My Kids Have A Great Relationship With Each Other and It’s The Best Gift

My boys have been spending a lot of time together in the backyard digging holes, planting gardens, and trying to start fires in the fire pit without matches or a lighter. I often spy on them through our sliding glass doors.

If they knew I did this it would irritate the heck out of them, but is too good to miss. Also, it’s my right as their mother to take in all these wonderful moments whenever I can. 

My daughter often brings her brother’s desserts home from her job as a hostess or makes special dinners for them. I love seeing them bounce up from their chairs and meet her at the door to see what she has for them. It makes her incredibly happy. It makes them happy, and man, it makes me happy to be able to witness it all. 

I love when my teens help each other

Sometimes, they all sit around binge-watching a show together, pile in the car to get a coffee. Often they help each other with a project like when my youngest gave my oldest a hand when he was trying to get his four-wheeler started.

It might sound like such a small thing, but watching their twenty-year-old , eighteen-year-old, and sixteen-year-old selves takes me back to when they were little when they’d be chasing fireflies around the yard, lighting sparklers, and sledding down our tiny hill. 

Only now, it’s better. 

Seeing your older kids not just get along, but share a genuine bond and form a relationship that I hope lasts a lifetime, is the best gift I’ve ever been given as a parent. There are times I stick my nose into their conversations to tell them how happy it makes me to see my children are truly friends. (Yes, I get all the eye rolls.)

Nothing makes me happier than seeing my kids form their own relationships

But, most of the time I stay quiet. I listen to their conversations without interfering because when I do that, it takes away from their time, their way of forming their own relationship. There’s nothing that gives me that warm fuzzy feeling like watching them help each other, ask each other for advice, or talking about the little people they used to be. 

It gives me peace of mind knowing they don’t solely depend on me–they depend on each other. There’s going to come a day when I’m not here and they won’t be able to stop by and see me, call me to ask me a question, or have me at a special event or milestone. 

But, they will have each other. 

When my kids were younger, someone was always having a meltdown

When they were younger, they got along pretty well, but because I had three of them three years apart, there was always one who was left out. Their quiet play time only lasted a few minutes and someone was always having a meltdown when we did family things. 

Moms of teenagers and twenty-somethings often talk about the nostalgia of the younger years. How much they miss the simpler times and that their kids are so busy now with their own lives, they feel a part of them is missing. 

I get that. I truly do. I still feel all of those things, and there’s not a lot I wouldn’t give to be transported back in time and have one more day with them when they were little kids who let me inhale their silk smooth heads, have them take a nap on my lap, and reach for my hand in the grocery store. 

Seeing the relationship they have now makes me appreciate this time in our lives

However, seeing the relationship my kids formed together, and what it’s done for their confidence and well-being, honestly makes up for all of that. 

I know whatever they decide to do in life–change careers, start a family, move out of the country, start their own business, go through a bad break up–they won’t just have me. They will also have two other people who they can count on for love and support. They will have two people who have seen them grow up and tackle hard things. They will have two people who know them like no one else does. 

I also know if there’s something they want to talk about but don’t feel comfortable coming to me, they have each other to lean on.

I feel incredibly lucky every time my son goes out and checks on my daughter’s car to make sure it’s running okay. I love seeing my son’s talk about a television show they are really into and watching together. And nothing, nothing has made me happier than seeing those three (very grown-up heads) walking our dog down our road, or coming back from a coffee run. 

Yes your kids will grow up, move out, need you less, and you won’t get to see them as much. It can be incredibly painful and leave a deep void you aren’t sure how to fill. But if your kids have a close relationship with each other, it kind of makes up for all of that. I promise. 

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