How Generations Parenting Support Helps Empty Nesters

Bill and Liz Otteson with soon-to-be empty nesters, Alison and David Auerbach. The couples took a trip to Charleston, South Carolina, to reflect on life. Otteson and Sarah Hardy say getaways can help couples ease into the empty nest stage. They call it the “nestermoon.” Photo: Bill Otteson

Parenting coaches help families navigate an emotional life transition.

What’s the most difficult season of parenting? Ask 10 parents, and you’ll get 10 different answers. “The newborn stage!” “The Terrible Twos!” “Sixth grade!” “Ugh, when they start driving!” It’s a truth universally acknowledged that parenthood doesn’t really get easier as our kids get older; it just gets different.

But there’s one transitional season of parenthood that can feel uniquely hard—for both children and parents—and less talked about: the empty nest transition, when young adult children move out of the family home for college, a gap year or another independent experience, leaving parents with newfound free time and outsized emotions of their own.

Sarah Hardy, a former parent educator for Edina Public Schools, runs Generations Parenting Support, where she offers classes and one-on-one sessions to help clients navigate all kinds of parenting challenges, including empty nesting. She often collaborates with fellow Edina resident Liz Otteson, a learning community designer and facilitator. They met when their children were in the same kindergarten class almost two decades ago. Hardy and Otteson offer occasional workshops for empty nesters, and we asked them to share some of their wisdom for parents whose own not-so-little birds are getting ready to fly the coop.

Getting Kids Ready

“We want to create nurturing structures for our kids but also gradually reduce that scaffolding, so they can grow in independence and confidence in being their own people,” Otteson says. To help prepare teenagers for leaving home, parents should look for ways to grant them autonomy wherever possible—to figure out most of the tasks they’ll need to take on when they’re no longer under our roofs. “Teens need their own programs, plans and systems to take over for them,” Hardy says. “They figure out that they do better when they get to bed by 11. They figure out things go better when they brush their teeth. We want life to do some teaching, and then we provide a safe harbor for them as they bump through some of those hard lessons.”

What are some practical strategies for encouraging that independence? Hardy and Otteson say a big one is to simply lead by example. Hardy uses the term “program” to describe the routines and tasks of everyday life. “To encourage kids to run their own program and have accountability, we need to live that in front of them,” she says. Let your kids see you with your calendar or planner, making appointments, holding yourself accountable to your bedtime and meeting work deadlines.

It’s also important to know how and when to offer help to our teens and young adults, Hardy says. Instead of swooping in to solve every problem, try language like, “What’s your plan? What do you need from me?” Make it a point to have ongoing conversations with your teens—you’re on the same team. “I sometimes say, ‘This is a shift for Dad and me, too,’” Otteson says. “Our parenting style has to adapt as our kids get older. We say, ‘We need your help and feedback in that process, so we’re giving you enough room.’”

Getting Parents Ready

It can feel counterintuitive to focus less on our kids in the interest of strong parenting. But as teens get ready to leave the nest, Hardy says, we need to foster our own relationships and interests. “We tend to over-parent and under-marry,” Hardy says. “We over-nourish our parenting relationships, and we kind of neglect our partner relationships. If we’re lucky enough to have a parenting partner that we’re left looking at when the kids leave, it’s super helpful to have sustained that partnership as a priority—before the kids go.”

In addition to nurturing partner relationships, parents should seek out opportunities for personal growth and fulfillment too. “It’s helpful for us to have other things going on—besides parenting—that fill us up, occupy our time and make us feel necessary and competent,” Hardy says. “We don’t want to bring our need for fulfillment to our kids.”

Starting these practices—of connecting with partners and pursuing individual hobbies—should begin long before the nest is empty, Hardy and Otteson say, so that the transition ultimately feels like less of a shock.

Loving the Empty Nest

So, the kids have launched. What’s next? In addition to new daily routines—which hopefully include the hobbies and relationship-building time we’ve mentioned above—Hardy and Otteson encourage new empty nesters to intentionally celebrate the beginning of a new chapter. How about a parents-only trip? Hardy calls it a nestermoon (in the spirit of honeymoon or babymoon). “When we dropped our child off at college, we took a long trip. By the time we got home, I was so ready to be home,” she says. “It didn’t bother me so much that the house was empty. There was still grief and sadness and adjustment, but that nestermoon was helpful for bridging that time.” Otteson and her husband did something similar. “It introduced this next stage. We’re back to dating. Let’s nourish each other and our relationship. It sets the tone that this is a special time for us.”

Participating in a workshop like the ones Hardy and Otteson run—or even building your own organic circle of friends in a similar stage—can help empty nesters feel much less alone. “The guided reflection from Sarah and Liz was the kindling we needed to share our common experience of raising our children into young adults,” says workshop participant Stacy McGrath. “We could have talked for hours.”

Helping children enter the world on their own can raise huge questions about how we’ve “succeeded” as parents, McGrath says. “It was an awakening for me that our children’s time with us is limited. Did we do enough as a family? Did we teach them to make smart choices?” Getting to share those questions and feelings with others helped the answers come into focus. “Yes,” McGrath says. “Look how amazing they are!”

Generations Parenting Support
Facebook: Generations Parenting Support