Have you ever behaved adult even though you were or you are very young now, because you had to?
If you have, yes it was probably quite overwhelming and a bit too much for you at the time, but it helped you to become mature and even more emotionally intelligent.
E.G. When I still lived with my mum when I was under the age of 18 - when I was a 6 years old child 6, we had lodgers – people who paid to live with us. One of them called ‘Gerald’ who was a Dutch Formula 3 champion, so we went to meet his family in Holland and to watch him race. I had to go with my mum, because she wouldn’t go to another country without me. I felt very grown up on the plane. It was the first flight in my life. I was very polite to his family and I thanked them for paying for us to meet them and to watch him race. How grown up and fun?!
One Christmas Day my mum who was a nurse got an emergence call to go to work at the hospital on the day, because many nurses had called in sick and they had too many patients to be able to nurse them all without my nurse mum.
Mum was very upset to leave me alone on Christmas Day and asked me not to open my presents until she got home – to just watch the TV all day. I was a super grown up 6 year old – I didn’t open 1 of my presents, I cleaned the entire house and cooked us a 3-course meal. I thought and felt that was fair on my mum who had to work very hard on her day off - Christmas Day.
I was personally quite pleased about me cooking our meal, because I hate to say it, but I’m a much better cook than my mum, I’ve inherited that from the Scottish side of my family. I usually hate doing the washing up, but I did it so my mum could relax and enjoy the part of the day that was left. Mum and I were particularly impressed that I hadn’t opened my presents – how grown up is that?! Yes I was tempted to, but I’d promised my mum I wouldn’t and I’d always been taught and felt it a decent person thing not to break promises.
If you have happy memories like these, please try to behave in the good ways you did when you were younger and you loved impressing your parents. If your parents are still alive, take the time to write about your happy memories in a thank you card. Your folks will possibly say, “ah thank you so much, you were the perfect child who has grown up into a person who still has the same wonderful behavior”.