I want my home to be a training camp for life.

A place where my children feel loved no matter what,

so it’s okay to fail,

to feel their feelings,

to be human.

Because in our house, they’ll know their worth isn’t based on accomplishments or perfect behavior.

And I’ll give them room to fall

and I’ll be there as the support, they need to make it less painful.

Because I want them to grow up aware life is hard.

Swimming is hard.

Learning to read is hard.

And guess what?

Being their mom is hard,

their father’s work is hard,

that mechanic sweating in the hot summer sun’s work’s hard, too.

So, I’ll encourage them to do hard things, like apologize when they’re wrong,

even if they don’t want to,

and even when they carry on.

We’ll have the hard conversations.

I’ll share stories from my own life and lessons learned.

And I’m still a work in progress.

I’m a hand holder at times.

I can be overprotective.

And I let them off the hook way too often.

But me not letting go is holding them back from soaring.

And the amount of love I have for them makes watching their hard, extra challenging.

But, our home is the safest place for them to fail.

So, I’m going to let them crash, burn, and apologize,

and learn what exactly it takes to get back up and try again.

Because in life, challenges will happen. And I want my kids to be prepared for them and know struggles create strength and make us better.

And alone at college or out in the real world are not the best places to become warriors.

I want my kids to be already armed and ready.

Because our home trained them for life well.

This post originally appeared on the author's Facebook. Her book "Living FULL: Winning My Battle with Eating Disorder" is available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2O4mJId