When the kidults come to visit

Child 4 and 4a have been here on their holidays.

Most of the time it's just me and Peter and the cat and dog. Actually a lot of the time, it's just me or Peter and the cat and dog.

I like my own company, but I get bored and lonely. I guess what I actually like is just being able to do my own thing when I want and how I want, something I can't do when we have visitors.

At 46, I'd like to think I'm not old, but spending so much time on my own I get stuck in my ways, I have my own little routines and as Dubai is a vibrant and busy city with 5 tourists per resident, it gets busy, the roads get full, my stress levels go up and I retreat indoors.

The best way to see Dubai and explore the city is by setting off early in the morning. But 4 and 4a are in their early 20's and by comparassion they are party animals, night owls. Dragging them out of bed by 9am and having them ready for the day has been hard work. I've been going to bed later and I'm even more grumpier than usual.

After a day out they want to come home at 4pm, shower, rest, change and go back out at 6pm. I'm ready to get in my pj's by then having entertained all day, I'm hungry and get 'hangry' and having battled my way across Dubai already I really don't feel like doing it again at night when the traffic doubles, the number of people increases and everywhere is mega busy.

'You don't have to stay with us all day, just drop us off and we'll let you know when we want collecting'

So I took them to the Marina for 6pm and collected them at 9pm one evening. Of those 3 hours, I spent 90 mins dropping them off, going home, returning to collect them. During the 90 minutes of 'me time' I emptied the dishwasher, did a load of washing, walked the dog, cleaned the kitchen and swept up piles of sand from the house.

I find having visitors very tiring, I'm not on holiday, housework still needs doing and I have to adjust to being on my own all day, to accommodating others, not being able to just grab my bag and come and go when I choose, eat when I want and go to bed at my time of choosing.

I don't resent having visitors, I just forget what it's like living with other people.

Of course one of the benefits of people visiting is that as their unpaid tour guide, chauffeur and cook. I get free coffees, gifts, treated to dinner and lots of lovely company that I crave in a normal week and I get to book the activities and therefore choose the times and look forward to a day on my own as I send them off on a desert safari from mid day till 10pm. I also get to go places I wouldn't normally go to on my own, do different things and have new experiences.

Sadly when you're an expat with kids living in different countries, it's 'all or nothing' I've been learning to embrace time on my own, I have the freedom to travel to the UK when I want/need to and will be returning to the UK for the summer. Sadly, I still end up doing all the running around and the arranging or I just don't end up going anywhere. Although to be fair to Child 4 and 4a and their parents, they have looked after us very well when we've visited them in Northern Ireland

The gentle art of persuasion with teenagers

The gentle art of persuasion with teenagers.

First things first…..

Stop challenging your teen

Stop treating them as an adult

Give them limited choices

Treat them as an individual

Don’t lecture

If you want their clothes picked up off their bedroom floor, ask yourself why you want them to do that?

What is the issue here? You dictacting how they live, your rules, it’s in their best interest, they need to learn how to look after themselves? What ever it is, you’re entering into a battle you don’t need to have.

I spent many years trying to keep up with the washing with 4 boys, school uniforms everyday, several types of sports kits plus mine and hubbies washing and what for?

When I left hubby boys for 4 months to sort out personal problems in the UK, it was simple. If they didn’t take their clothes to the laundry basket, they didn’t get washed and in the morning when all hell broke out and dad walked out the door to work saying 'they’ll learn their lesson and can go to school in yesterdays clothes' I should’ve just followed him. As when I wasn’t there, the teens just had to go to school in yesterdays crumpled shirt, made their own lunch boxes, walked the dog, locked the door and took themselves to school, I was so obviously over parenting them, so on my return, I changed tactics and the following happened.

Chaos, sheer chaos, I didn’t have a job to go to, if I walked out the door and took myself off for the day they couldn’t get to school as they needed the car and in South Africa walking wasn’t an option. So I started giving them limited choices. If they wanted dinner then they had to help prepare it, if they didn’t want dinner they could make their own after we’d finished but a) there would be no frying of foods, no take outs and they’d have to clean up after them which meant loading the dish washer. This option wasn’t preferred, so they’d agree to chores, I’d cook and then they’d follow through with their dinner chores.

Dinner was always served around various activities but always together, there would be 3 choices for dinner and agreement would have to be made on which dish was cooked, if an agreement wasn’t reached they’d take it in turns to decide.

Remember your children are not adults but at the same time they are individuals that deserve to be heard but not if it’s just whining and whinging and they need to be reminded that although something may not be fair it doesn’t mean they have the right to go and beat their younger brother up or trash their room because although you’ve listened to their opinion, you’ve not agreed and still said no to the disco, trip, time they can stay out till etc, etc

When they complain that child a, b and or c was allowed to do something just remind them that they are not child a, b or c and that each situation is judged on its own merit and you are the parent and the decisions are made by you with their input to best suit the finances and needs of the rest of the family unit.

Don’t tell you child that they are going to do something unless you are prepared to follow it through. For example ‘go get ready we’re going shopping’ is far more effective and leaves you more leaway to work with than ‘are you coming food shopping?’ because if the child says no, what are you going to do? What is the point in asking them if they want to do something then telling them tough, they’re doing it anyway and then if you say ‘oh go on then stay at home, or the other parent can go on their own so you can look after them at home, what then? What message is that giving your child? One that they are in charge? That just gives the message that the child is in charge and dictates the parents activities. But if having answered the question with what you perceive to be the wrong answer, what then? How long before you back down, drag the child out the house, offer a bribe, give in after a massive fight, because trust me these things escalate very quickly.

Don’t ask a child what they want to do unless you’re prepared to cover every single response they could possibly come up with, you’re not teaching them any valuabke skills they can take into adulthood with them other than he/she who shouts the loudest gets the most, but unfortunalty that may work in your household for the child, but not in the big wide world and what skill do you wish your child to take with them into adult hood……putting their clothes in the laundry basket or ones where they don’t have a tantrum when they’re asked to do something they really would prefer not to?

Where have our children gone?

This is our favourite picture of all 5 of our children. 4 boys and 1 girl.

It was taken in 2002 on the last family holiday all 7 of us went on.

It is 1 of a handful of pictures where we have all of the 5 children together.

Left to right

Alex, 1999, after 2 and a half years living with us in South Africa, it was decided he would return to boarding school in the UK, waiting GCSE results then 2 years of A levels ahead and on schedule for an apprenticeship with CISCO

Jamie, 1992, currently living in Leeds after leaving home age 18 for an apprenticeship in Hotel Management in Reading, also living in Cheltenham for 18 months.

Andrew, 1989, left home 2007 to join the army and was stationed in Germany for 4 years, the last 3 years he's been back living in the Forest of Dean.

Daniel, 1995, completed his high school education in South Africa, left home 2014 spent a year applying for and sorting papers and is in the army in Yorkshire. he passes out in September and is being stationed in Belfast.

Stephanie, 1988, left home a few months after this picture was taken and went into residential school in Bristol, had a short spell in care in Tewkesbury before moving to her adult placement in Gloucestershire in 2009.

So that's where our children are, but what actually happened to them?

We've been looking back at old family photos this week and it feels like yesterday, today. We can remember how it actually feels to be the parents of 4 boys and 1 disabled daughter. We don't just remember the fun, the tantrums, the stress, we can feel them, breathe them.

In our minds we can travel back in time to our house in Malvern, the first home we had where all 7 of us lived together.

We recall the weekends of getting the children to their football matches, their grandparents, the long drives to Bristol to collect and return our daughter every Friday and Sunday night. Calling in at granny's working out the rota for whose turn it was to sit next to their sister and have their hair pulled, stopping at Michael Wood services on the way home for yet another toilet stop. Carrying changing bags, fitting a wheelchair and a pushchair in the boot, Gluten free food for the youngest and 2 sets of nappies for the eldest and the youngest, then finding somewhere to change them whilst looking after the other 3 kids.

The holidays, the fights, the achievements, first day at school, prom, last day of school, exams, girlfriends, part time jobs, trying to get everyone together for dinner most evenings, maybe cooking twice, cooking different meals.

The washing, the ironing, the cleaning, homework.......I'm breaking out in hives as I type this, how did we actually manage?

Hubby worked away 3 days a week, I had a full time job, the closest family were 40 miles away, we spent a fortune on after school care, bus fares, football kit, replacement PE kit every term for at least one child. They went to 4 different primary schools, 6 different high schools.

And now we have 4 adult children and one remaining teenager. I'm 44, hubby 57, no one tells me anymore I look old enough to have 5 kids, or that I must have started young, people see us as single adults, without a care in the world, who have raised their children and live a dream life in Dubai.

They don't see the transition we went through from parents of 5 kids to no parental responsibility within 7 years, they drip fed themselves out of our lives and then they were gone.

Yes we are still their parents, but what we see now is 5 well adjusted adults who occasionally stand before us, when we visit the UK or they visit us in Dubai. They meet and visit us with their girlfriends in tow, they finance themselves, have good jobs, their own homes. (apart from the 16 yo)

Hubby managed to get 4 of the 5 together on his last trip to the UK, to date I'd only managed to get 3 together at any one given time.

Next month we'll both be back in the UK to visit all 7 kids, we're hoping we can get a chance to recreate the photo, not necessarily on the beach in France, but at their grandparents or in a cafe.

They really don't keep in touch with one another, they are all so very different, but when they meet up it's none stop chatter about life as children, with us, their parents at home, the holidays, football matches, the fights (but they don't dwell on those)

But today they stand before us as adults and we can't help but wonder where those 5 little children went, because they no longer feel like ours.

@MummyBarrow asked in a blog post what do we call our kids as they are no longer teens? Well there's a word now for Tweens and Threenagers, so I'd like to suggest we call them Kidults.