How to Survive the "Almost" Empty Nest-Prepare Part Two

“Mom, do I have any clean blue jeans?” my daughter yells from her room.

“Did you wash any?” I reply.

“I’ve been so busy. I work full time you know.”

“I work too.”

“But Mom…”

     This is a typical conversation in our “almost” empty nest. Our children grown, yet not quite, are fighting through the issues that separate children from adults. How do we help them make the jump, especially after high school, to real life?

     Here are four things to remember:

 (1) Have set rules and responsibilities but be flexible. Cleaning the room, washing clothes and cleaning up messes are a necessary responsibility. During times of high stress, my husband and I do help our children out. In return, we ask that during high stress times in our lives, they do the same.

(2) Choose your battles carefully. You have to decide what is major or minor and whether it is worth arguing over. My son purchased some sound equipment a while back that we didn’t think was a sound investment. We let it go and saved a lot of stress. He later realized his error, took a loss when he sold it and hopefully learned something. Experience definitely can teach you lessons you can learn no other way.

(3) Choose your rescues carefully. When it comes to rescuing or helping your child out, especially financially, there are no cut and dried answers. While some people say you should never help, some help to the detriment of the child’s growth into adulthood. We take in account the person and each incident separately. When my daughter showed us a very high cell phone bill she could not pay, we paid it but had her pay us back in weekly installments out of her check at work. There was an incident with my son, however, when he was paying a guitar in installments and we made the last payment for him to help out. Sometimes we would help them and other times we let them reap the consequences of their decisions. The point is to teach responsibility and how to make wise decisions.

(4) Love your children unconditionally. At this time in life, teenagers need to be able to make choices but know they are loved unconditionally. We encourage our children to step out and make financial, job and school related decisions while they have the safety net of being at home. This is the same principle that birds operate on: push the baby out of the nest so they can learn to fly but be ready to fly and catch them before they hit the ground. My husband and I have been disappointed by poor decisions Mandy and Jonathan have made but always let them know they are loved.

This adjustment from teen to adult is challenging. I am learning to close doors to messy rooms without opening my mouth, resist the temptation to open mail that looks like an overdrawn bank statement and stop calling every thirty minutes to see where my children are. The result is young adults who are learning to be responsible and mature with less stress for my husband and myself. Next week we will talk about how letting go daily helps ease the pain and stress of letting go…