As parents we spend about 18 years nurturing, supporting and encouraging our children to become incrementally more independent so that when they finish their A levels, they attempt to leave the family unit.
Whilst this is a significant, exciting and often fairly terrifying move for the 18 year old, it is also significant and fairly terrifying for the parent/s and siblings left behind. Apart from short periods of separation for school camps, or holidays with friends/relatives the young adult is now moving off for the first time to his/her independent life.
After the mounting stress of supporting your child through years of exams, university visits, university choices, personal statement, university offers, more exams and finally results, you are now preparing yourselves for a major shift in your relationships - with each other and with those left in the family home.
Logically as a parent you think your child moving off to the next part of their life is a good result - the culmination of years of effort; the natural progression and what you had always hoped for them. Beyond the logical part of this 'loss', there is a parent in mourning. A part that is unfortunately referred to by the wholly inadequate catch-phrase 'empty nest'. To my mind, this does not remotely cover the powerful range of emotions now being experienced by the parent/s.
It is well-documented that mothers feel this rise of emotions more keenly then fathers; however Tom Utley wrote in The Daily Mail 26th September 2011 a brave and refreshing account of his experience as his fourth child left home for University entitled 'After 26 years, our four boys have all left home. Is it too unmanly to admit I'm suffering Empty Nest Syndrome?'
The emotions experienced as the young adult leaves home defies explanation. Seemingly from out of nowhere comes a welling up of tears and feelings of emptiness, loss, anxiety and even abandonment. The rational mind is able to reason and understand what is happening, yet these emotions rise from a deep place inside us which seem illogical and uncontrollable.
These emotions are similar to those elicited when experiencing a bereavement - and as with bereavement, no-one can predict how long you will grieve. These feelings will last for how ever long it takes for the new dynamics at home to feel 'normal'.
Children leaving home is a huge life change. Using a Counsellor to explore and make sense of these profound symptoms of change can help alleviate some of the loneliness whilst validating your very real experience.
Human beings are the only creatures on earth that allow their children to come back home - Bill Cosby