I long, in a romantic, nostalgic way, for the days of my childhood.

Running in open fields. Biking down the road with my friends. Building forts and dams down by the creek. Camping in the woods. With nary an adult in sight.

But that nostalgic longing isn’t about me. I am sad my kids can’t experience the wild freedom of my childhood.

And why can’t I give my kids have that same carefree childhood that I had?

Fear.

I fear for my children. For their safety. I fear that they will be kidnapped. Hit by a car. Harmed by doing something because they didn’t think through to their consequences. I fear the consequences will be more than I can bear.

Parenting isn’t for wimps. It is soul-wrenchingly awful to let your heart out of your body and go walking around where you have no control and can’t protect it.

Before I had even realized it, I had forgotten the carefree joys of my childhood. And had turned into a clichéd helicopter parent.

I would strive to shield them from all consequences. I would hold their hands tightly as we crossed any street. I would stop them just as they were about to jump off the playground equipment, a mere 2 feet in the air.

It takes a lot of guts and bravery to let our children go and live their lives. I used to think that moving across the country alone with 2 suitcases, no job, and $1000 was the bravest thing I ever did.

Nope. Now I realize that pales in comparison to parenting.

Parenting has been the scariest thing I’ve ever attempted. I think I was more terrified than my kids on their first day of pre-school. And that was only the start!

I couldn’t keep going down that path, though. Because soon I realized, as kids grow older, so do the number of things I could be scared of. Continuing down that path of fearful parenting would someday lead me to a nervous breakdown.

I chose to learn how to parent bravely. It hasn’t always been easy. And it’s a conscious effort. Here are 4 key things I learned along the way.

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You know what they say about too much of a good thing?

Yeah, that’s kind of what visiting grandparents is like for us.

Every summer and winter holiday we go to the Midwest for a long visit with both sets of grandparents.

My kids love it. Which isn’t surprising at all considering how much both our parents love spoiling grandchildren.

My kids eat more ice cream in those few weeks than they do all year round. They’re allowed to stay up late. They consume more television than is humanly possible. They play all day, every day.

On one hand, it’s lovely. I love that my kids get to do this.

But it also drives me crazy.  No homework gets done. Kids are tired and cranky from missing bedtimes and getting up early. Vegetables are a distant memory.

And I end up with the unsavory task of wrestling things back to normal when we get back home.

Time at Grandma and Grandpa’s is special. It should be. I don’t want to get in the way of that.

At the same time, I don’t like how out of balance my parenting feels by the end of the trip.

So, for the past couple of years now, I’ve been trying out a few tricks to make the most of the fact that my kids have such wonderful grandparents, while at the same keeping it from straining my own relationship with my parents, or my kids.

Here are 4 things that have really helped:

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That knot in the pit of your stomach?

That hand squeezing your chest?

That voice telling you this is all going to go horribly wrong?

That is anxiety, my friends.

It’s hard enough to deal with that feeling of dread and worry in myself, but it is heart breaking when my kids look up at me with big blue eyes full of worry and tears and tell me, “I just can’t do it, Mommy.”

Both of my boys have struggled with anxiety. My oldest was bullied in 2^nd grade. The constant verbal assaults on him resulted in stomachaches, headaches, begging to be homeschooled, not sleeping, and going to the bathroom every 30 minutes. All are on the menu of classic symptoms of acute anxiety.

My youngest just seems to be a worrier. About once a week he comes out with some new thing to worry about. Currently his greatest worry is that he won’t make enough money from his art to support himself.  He is 6.

My kids aren’t alone in being anxious worriers. Every child experiences some anxiety. Before tests. At concert performances. The first day at a new school.

Anxiety and nervousness are normal as long as it doesn’t get in the way of their everyday lives. Once that happens it’s time to seek some professional support.

So, if your child is a worrier who does not need professional intervention, how can you help them process through these moments of chest-tightening, stomach-churning worry and learn to lead a calmer, happier life?

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Good game, high-5; Good game, high-5; Good game, high-5; Good game, high-5…

At 8 years old, being a good sport was about hiding your disappointment when you lost and not bragging too much when you won. It was exhibited in a line of little girls delivering hand-slaps and “good games” before running to the coolers behind the bench to claim grape sodas.

As I got older, sportsmanship became about more than losing a game without throwing a temper tantrum. It became about handling yourself, on and off the field, with style and dignity no matter what the outcome.

Now I’m a parent with a super-competitive child and sportsmanship has never been more important.

My oldest has always been highly competitive. He needs to win. He must be first. Otherwise, he can get very frustrated. He has always been this way. In pre-school he used to bolt down as much food as he could and then say he was full, even though he had half his lunch left, so that he could be first to the washing up station.

This is terribly ironic considering that from the minute we decided to have children my husband and I were determined to raise our children to be non-competitive good sports.

None of this “Second place is the first loser,” or “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing,” mentality for us. We emphasized fun over winning, asking him “Did you have fun?” before we asked anything else.

Yet here we are with a 10-year-old who will do anything to win – including cheat – and cries like his heart is broken when he loses.

Nature vs. Nurture. The struggle is real, y’all.

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