September is a month of natural transitions as the sun loses its strength and the days shorten. We adjust again to school and work routines and lower light levels. These changes alone can lend an air of sadness to September days.

All the more so when you have an additional change on your plate: that of your son or daughter leaving home for the first time to go to University. This is the situation in which I find myself as my son slowly (and I mean slowly) dismantles his bedroom and piles up things in readiness for the trip to Newcastle that we’ll be making together next Saturday.

We are inevitably approaching his departure in different ways. He is hugely excited about big-city- life (all the more so after spending his school years in a small town), eagerly anticipating the inebriation of Freshers’ week and making new friends. Oh, and his studies, of course!

And what of my feelings?  Well, these depend on whether it’s my heart or my head talking. My head says that he is ready to go and I’m ready to let him. After 19 years of nurturing, protecting, advising, baling-out and reining-in, I feel it’s my time now for an easier life.

And my heart? Well, no surprises there, the normal mix of sadness and anxiety that are an inevitable part of parenting.  Only this time my anxiety won’t be about waiting for him to come home after a party in a dodgy area of the city or from a Thailand trip or from a rave under the motorway arches ....  it’s a much more significant adventure that he is embarking upon and most of the time I will have not a clue what he is up to.

So how do we deal with this breaking of the loving bond? Here are three things that work for me:

1. Remind yourself that if your son or daughter was fearful of change and wanted to stay at home, that would not be a good thing for either of you. The fact that s/he is looking forward to leaving home is evidence that you’ve done a good job.

2. Practice accepting your sadness.  Often we fight our feelings and try to push them under. But like a cork in a bottle, they pop up sometime or other, usually when we are least expecting. So I recommend that you deal with your feelings as they arise. Setting some time aside to do this is healthy and ultimately healing.  

3. Remember  that sadness is at the other end of the scale of happiness. It is proof of your love, so it’s a good and normal thing. Seek out friends who went through this last year and you will find that, difficult though the lead up to the departure may be, after a few weeks, they felt a new lease of life.

I hope this helps.  Before you know where you are, they’ll be back with piles of washing, eating you out of house and home and leaving their dirty cups in the bedroom again - just as if they’ve never left.

So how are you preparing for the empty nest?