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I remember the first time my youngest daughter pulled her chubby little hand away from mine as we walked into the grocery store together one day. I automatically reached out to re-hold her hand, and again she pulled away. "I don't need to hold your hand," she said. Her unspoken message was clear:I'm growing up, Mommy. Deal with it.

Surely that wasn't the last time she held my hand, but it was the first time she made such a statement. And I vividly remember the bittersweet feelings of that moment. It coincided with her being almost done with preschool. Done with training wheels and restaurant booster seats and afternoon naps. She was moving on … to kindergarten and a larger world, and she wanted me to move on with her.

Obviously, that meant facing changes—some harder than others. I no longer could classify myself as the mother of a preschooler. Or use her as an excuse to go home because she needed a nap. I no longer could cuddle her and smother her face with kisses whenever I felt like it (especially in front of her friends). And I couldn't assume she always wanted to hold my hand.

I had to let go.

I wouldn't have chosen this change myself. She demanded it. And as I look back over my years of mothering, I see how that pattern repeated itself over and over again. As our children grew up, they kept motivating me to move into new seasons, deal with new challenges and new relationships and learn new ways to express my love for them. They were the unofficial "family change agents."

In the professional world, change agents have a specific job description. They're people who motivate others toward and through change. Good change. Appropriate change. Necessary change.

In our family, our children's growth beyond preschool motivated me to learn more about our area's education system and school ¬options. I met new teachers, asked tough questions and tried to become an appropriate advocate for my children.

As my children got older and began watching me more carefully, they motivated me to be more careful about what I ate and how I drove and the way I treated the person at the takeout window at the fast-food restaurant.

When they made new friends in each new season of school, or began playing on a new soccer team or singing in a kids' choir at Sunday school, they motivated me to make new friends within a new network of parents and teachers.

And when their activities became more competitive and they didn't make the soccer team or weren't chosen for the elite choir, they motivated me to learn one of my hardest lessons of mothering—to back off and not try to fix all their problems. And to let them accept the realities of the bigger world into which they were growing.

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