Thank you Nikki. As your son shared with you, it just spurs you on to find more moments to promote intimacy with your children... is a wonderful statement that you shared. As I can only trust Valerie to now make the right choices in her life, I know she wont always. The most important thing I can do for her to build her trust in me, and to show her my great love for her, is to allow her that opportunity to also trust she can talk to me about different things with out persecution. That does not mean that she will get approval on all things, but rather than beat her down for sharing things I may not approve of, I hope to be able to share some wisdom that will allow her to move forward making her own choice without my judgment against her. I know she will not share everything with her Mother, I still don't with mine! The other day she started to share something with me, and then refrained. I said, "Valerie why don't you want to share what ever is on your mind?" She said, "I don't know, just better perhaps that I don't." I said, "Well that is your choice, but I hope that you remember, that you have shared some very personal secrets to me in the past, and I think you know that I can be very understanding with out persecution of what you share. I only hope that you know in your heart that when you need to share with me, you can." She agreed and opted to go ahead and share with me what was on her mind. It was really nothing alarming nor anything that needed any advise or wisdom to be shared. Simply normal teen thoughts that we often as adults trivialize as to not be important. But if it is important to her, her thoughts, her feelings, it is important. The most important lesson we can share with our children, is to let them know, they do matter to us, in all things, in all aspects of their lives, they are important and maybe if they understand this from us, they will not shut us out so easily.

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