Your kids are leaving home and you’re feeling lost. Here’s how to handle the transition.
By Gillian Bloch
Any major life change takes getting used to. If you’re battling to cope with the fact that your children no longer live with you, help is at hand. We chat to Johannesburg-based psychologist Leatia Stemmet, about how to cope with empty nest syndrome.
Understanding your reaction
“Numerous circumstances can lead up to empty nest syndrome,” says Stemmet. “Often the balance with the rest of life is not maintained by mothers through motherhood. This is typically more prevalent where the mothers took the dominant role in child rearing, often sacrificing their own careers, hobbies, and socialisation to a large degree to meet the needs of their children”.
If motherhood occupies a dominant space of your life, you may be experiencing confusion surrounding your changing role. “If there is little balance, often the mother’s identity starts depending on her success as a mother, more so than her success in other areas of functioning”.
Other contributing factors may include marital trouble between you and your husband, in which case the parent-child relationship assumes increased importance. “The mother’s relationship and possible sense of identity in relation to parenting might become stronger, should distance in the parental relationship worsen”.
“Every case is different, yet, the result is that when the children threaten to leave home, the mother needs to deal with the loss of her sense of meaning and relational contact,” explains Stemmet. “The time, effort and personal sacrifice made as a result of motherhood might leave numerous moms feeling that they do not know how to channel their newly discovered time and energy when their kids leave home”.
Be supportive
Regardless of your feelings about the move, supporting your adult child’s desire to leave home is important in maintaining a positive relationship. “Often when the support is not there, the children are guilt tripped or emotionally manipulated into staying, which can lead to parental resentment later,” explains Stemmet. “Without the children leaving home, the children’s sense of identity and independence is compromised”.
“The best way to be supportive is to show them how you plan to take up new things as a result of them stepping out of the house,” she says. “Ask numerous questions on the options they are exploring in their process of leaving. If you question the neighborhood they are moving to, then suggest a different neighborhood. If financials are the issue, then help them explore possibilities in part time work, empower them to scrape something together, support with budgets and understanding minimising life costs, so that they can work toward getting away from home”.
Coping strategies
Stemmet offers the following suggestions when it comes to coping with empty nest syndrome:
-The more the balance is maintained (between parenting and career) throughout, the less threatening the move of the children will be. During all this, actively create space for you and your husband to spend quality moments together in the absence of the children. This relationship should be a safe space to fall back on when the children leave the house, not a threat.
– Children rarely leave home in an instant. Thus some years prior to this being imminent, start doing planning around the activity list with your husband, or friends for that matter. This also serves the purpose of new prospects and planning ahead for when those new prospects become an actual possibility – which could have the consequence of blowing excitement back into certain relationships with friends, or with your primary relationship with your husband.
