…continuing from Part 1 of The Empty Nest: Opportunity or Crisis It can be a crisis: If the kids have been the primary focus of your life. As important as it is to love our children and love the job of parenting, it’s also a stage of life, not the whole of it. Those who have thrown […]

Feelings of loss and anxiety about change when the last child leaves home are normal. But it often has been pathologized in popular culture as a disorder, disease or condition that needs treatment. Usually it’s not and it doesn’t. In fact, the “empty nest syndrome” usually doesn’t exist at all. For most families, the last kid going […]

It’s a too-familiar story. James and Cindy have come in for couples counseling because they worry they have grown apart. With three children under the age of 12, they want to see if they can salvage their marriage. They can’t imagine breaking up the family even though they feel they are breaking up. Cindy is […]