Prompted by the "Wishing for the future" thread - does anyone else have the opposite issue? My DS9 talks from time to time about not wanting to grow up, not wanting to be an adult. It is clear why, really - he is hyperconscientious, very aware of all the things adults have to handle that he doesn't, realises that there's no way he could handle adult responsibility now, can't imagine being able to handle it, and can't quite trust the growing up process to fix that; he's scared of finding himself adult and still not being able to handle it.
I've tried: emphasising that he only has to grow up one day at a time; reminding him that he'll be twice as old when he's 18 as he is now, and that he doesn't even remember quite a bit of his first 9 years, so that really is a long time for gradually learning what he needs to know; pointing out things he copes with easily now that were scary to him a year or two back; telling him that we his parents will still do our best to look after him when he needs it when he's adult, and confirming that, for example, he'll be welcome to live with us (making a contribution to running the household :-) even when he's adult and working if that suits him [this turned out to be really important - I think he's more concerned about household management than about earning his living!]; etc. When this comes up, he normally calms down quickly given some of these reminders, but it still comes up again another time (and it's always when we're dashing for something so it's hard to have an indepth conversation about; I think what happens is that he escalates a smaller responsibility-anxiety to this, so it tends to be on the way to school that this comes up). Nevertheless, it's clear that he looks forward to adulthood with more anxiety than pleasure, and that seems a pity.
Any tips/BTDTs?
