How to Deal with Empty Nest Syndrome -Tips to Get Out the Other End!

For some, it is such an empty feeling when the children have flown the nest and you are not too sure what to do with yourself.  It is a perfectly natural feeling and is more widespread than you might realise and is commonly known as the empty nest syndrome.

If you feel like you are feeling overwhelmed and deeply saddened by your children moving out of home, and are experiencing empty nest syndrome there are ways to help overcome that feeling and get a purpose back for yourselves.

We want to help you get out the other side, but first let’s just tackle the typical symptoms of Empty Nest Syndrome.

What is the Empty Nest Syndrome?

Simply put, it is the feeling of emptiness when your children have flown the nest, where before your days were filled withWhat is the Empty Nest Syndrome activities, you find that you are not too sure what to do with yourselves.

I know that I felt a little like that when my son starting going to school.  Where before I would have a day with Will, I was now dropping him to school and had to find something else to do in that day and I felt like I was just waiting until it was time to pick him up from school.

It is a weird feeling.

Let’s explore the typical symptoms of Empty Nest Syndrome.

A Lack of Purpose

Your days were once filled with ferrying your kids around to school, college, football practice, birthday parties, etc. Now, you find that the hustle and bustle has gone, and you might not be too sure of what to do with yourself.

Despite having friends, family, work and other activities to keep yourself busy with, your days still feel empty.

Despite, this feeling being quite typical for parenst whose children have moved out, the things that defined you as a parent are no longer something to focus on.

There will be a time when you realise that you haven’t really lost your purpose, you just need to redefine what your purpose is.  There are a number of ways to do this, and we will get into that shortly.

Don’t feel like you cannot feel like this, but defining a new purpose will definitely help.

Frustration Over a Lack of Control

Some feel like they have lost a level of control.  For years you had the majority of control over the scheduling of your Frustration over a lack of controlchildren’s lives and this is not the case anymore.  Typically, you will not know what your children are up to now (although, remembering my time as a teenager, this can also happen when we live at home).

The lack of control over when your child is attending class, going to work, going out on a date or hanging out with friends can be frustrating.

You might also feel like you are left out, as you are not aware of what they are up to now.

The tip here is to not try and force yourself into their schedule, and don’t use the guilt trip route as this will push them further away. Instead focus on coping with some of our tips further down the post.

Emotional Distress

If you ever feeling like you are crying over nothing, don’t get freaked it.  Your life is extremely emotional right now, and whenever that is the case, it just means typically normal events become a big deal.

The Empty Nest Syndrome can stir up all kinds of emotions, and you can start reflecting on what you could have done differently.

Whatever you are feeling, this is perfectly ok.  Trying to deny it or surpress it will not make it go away.  In fact, allowing yourself to feel these emotions will definitely help.

Marital Stress

There are times when raising your children, you find that you have put your marriage or relationship on hold.  You also find that all of your schedules revolved around the kids.  If you find you have been neglecting your relationsip, you might find it needs some work now that the kids have gone.

You might also find that you haven’t been doing couples activities for a while, as all of your time was around ferrying the kids around their activities.

There can also be a little tension if one parent is fairing better with the empty nest, than the other.

Make it a goal to reacquaint with each other, get yourselves used to being a twosome again.

Still Having Anxiety About Your Children

Whether you child has gone off to college or university, or simply moved out – It is perfectly normal to feel worried about how they are getting on.

But what is not normal, is feeling constantly anxious about how they are getting on.

Checking on them multiple times a day or stalking their social media accounts will not help you in the slightest either.

Remember, this is the time where your children have the opportunity to spread their wings and start their adult life.

Try to balance your desire to check in with them.  Remember they will need a level of privacy, as do you.  Create a plan on how you will stay connected.  It is much easier nowadays with technology being like it is.  Arrange a weekly call, or use email.

But this is about you experiencing your time too.

Ways to Deal with Empty Nest Syndrome

There are a number of ways to deal with Empty Nest Syndrome, I want to also present you with an opportunity too…

Think about your Role in Life

What will your role be in your life without the children?  Will that be you pursuing your career or starting a new career.  The first stage is getting another purpose into your life again.  Whether you become a volunteer for a charity, or learn a new skill.  There are plenty of ways of finding new purpose.

Get in Touch with Friends

This is an important one, when we have kids our lives revolve around them and we end up not meeting up with our friends as much.  Find some time to meet up and have a coffee, arrange for them to come round and have dinner.  You never know, if they have kids too they could totally relate with how you are feeling and the catch up with have benefits for you both.

Do not Isolate Yourself

Locking yourself away at home and not connecting with anyone is the easiest thing to do when you are feeling this way, but it is the worst thing you can do.  Get out and about, go for a walk or rekindle a passion you had.

Rekindle a Passion or Interest

When you really think about it, how much did you give up when the kids came first.  I love Will to pieces, but there areRekindle a Hobby things I have had to stop doing to make sure he gets the attention he needs.  So it might be time for you to get back into what you were interested in before.

It is a great way of keeping yourself busy, keeping yourself busy will mean you haven’t got time to focus on the empty nest syndrome.

It could be anything you had an interest in, go and get back into it.  Find local or online groups you can engage in and reacquaint yourself with your passion.  That leads me to an opportunity that might be something for you to engage in and stop feeling that empty nest syndrome.

Turn a Passion into an Online Business

If the kids have flown the nest and the thought of getting a job is giving you the same kind of feelings as the empty nest syndrome, there is a way where you could turn your passion or interest into an online business.

Trust me, if you do decide this is the way for you – you will not have time to worry about the empty nest syndrome.

Now the thought of an online business, might be putting you off at this stage and that is ok.  It is not for everyone.  But for those that want to learn new skills, engage with a community of like-minded people and earn money online it can be a great investment of your time and mean that you do not necessarily need to go and get another job and means that you still get time to meet up with friends, but more importantly means you are not isolating yourself as you will be part of a community that is awesome.  Think of these as ways to get out the other side of the empty nest syndrome.

Whatever your passion or interest, it can be turned into a way of earning money through a type of marketing called Affiliate Marketing.

Affiliate Marketing is the act of promoting products and services and earning a commission if someone goes and buys the item.  Hopefully, you will know Amazon and they are the ones that first used Affiliate Marketing when they first started out as an online book store before they became the giant they are now.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

They did not have a huge marketing budget when they first started and offered their users a deal.  If they introduced a new buyer to their service who bought a book, they would reward them with a percentage commission of the book price.

They still use the same model today.  If you are researching for a product to buy, go to someone’s blog and read a review and go and buy that product off of Amazon, they will have received a percentage as a commission.

How does that help you?  Any passion or interest can be turned into an affiliate marketing business.  Whatever you are interested in, you can start your own online business and start using affiliate marketing to earn money.

Now, it is not a quick road and will require time and effort to get it working right.  But it would also mean you haven’t got time to worry about the empty nest syndrome.

You will have plenty to learn, and plenty of work to do, but with the right help and support and a community behind you, you will feel totally support at every step of the way and feel like you have achieved a lot in such a small time.

If you want to learn more about how affiliate marketing works, please read my helpful guide here.

Thanks for reading this post, hopefully you have found it useful and now know what to look out for with regards the empty nest syndrome and how to tackle it?  If you have any questions or comments to add, please write them in the comments below.

All the best, John

14 thoughts on “How to Deal with Empty Nest Syndrome -Tips to Get Out the Other End!”

  1. thanks for sharing this insightful and beautiful article on tips  on how to deal with  empty nest syndrome

    I must say the tips will be very helpful as am about to try them out and am hopeful i will come back here to testify. Thank for sharing; the post is well appreciated 

    Reply
  2. Thank you for this great and amazing post, thanks for sharing your experience about the empty nest syndrome on here. I enjoyed reading every bit if your post.My aunt once told me about how idle she used to feel and be when will started schooling.i will share this post with her. 

    Reply
    • Hey Clement,

      when Will started school and I no longer needed to entertain him, it does make you feel lost and you wonder what to do with your time available.  That is when I started looking into other things to do, including affiliate marketing.

      John

      Reply
  3. Humans cannot live without reasons to live for, that is the hard fact of life. The moment our kids are gone and the emptiness of the nest become so obvious, that’s when we experience the greatest boredom in life. If your reason for wanting to live is because of your kids, you will break from within when they are gone. You highlighted the solutions and I believe that it will be used for treatment of this syndrome.

    Reply
  4. Thanks for this John & Gemma you know what i have always heard of the empty net syndrome but never really known what it means, now i realize it is not something to be overlooked.I am still a 20 years old kid and this is something i will remember when i grow into a man, also thanks for the Wealthy Affiliate recommendation, but before i assume much. Who are those usually affected by this syndrome?

    Reply
    • Hey Rahye,

      there is no typical person who feels like this, but when you commit so much to your family as they grow up, it is natural to feel like this, even a small degree when they have gone.

      thanks

      John

      Reply
  5. Great post and good info. 

    You perfectly explained what this is, and what you can do against it. 

    Me and my wife don’t have this problem yet, but of course when the babies gets older, they will also leave the house at some day. 

    Now, I have a cousin who’s son will leave soon, I will show him this post, and maybe it can prevent him having troubles with it. 

    Thanks for sharing it! 

    Reply
    • Thanks Emmanuel, there are definitely some things we can do to ensure we don’t fall into the empty nest syndrome or to get ourselves out.

      thanks

      John

      Reply
  6. Nice blog.

    Enjoyed reading how you started the post off with empty nester info. My wife and I are almost there with one out of the house and the next one about 1 year away, but then, our last one is only 8 years old right now. This will aid us in not taking the empty nest on too soon. 

    Then I was wondering how you would wrap the empty nest around to affiliate marketing. You did a great job with that as well. Taking on affiliate marketing will keep anyone very busy if they are doing it well. Glad you offered a helpful guide/post for anyone to click on and go see some more great input from your blog on this topic as well. 

    Do you have any great resource covering how to find the best keywords for your niche and the affiliate programs for that niche as well? This is where I struggle the most with the addition of how to invest my time between working a full-time job and being the husband and dad as well plus writing for my blog. 

    Any advice is appreciated. 

    Reply
  7. Empty nest syndrome is one of the worst feelings ever when you feel lonely even in the midst of friends around you. It’s the feeling of lost vision and purpose which gears to unfulfilled goals. But all hope is not lost when you are ready to take action and rethink and refocus. Starting a genuine and legitimate online career or business could be of a great approach to this very syndrome.

    Reply
    • Hey Kenechi,

      thanks for sharing your thoughts.  Will hasn’t left the nest, but when he started school Gem and I started looking at how we could use the time we had available – Gem started a wedding stationary business and I started blogging and it has become quite rewarding.

      thanks again

      John

      Reply

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