Prince George has had his 'toughest year' with huge responsibility ahead as he celebrates 11th birthday

ok.co.uk:

From the moment he was born in 2013, every stage of Prince George ’s life was laid out in front of him. And, even though his parents, the Prince and Princess of Wales, are committed to giving him a similar childhood to the one his mother cherished, he is instantly set apart by an accident of birth.

With the second-in-line to the throne celebrating his 11th birthday on 22 July, he will surely be looking forward to celebrating his special day after such a worrying year so far for his family. “This must have been the toughest year in young George’s life,” former BBC royal correspondent Jennie Bond exclusively tells OK! “However much his parents have tried to protect him and his siblings, the concern over Kate’s health as well as the King’s cancer will have pervaded family life.” And, although George — and Princess Charlotte, nine, and Prince Louis, six — are benefitting from the type of gentle parenting that is spoken about in Kate’s early years development work, Jennie says that it is William who will have been his eldest son’s rock throughout. “George is very lucky to have William as his dad; few people are better placed to understand the turmoil in a young boy’s brain,” she says. “When William was the same age, he was witnessing the final break-up of his parents’ marriage — he was comforting his mother, pushing tissues under the bathroom door to stem her tears and dividing his life between boarding school and two separate parental homes. “So William will have been acutely aware of the feelings of George as the settled family life they had been enjoying was overturned by Kate’s operation and the cancer diagnosis. "He will be doing everything he can to protect his son from worries about his mum, his future schooling and.