When Your Kids Leave Home

Read Time / 2 Minutes

Theme / Wise Living

In his book Finding Joy in the Empty Nest, Jim Burns writes, “Very few times in life are as big of a transition as when your kids leave home.  It brings with it new opportunities for growth and change.” 

I remember dropping off our youngest at college, saying our goodbyes as he stood in the doorway of his new dorm room, then looking in the rearview mirror at the college as my wife and I drove away with an empty backseat.  Our nest was finally empty.  The last of our kids was gone from home.

Scripture tells us that we will encounter changes in life.  In Ecclesiastes 3, we learn that “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens” (v. 1).  When the kids leave home, it is an opportunity for making changes, not necessarily big ones, but changes nevertheless that add joy to our lives.  Perhaps the most profitable change is found in expanding and deepening our relationships.

Join a small group at your church to open doors to new friendships and mutual support.  Grab lunch with friends to provide an emotional uplift as you chat about life experiences.  Rekindle your marriage by taking new adventures together, just the two of you.  Reinvent your relationships with your kids by relating to them as adults and doing activities together.  Each of these will open doors for new conversation, new laughter, new memories, and new togetherness.

A few verses later in Ecclesiastes 3 we read that there is “a time to weep and a time to laugh” (v. 4).  Let’s shed appropriate tears as we enter the empty nest, but let’s also look to the future and make the changes necessary to find joy in this new stage of life.

Doug Hanson, MBA

Wealth Advisor

208.697.3699

doug@christianwm.com