When your child leaves home how to cope

How to Cope When a Child Leaves Home – Stresscenter

Milestone transitions can be challenging, especially the one when an adult child moves away to begin college or to start a new job. There's even a name for it: empty nest syndrome. But isn't this is the goal of parenthood-to raise our children to lead their lives as independent adults? Here are some tips for helping you cope with this sometimes difficult transition.

Plan ahead

Before he or she leaves home, make sure your child knows how to do the essentials (laundry, cooking meals, balancing a checkbook, etc.) to reduce any worries about how they will fare on their own. Also, start looking in advance for new assignments at work, exciting projects to take on, and so forth. Staying busy will help soften any sadness you might feel during this time, and it will give you purpose and perhaps even a new passion.
Be gentle with yourself

Experiencing a wide range of emotions-sadness, loneliness, anxiety, a sense of loss-is expected; there is no one correct way to handle this big step. You might feel intense grief or wonder if you have lost your purpose in life. You may be overwhelmed with concern for your child's safety. All of this is normal and will pass in time. Consider expressing your feelings in a journal such as this one.
Keep things positive with your child

Help your child (and yourself) see this transition as a big adventure. Give them space to figure things out on their own. Consider marking the occasion with a ritual, such as planting a new tree in the backyard-something to commemorate this moment as both a rite of passage and an exhilarating new beginning.
Take time for self-care and passion projects

As you prepare your child to leave home-whether that means helping them pack for the college dorms or running through a checklist of things they will need for their first job-it will be a hectic time. So plan time for yourself: go for a walk outdoors, pop into a yoga class, or simply take a nap. Rest and soothing self-care can help mitigate any feelings of loss.
Realize that letting go is a process

Your child will become an independent adult through a slow process that happens over time. Yes, this moment is an ending of sorts, but it's also the beginning of an exciting new chapter for both of you. You will not lose touch with your child. Today's technology makes it incredibly easy for the two of you to stay connected. Call, text, email, or write them an old-fashioned letter to let them know they are loved and missed.
Find a supportive community

Letting go of day-to-day life with your child will mean a significant change in your daily routine. It may be easy to lose contact with the friends you've gained through family life. Reach out and build community with them or with others that share common interests. Go out, see people, and openly share what you are experiencing. If you feel anxious or depressed, reach out to your doctor as well as a qualified therapist.
See this as a time for new growth

You are letting go of a sweet time: the years when your child lived at home. But remember, there are two sides to every coin, and with the right attitude, perspective, and an openness to possibility, this can be a time of meaningful growth. In fact, recent research shows that parents often enjoy the freedom and the deeper marriage connection that an empty nest can bring about.

You may find that you rekindle your marriage and have more time to share with each other. You will have more time to pursue career goals, hobbies, travel, and other interests. You will also have the opportunity to develop a new relationship with your now adult child. As they are now free to make self-directed choices, they will begin to see you as a confidant, a friend, and a loyal mentor-creating a solid bond that will never break.

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how to cope when your children leave home

If you’ve been feeling sad, depressed or listless now your children have moved out of the family home, you’re not alone. While it’s not a clinical disorder, the term ‘empty nest syndrome’ describes the very real symptoms of loss and grief parents can feel once their children have left home and they are no longer needed on a daily basis.

Even if you’re excited for your children as they embark on this next chapter of their lives – be it heading to university or moving into their own home – this transition can still be hard.

We spoke with Lianna Champ, a grief counsellor and author of How To Grieve Like A Champ, to find out more about the ways in which empty nest syndrome can manifest and the steps you can take to ease the painful emotions.

What is empty nest syndrome?

The term ‘empty nest syndrome’ describes the loneliness, grief, pain and feeling of being left behind when your offspring move out of the family home. Whether they are going to university for the first time or setting up their own home, the actual event can create a huge emotional crash for a parent.

You might have gone through this the first time your children moved away; now, many parents are experiencing empty nest syndrome all over again, if their children moved back home during lockdown and are now venturing back out into the world once more.

Why does empty nest syndrome happen?

Very often, as parents, we build our lives around our children – their timetables, laundry and meals, for example – putting their needs and wants before our own and cramming our own needs somewhere in between. There is such an intensity about parenting that when our children branch out without us, it’s no wonder the house feels hollow and we feel abandoned after all those years of parenting.

Very often, as parents, we build our lives around our children – their timetables, laundry and meals, for example.

We also know some of the dangers and temptations that await them in the big wide world. Losing the daily interactions and constant presence of your offspring can make you feel bereft and, if you strongly identified as a parent, you may now feel redundant.

What does empty nest syndrome feel like?

You might experience empty nest syndrome physically as well as emotionally. It can feel akin to a bereavement and therefore may bring related issues, which can include:

• sleeplessness

• loss of appetite

• an overwhelming sadness

• nausea

This is all normal. You need to give yourself time to mourn, so let it be OK not to be OK for a while, as you adjust to this massive milestone in your life. As with any traumatic event, you need to step back and lick your wounds. Accept these feelings of sadness – if it helps hugging one of their T-shirts or sitting in their room in tears, that’s OK. Your parent/child relationship is entering a new phase and you have to allow yourself the time to mourn the loss. You’re now also not there to protect them on a daily basis or to help them make decisions, and this can feel scary.

As a parent, you will have nurtured your child to young adulthood, helping to shape them and feeding them with your own learnings. Have faith that you have done your job as well as you possibly can. As hard as it is, we have our children knowing that one day they will forge their own lives and that the part we play will lessen as they embrace independence.

Accept that your children will need you in a different way once they have moved out. Life ebbs and flows, and so do we, our relationships and our needs. This is life. Nothing stays the same and we are constantly evolving, changing and developing.

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How to cope with empty nest syndrome

The best coping mechanism is to prepare! Usually, you will have plenty of notice when your child moves out of the family home, so use this time wisely.

Start to put things in motion while your children are still there with you. Look upon this as an opportunity for a second crack at the whip. Think of all those things you’d like to do with your time now – hobbies and plans that may have lain dormant during those years of devotion to your children’s care.

Think of all those things you’d like to do with your time now – hobbies and plans that may have lain dormant.

Begin to build in your own activities. Really connect with your inner self. Parenting can be all-consuming and intense – we sometimes have to stop everything we’re doing in an instant if our child needs us. If you’ve always wanted to try something, now is the time. Find whatever works for you. Remember, if you are trying something for the first time, they say it takes 28 days to change a habit, so persevere. Learn a musical instrument, join a painting class or try a new form of exercise. Arrange meetings with your friends and create new routines for yourself, so you have some scaffolding to hold you up in those early weeks and months.

It’s all about creating new habits and routines to fill the great expanse of time that you will now find on your hands. And remember, filling your own time with exciting plans will give you lots to talk about when you see your children or speak with them on the phone. By letting them see you are OK and living your best life, you will encourage them to do the same. Our children don’t always hear what we say, but they always watch what we do.

With your children gone, try not to look upon your home as an empty place, but appreciate it as a space of calm and serenity. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying the restoration of peace into the home. A family home is usually thought of as a place of frantic activity. Acknowledge that this will return when your children visit, but who knows, you may come to enjoy the peace!

How to remain connected with your child

Remember, when your child leaves home, your relationship with them hasn’t ended, it’s simply evolved.

Here are ways to remain connected with your child:

• Be open with your child

Have a chat with them about moving forward in your relationship together once they have moved out. Let them know how you’re feeling and how important it is to you to have regular contact or visits.

• Be their safe place

Let your child know that, no matter what happens, they will always have a safe home to return to if things don’t go as planned, where they can lay their head without recriminations. Everybody in the world needs that one place which is a safe haven for them. If you like, don’t make too many changes to their bedroom, so they have that ‘I’m home’ feeling on their visits.

• Let them make their own mistakes

Allow your child to learn through their own mistakes, without chiding them. Always listen to them.

• Don’t make them feel guilty

You don’t want to hold your child back or make them feel bad for enjoying their newfound independence. Throw yourself into your own new endeavours and perhaps FaceTime from different places, so they know you’re OK and coping without them.

• Accept they have a lot going on right now

Above all, don’t take it personally if they forget to phone home. They will likely be swept up in a frenzy of activity, so don’t let them feel guilty for not constantly being in touch. Remember when you were starting out – how you were focused on looking forwards rather than back. It isn’t personal, it’s called living. We’re giving our children their wings!

Lianna Champ has more than 40 years’ experience in grief counselling and funeral care, and is author of the practical guide, How to Grieve Like A Champ.

Last updated: 22-09-2020

Lianna Champ Grief Counsellor Lianna Champ is a grief counsellor, funeral director and author of How To Grieve Like A Champ. Lianna has over 40 years' experience in grief counselling, funeral directing and caring for those who have been bereaved or suffering with unresolved grief.

How to behave to parents if the child leaves home

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What should parents do if their child leaves home?

09. 08.2020

Adolescence is a period when children perceive reality more sharply and often, proving their point of view, resort to protests that they express in different ways. One of these is running away from home. But not always the escape of a child is sabotage. Sometimes the reasons for such an act are much deeper than simple youthful maximalism. Teacher-psychologist at the Family Support Center in the Omsk Region Yulia Kotova told the employees of ANO "CISM" about what makes children leave home and how parents should behave in this situation.

- What motives push teenagers to run away from home?

- The first motive , which may be, is hyper-guardianship on the part of parents, when parental control is so great that, leaving home, the child, as it were, breaks out to get new emotions, a little freedom, he tries to leave the framework in which his parents kicked him out. nine0025 The second motive is opposite to the first - care due to hypo-guardianship, when no one in the family takes care of the child and is not interested, he is left to himself. The teenager feels his uselessness and therefore nothing keeps him at home. The third moment - parents make too high demands on the child. A teenager is so pressured by high expectations that it turns out to be a better option for him to leave home than to live up to them. The fourth motive is fear and anxiety for oneself and one's condition. This usually happens in children in antisocial families, where they are subjected to violence, both physical and psychological. nine0025 Fifth motive - children leave home to make their parents feel guilty and thus punish them for some kind of injustice.

- At what age do children most often leave home? Who runs more often - boys or girls?

Most often, children leave home between the ages of 10 and 17. Younger children usually go out with someone, so to speak, in search of adventure. In my experience, there have been cases when young children left home for some impromptu hike, simply because they lacked emotions. With regard to gender, boys have an advantage here. This is explained by the fact that girls, due to their inner feminine qualities, feel more attachment to the family, their responsibility to it. nine0003

- How to distinguish between cases where a child leaves home to attract attention from a tendency to wander?

- When we talk about the syndrome of "vagrancy", first of all we are talking about a mental disorder. It differs from a simple departure from home in that in this case the escape is quite impulsive, it occurs without any reason and often repeats more than once. The child constantly has an obsession with distant wanderings. In this case, there may be good conditions in the family, attentive parents, a favorable environment at home, but the child leaves because he is driven by a kind of mania. nine0003

- There is an opinion that the blame for a child running away from home lies entirely with the parents. This is true?

- Of course, we can say that the blame for the fact that the child left the house lies with the parents. However, here it is necessary to look at the specific situation. But we all know perfectly well that if it is not a mental disorder, the child will never leave where he feels good. He leaves the place where there are some factors that do not allow him to stay at home, which give him discomfort. Therefore, it is undeniable that the parent is responsible for the fact that the child ran away. nine0003

- What should parents do if their child ran away from home?

- Some parents think that you have to wait a little, and the child will come home on his own. But in no case should you do this, you need to sound the alarm right away so as not to waste time. Because, as practice shows, the faster the parents react, the higher the probability of finding a child. Immediately you need to notify the police, connect professional search services, organize your own searches: visit those places where the child most often liked to be or always wanted to visit, those places where he can supposedly hide. nine0003

- How should parents behave with a child after an escape? How to build a dialogue in order to prevent a repetition of the situation?

- A child running away from home is a serious enough reason to reconsider the parent-child relationship in the family. And when the child is found, the first thing parents need to do is tell him how they were worried, worried that they love him very much. Here the so-called “I-statements” will come to the rescue: “I love you”, “I was so worried about you”, “I was so worried that I would not find you”. This is done so that the child understands that he is valued and expected, that he is important and significant. nine0003

Of course, all situations are individual, and sometimes a teenager does not want to make contact. Here he needs to be given time to rethink what happened, perhaps formulate and express some kind of his claim. It is also important to tell the child that you would really like to know the reason why he did this, because you love him and are worried about him, but are ready to give time and wait until he is ready for dialogue. If, nevertheless, it is not possible to build a dialogue, then you need to contact a specialist in order to understand the situation with his help, understand the reasons for the child’s act and, possibly, find some of your own mistakes made in education. nine0003

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teenagerschild safety

Why children leave home - what parents need to know

Often the reasons why children leave home do not depend on the level of family well-being. Together with psychologists Marina Melia and Emilia Javadova, we are looking into why children run away and what parents should pay attention to in order to prevent this.

1. Difficulties at school

Children and adults assess trouble differently. If for a mature personality a failed exam, a failure in a competition or a lover's refusal are just temporary setbacks, then for a teenager it is a tragedy of a lifetime. And any problem can serve as an impulse to escape. nine0003

What to do? “In adolescence, children have not yet established the processes of self-regulation and control of their emotions. Escape can happen even because of a bad mark. If the child knows that this will upset the parents, he may run away. Not because tyrants are waiting for him at home, but because the teenager does not know how to behave in such a situation. The most important thing is that the parent should try to convey to the child (and accept it himself) the fact that the unpleasant experiences that a person encounters while growing up are an important experience that should not be avoided, on the contrary, one must learn to live it and cope with the experiences in a safe way. way,” notes clinical and family psychologist Emilia Javadova. nine0003 Photo: Shutterstock / Motortion Films

2. Old grudges

The decision to run away is not always impulsive. It happens that children are offended by something for a long time and plan to escape in advance. You can even find the accumulated money and escape items in the child's room. At the same time, some teenagers want to predict the reaction of their parents to their actions, so they try to talk to them about it. Sometimes in the form of a harmless question "Will you be upset if I disappear?" or the provocative phrase "Yes, you will only be happy if I leave." nine0003

What to do? “If you feel that a child is hinting at leaving home, you should not scold or expose him. Your ingenuity will lead to the fact that the teenager will be more selective and will become better at hiding. Better tell a story about yourself at his age. Remember your experiences and talk to the child from the position of “I am the same as you,” advises Marina Melia.

3. Abrupt change of social circle

In adolescence, the child spends less and less time with his family, his needs for understanding the world begin to go beyond it. If your son or daughter has new friends, do not rush to worry and try to check their decency by constantly asking a lot of tactless questions. Changing the circle of friends is a normal sign of growing up, thus a person broadens his horizons and receives the necessary development for a certain life stage. nine0003

However, if a child hides his comrades from you and does not tell you how they spend time together, this is a reason to be wary. Most likely, a teenager understands that his parents will not accept his choice of environment, because it negatively affects his academic performance or does not meet the expectations of adults due to deviant behavior and peer interests. Often, during a period of teenage rebellion, it is with such friends that children run away from home “for company”. Remember how easily three young heroes from the movie "Kings of Summer" decided to run away from home. They wanted to spend their holidays in the forest, away from parental control, and they did not think at all about the reaction of adults to their act. nine0003

What to do? It is very important to develop critical thinking in a child and help him form an adequate self-esteem. After all, the less self-confident a teenager is, the more important for him is the sympathy of his peers and the weaker his ability to think contrary to their opinion. In any case, parents should take the first step to get to know the child's environment. You can invite new friends of your son or daughter to visit, ask to leave an additional phone for communication and agree on a certain number of calls if a long walk is planned. nine0003

“The main thing is to be prepared that your child may take all these requests with hostility and protest. This is fine. It is important to try to calmly accept such a reaction and still try to agree on safety rules with your son or daughter, ”adds Emilia Javadova.

Photo: Unsplash / Aedrian

4. An acute reaction to changes in the family

Another signal for an escape can be a child's difficult feelings due to a conflict in the family. For example, against the background of the separation of parents. In a divorce situation, a teenager will be very sad and may even go into protest, and after that he will try to do everything to maintain the usual relationship between mom and dad. With his escape, the child may try to unite all family members around one problem and control their actions. So, the hero of Zvyagintsev's film "Dislike", 12-year-old Alyosha, cannot stand the constant quarrels in a collapsing family and runs away from home. The tragedy unites sworn enemies without five minutes: mom, dad and grandmother. But, unfortunately, even such a bright shock is not able to save the family. nine0003

What to do? “During a divorce, it is important for adults to pay attention to the feelings of the child. How does he feel about what happened? What does he say? Has his behavior changed in general? Both parents must show that a teenager is important for both mom and dad, and they will not stop loving him, even if they see each other less often. To reduce the level of anxiety, you can also say clear rules about how your life and the life of your child will be arranged further: “You will have the opportunity to see, call, come to visit”, “We will go on vacation together with you”, and so on " - says psychologist Emilia Javadova. nine0003

5. Lack of personal space

Teenagers, like no one else, need the right to privacy and their own space. If he shares a room with his parents, brothers and sisters, then he must be sure that he has personal belongings, and his money, computer, telephone will not be used without his consent. When a teenager is not given the freedom he wants, he may run away as a rebellion or a sharp separation from his parents.

What to do? “It is important for parents to discuss the situation with the child, to hear and make it clear that his experiences matter. Try to find the best solution. Of course, not every family can afford a separate room for a child, but you can agree on a personal corner or a time during which he will not be disturbed, ”adds psychologist Emilia Javadova. nine0003 Photo: Shutterstock / veneraG84

6. Rudeness from relatives

If a child cannot cope with physical or psychological attacks from parents or other relatives, he too can run away. In such a situation, children often hush up problems and do not turn to other adults for help. Sometimes a teenager is ashamed to tell someone that his quite intelligent dad can hit him or his mom humiliates him every evening to tears. And sometimes the fear of punishment prevents you from asking for help, because if they beat you for bad grades, then what will happen if the child takes dirty linen out of the hut? But there are other reasons: for example, in the TV series "Missing" from KinoPoisk HD, the main character Lena Garber is abused by her father. She tries to talk to her mother about it, but she rejects her. After that, the girl disappears from the family for 10 years. nine0003

What to do? “If a child complains about violence, the main thing is not to wonder if he is lying or not. Is it true or his fantasy - this suggests that he does not feel safe, he lacks love, and perhaps he wants to evoke these emotions in the person to whom he talks about violence. He wants to feel that they are ready to protect him, take care of him, that they love him. And this reaction - the first - is the most important that a loved one can give to such a story of a child. You need to take his words seriously and sympathetically, and not fall into denial or aggression, ”advises psychologist Marina Melia.