...this should be consciously grieved and mourned...
OK, I just wanted to say thank you for this.
DD almost 13 has been going through the same 'not caring' thing and your comment really sparked my thinking. So I went and refreshed myself on the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
We had all of those. Denial was all about 'still being your little girl' and 'I still love my stuffies, do you think they're sad if I don't take them to camp?'. The anger phase was pretty challenging for our family. Bargaining was actually all about being really, really good and well-behaved (which was a nice change actually). We're in the midst of depression right now -- feeling empty, not caring.
I hope we move to acceptance soon.
