each time, she asked me how I was feeling and told me I was a good girl for drinking up the last one she brought!

And yet, I am regularly reminded of just how young she still really is, when I go into her room put her to bed only to find her hidden under the duvet, feet and hair sticking out, giggling audibly before she eventually tells me where she is as I dutifully pretend to look in all the wrong places.

I like to remind myself of how the young brain works at times. I find it helps when I am struggling to understand things like why finding a lost piece of old grey string is so important in the grand scheme of things, when we are attempting the should-be-Olympic sport of “getting out of the house before lunchtime.”

I remind myself that in that young brain, the ticking clock is not remotely important, but the piece of string that can be everything from a princess’s tiara to a donkey’s tale means the whole world to her, so I guess I should take five minutes out of my day to help her find it.