‘Empty nest syndrome’ is the name given to the condition that some women and men experience around the time that one or more of their children leave home.
I created the hypnosisdownloads.com session Empty nest syndrome for all the mothers out there (it is usually mothers who suffer the most when children leave home, though dads can find it just as hard) who find it hard to cope with suddenly finding they are no longer in a household of kids.
Empty nest syndrome: Sadness and loss
The sadness and sense of loss when a child or children leave home can seem overwhelming sometimes. Of course, it’s quite natural to feel upset and at a loss for a while. If a person has defined their role in life as a ‘mother’ – or ‘father’ – then they may suddenly feel redundant, as if the purpose for their very existence has vanished. The empty nest syndrome session helps people get back a sense of themselves beyond being ‘just a parent’. It seeks to reconnect them with who they are beyond a tightly defined role as mother or father.
Coming to terms with the empty nest
Suddenly parents may find themselves either alone (if a single parent) or thrown together with their partner without the ‘buffer’ of children. Relationships may have to be re-negotiated. The empty nest hypnosis session addresses this aspect.
But what about the child’s needs in all this?
Empty nest syndrome: Parent vs child
When children leave home, there is a temptation for the mother to want to swamp the child, whether they have left to set up home with a partner or gone to college. A child needs to feel supported, but not inundated and swamped. The session clearly separates the mother’s needs from the child’s. It provides ways to meet emotional needs for the parent in ways that do not compromise the needs for independence of the grown-up child.
I hope it will be very useful for all the parents out there currently enduring empty nest syndrome.
All the best
Mark
I am a soon to be father (5 wks). I don’t know what it is like yet to have children for several years in your home, and then all of a sudden have an empty home. I can understand were all of a sudden there is a lot of extra time. I can also understand were it could end up being lonely. I wonder in these satiations why people don’t take a few minutes to become involved and share their experiences with new and soon to be parents? It seems like not only a great way to add something else to your life but to somebody else’s as well.
My wife and I are apart of a number of online communities which to some extent encourage this type of interaction. Our favorite right now is OurBabySteps.com. We just have a lot of questions about what to expect, and how to handle it. For us, with no experience, its great to have people to learn from. It also seems to me like a great way share, remember, and fill extra time.