Coping with your children heading off to college or moving out of the family home for good can be challenging, but a team at one college here in the United States is working to make the transition to becoming an empty nester a bit easier.
Arizona State University is launching a program for the parents and guardians of enrolled students called "Thriving in Your Empty Nest Chapter." It's one of the first courses of its kind, and will be four weeks long, starting on Sept. 27.
"When parents are dropping off their kids, that is a classic, iconic time that can be really hard," Kari Cardinale, partner and chief content officer at Modern Elder Academy, a midlife wisdom school, tells CNBC Make It. Cardinale is the instructor of the course.
"Many parents talk [about] the tears they shed, or that pit in their stomach, a sense of pride, but also grief of this profound transition. And we never really created any rituals for these moments rather than suffer through them."
ASU is looking to change that by providing an "opportunity for parents to come together, meet each other [and] learn about this transitional time of life," Cardinale says.
The course costs $500 and financial aid options will be available for some. Parents will learn from Cardinale about how the empty nest stage is a "really important time to focus on the interests that you might have, whether it's an interest in traveling and meeting other people, or interests in arts or fitness."
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Cardinale's goal is to have parents leave the course wanting to "engage in those activities with other people, to start building a new network of adult friendships that you can nurture for many decades to come."
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"The more fulfilled you are personally, the easier the transition is," Rachel Glik, a licensed professional counselor, told Make It about coping with empty nest syndrome.
The online module will consist of live events every Friday via Zoom and allow parents to meet other parents around the world. The hope is for them to learn how to embrace the positive side of empty nesting and develop strong support systems, maybe even amongst each other.
"We go through the program in four weeks time, and they have a little bit of material that they can be reading and listening to on their own," Cardinale says.
Cardinale interviewed top experts like Barbara Waxman, a gerontologist with expertise in empty nesting, and Gretchen Rubin, a best-selling author who writes about happiness. She also spoke to ASU professors, and fathers who provided firsthand experiences on what empty nesting feels like.
"And because it's for parents, there's no quizzes, there's no homework, there's no expectation to have to finish it all. It's really on our own time," Cardinale says.
"Hopefully we'll be offering it again, early in 2025. We're getting those dates together right now, and it's currently open to any ASU parents as well as ASU alumni," with children heading to college.
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