This summer I was driving to the beach to go camping when one of my young adult kids hit me with a life update that sent me reeling and made me incredibly angry. Like cartoon plumes of smoke coming out my ears mad.
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Parenting Young Adults is Also Hard
When your kids are newborns you think this is the hardest stage, the most enjoyable but also the hardest. Then they turn one and you think wow I did it and the next hard thing occurs and the toddler stage is a challenge but the threes will be simple, right? AND ON AND ON it goes….we trick ourselves to keep going. Everyone knows teens will be hard. But nobody fully had a pattern for parenting through a pandemic or a book for managing neurodivergent teens with a brain injury or FASD or chronic illness.
Anyways back to the car and the drive…
Processing
Funny how kids remember to drop big ticket emotional drama on you when you are driving and unable to glare at them or fully provide facial reactions. If I had a dollar for every time my teen or 20 something told me something life altering as I was driving I’d be a millionaire by now.
For a good 15 minutes I drove on auto pilot processing a lot of emotions and asking myself:
Should I just turn around, unpack the van? Did anyone actually need to be camping? Did anyone deserve to go camping?
Shouldn’t we just be working on problem-solving this latest situation all weekend long for the rest of the summer?
Onward
But in the end, I kept driving. Why?
For the first night and part of the next day I questioned being there at all. What was I doing, camping, setting up a tent, going to the beach, cooking on the stove outdoors? Was it worth the effort? Was the weather and the experience worth the gas money and the time? What was I rewarding and why?
But you see the issue with that thinking too, don’t you? Rest as a reward?
Outdoor adventure, reading in a hammock, hiking as a reward? 🤔
Questioning
On the final day, as I was hiking on my own on a self guided meditation trail, I had completely stopped questioning if I made the right choice by continuing the drive to the beach to go camping. ⛺️
This summer I came to the actual realization in my body and my mind that I don’t need to earn rest. It is my prerogative when and where I take it. It’s just one of the summer lessons 2026 that I am carrying forward in life and throughout the rest of the year.
Camping is always a factory reset for each of the people in my family. So here’s to taking rest, listening to the waves and the crickets and touching grass when I need to and not scheduling camping in as a reward. And here’s hoping I commit this to memory moving forward. 2027 I am looking at you already.
Resetting
Resetting or touching grass is important for everyone. In fact there are many studies showing that nature has a dramatic impact on anxiety and mental health. So, next time you think about turning around or if you are sitting on the fence not sure if you should hop in the car and take that road trip for the weekend, remember this: you don’t need to earn rest. It is as essential as taking in air and water and food.
So maybe the trip isn’t perfect. I mean is it ever perfect? Someone always forgets something. This year racoons were active at the last two provincial parks we stayed in and they jarred us awake in Sauble Provincial Park and at MacGregor Point when they scrounged a neighbouring campsite at 3 a.m. But camping is so worth it to me and to my family and the reset is valuable even when things go sideways or when the rain and thunder hit.
Summer Lessons 2026
Life is messy. It is never ever perfect. Parenting is as far from perfect as it can get, like ever. Polar opposites. I have so many messy parenting experiences that I could easily feel like a huge fail. But here’s the thing. My kids say I love you every day and we my husband and I both say it back. They should never question that I love them with my entire heart.
One just graduated from university. One is still stuck a bit as we work through what and how the end of school looks like for them.
We are not the same, any of us. What a silly world it would be if we were.
Maybe you hate camping. Maybe you don’t. I mean perhaps you find your peace some other place outdoors hiking or skiing. Perhaps it’s inside crafting quietly that resets or allows you to turn off the inner critic. I think the vital thing here for me at least is that we keep going, putting one foot in front of the other and moving on.
Discover something new. Explore a different trail. Keep driving and always turn left.
Leave Room for You
Leave Room for Whimsy
Keep Pressing the Gas
You don’t need to earn rest or a break or time away. But I am very sure that you need it regardless of who you are and where you are in the parenting journey. I know we all thought COVID was our hard thing, our biggest challenge, but the hits keep coming. So take the rest and set the phone down and wander the trails. Drive the side roads. Explore, rest, repeat.
Who Knows – maybe you learn something about yourself along the way.
