Accepting Your Children as Adults

I've written quite a bit about the importance of learning to accept our parents for the beautifully flawed individuals that they are.  Parents are people too and as adult children, even young adult children, we will have better relationships with our parents when we see them as individuals, not just as parents.  The last couple of weeks have taught me there's a second part to that equation. As parents(ish) we must learn to see our adult children, even young adult children, as beautifully flawed individuals if we're going to have better relationships with our children.
A few weeks ago, the Sonish made decisions we would not have made.  There were consequences and he's learning from them.  How much he'll learn will only be revealed in time. The decisions weren't life threatening but the outcomes still had the possibility of altering his path.     We were frustrated to say the least.  We wanted to react with words like "How could you be so stupid?" and "What were you thinking?" or "Clearly you weren't thinking" or "You're better than this".  Luckily we kept most of those words inside and didn't loose our cool.  Let me add that The Hubs is a brilliant parent who keeps his cool far more often than I do. I'm thankful every day that I have his lead to follow. Instead we chose to discuss it like adults.  Is he an adult at 16?  That's up for debate (the debate being he'd say that he is and most of us would say that he's not); however, he's certainly on his way to becoming an adult and it's our job to recognize him as such.
The Sonish is growing up to be an exceptional young man.  He has a lot to be proud of already and so do we.  He's also growing up to be a beautifully flawed individual who will make his own mistakes and build a life of his own making.  We have to accept that.  It's not easy and it's sometimes painful to watch.  We love him and we want to give him all of the wisdom we've learned from our own mistakes and show him a "better way".  The truth is that as our love for him grows our acceptance of him and his individual choices must also grow.  We don't have to like all that he does and we don't have to agree but we will always be a family and we will always love him.  Without him we are missing a vital part of our family.  We're missing a piece that completes us.
To be honest, we're as excited as we are frightened of what his future holds.  The world is lucky to have him, lucky to be changed by him, and lucky to loved by him.  So are we.