Don't Go Breaking My Heart

In today’s episode, we’re diving into your questions. Listener Heidi F says:
"Right now, my mind is on getting my kids to be engaged in the family before they leave for college. I have one leaving in August, and all she wants to do is be in her room if she's not at work. It is crushing my heart. How do I encourage her to spend time with us before she leaves the nest?”

Preparing for the big college send-off, Becky and Lacey discuss how major changes like going to college can reshape your relationship and how this phase of life, while different, is still good. 

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Transcript

0:06

Whether you're navigating the challenges of parenthood with a crying baby, a teenager, or anything in between, whether you have one child or a dozen, know this, we see you, we are you. We are modern moms and best friends with out-of-the-box kids, and we're here to cheer you on during this wild ride called motherhood. We show ourselves grace, build badass communities, and choose to embrace the chaos with love and humor. Welcome to this flocked up life, because being a mom is messy, imperfect, and pretty flocked and beautiful. Hey there, I hope you're having a beautiful day. I'm Lacey Verbick, and I'm here with my favorite Flamingo, Becky North. How are you, Becky? You know, Lacey, it's been a busy week in our house as we are rolling right into fall activities. It feels like we are go, go, go here. How about you? Oh yeah, it is about that time, isn't it? School's going to start again soon, and all those fun details come together. You know, this week has been an interesting one. A lot of really busy at work this week, and I decided that I was going to have a bad tooth this week, start acting up, so I had to go and have a root canal kind of on an in an emergency today, and that wasn't very much fun. Had a, it was like two and a half hours long, and I was not expecting that level of fresh new hell. I was expecting more like an hour, and it was two and a half hours. So yeah, but you know what? I was, as I was driving home from that experience, I had both hands up on the steering wheel, and I took a little glance off to the side, and I noticed that my fingernails today are fabulous flamingo pink. They're actually ombre pink, so if you can imagine ombre pink flamingo colored nails, Becky can see them in the camera here. They're very fun and flamboyant, so I was channeling my flamingo energy on the way home because I was feeling sorry for myself after having a two and a half hour root canal, but all is all is well with the world. Well, I am grateful that you got the flock out of the waiting room of hell, and were able to join us here today. Yes, and thank goodness for ibuprofen and good doctors. Yay teeth. All right, well, let's jump right in. We're in a silly mood today, I think. This is going to be a fun one. In today's episode, we're diving into your questions. We have a question from Heidi F., and she says, right now, my mind is on getting my kids to be engaged in the family before they leave for college. I have one leaving in August. All she wants to do is be in her room if she's not at work. It's crushing my heart. How do I encourage her to spend time with us before she leaves the nest? That's a good one. I know this is right up your alley, Lacy, with one in college, and man, this is a great question, Heidi. Thank you, Heidi, and yeah, this is a super raw topic in my life right now, but I, you know, it's fresh, so hopefully we can offer you some great advice here, but Becky, I'll let you go first. Jump right in. So Heidi, the first thing that I want to say is that I see you. As parents, it's like we spend our kids' whole life preparing them to leave, and then they leave, and then what? And I know that there are a lot of big, big feelings that come with that, and while I haven't personally experienced that, I know that I, with my own kids, am feeling that, like, oh gosh, I only have this many more summers with them and those feelings, and so first, I just want to say that I see you and that you are definitely not alone in this feeling. The other thing I want to say kind of to that point is while you were getting ready for a big, big change in your life and in your house and what the dynamic will be like when she goes to college, she's getting ready for that big, big change too, and she needs to have the space and the energy to be able to kind of process and deal with those feelings too, and so biggest thing I will say there is just don't take it too, too personal because we can't know what she's thinking and what she's feeling if she's not sharing those things out loud, and just know that she's processing for this too because her whole life, she's had you right there every step that she needs you, and while you're still going to be there and you're still going to support her, it's not the same, and as big as this is for you, it's even bigger for her. Would you agree, Lacey? Oh gosh, it's amazing, continues to be amazing that you and I absolutely answer this question the same way almost every episode. I love that so much, Becky. I agree completely, 100%. I wrote in my notes, these young people are having a hard time too. They process it differently than we do. This is a huge shift for them too, and of course, when my daughter, when I was in the same situation last year, Heidi, I, you know, it's really natural to get into your feelings about it and to feel like this is all happening to you, but the truth is it's happening to both of you, and you have to sort of offer each other grace and space for this, and you know, one thing that came up just a minute ago when Becky was speaking is that if you just turn it around and look at it a little bit differently, there's a blessing in the opportunity to have a slow disconnection, to have these things that make your heart go, oh, like her hiding in a room or not connecting with you the way that she used to, you know, if you can see past the immediate discomfort and sadness and maybe even a little grief that's in your mom heart right now, it's actually an opportunity for you to digest this separation in a way that's easier and smaller, and it, you know, it gives you time to sort of adjust between the pain. No, I was trying to come up with a softer word, but you know what I mean? It gives you time to adjust incrementally rather than just, oh my god, she's gone, and I'm so sad, right? We get a chance to warm up to it a little bit, and I know that if someone had said that to me last year, I'd be like, that doesn't help me. I don't want to feel sad a million times. I want to feel sad once, but what I learned from walking through that experience just last year with my own daughter, that it's actually a blessing to be able to walk through it a little bit at a time. You'll still be sad, right? You'll still be sad the day, potentially, you know, the day that everything sort of lands for her in college and everything becomes real, that she no longer lives in your home full-time. I don't know. I'm grateful for the shallow entry into the pool, looking back, so I hope that helps. It's amazing because I was, you know, Lacey and I have been friends for a while, and I got to experience some of that part of the journey with her in our conversations and stuff, and I just want to say, when she says a year ago, she probably wouldn't have said that. That's so true, right? She did say to me, no. We did have those similar conversations, and I have that in my notes too, that the one thing that I want to say is, I know that it can feel soul-crushing, but I am going to really encourage you to reframe here and change, you know, the direction and look past it a little bit, just to know that it's not crushing your soul. It's preparing your heart for change. Oh, yes. Goosebumps, Becky. Yes, girl. Yeah, this is a moment where you get to prepare your heart for change, and and that change is going to be big, and at times, it's going to be hard, and at times, it's going to be wonderful. Let's be honest. Oh, yes. There's going to be really great moments of it too, but it is preparing your heart for change, and so when I'm going to just encourage you or anybody who's kind of feeling this, whether your kids are leaving for college this year, or maybe they're just being teenagers who are like, I'm too cool for school, right? Like, and you have that, like, ping, right? That, man, but I only get so many more moments like this that you take a second and you just say, like, man, I'm grateful that right now, my heart is preparing for the change that I know is coming one day, whether that day is in August and or whether that day is five years from now, just that I'm grateful for my heart having the space to prepare for change. Beautiful. Yeah. Another thought that came up for me is it's a phase. It is a little bit of phase, okay, and maybe not so, well, maybe not the going to college directly. Maybe that's not a phase, but this teenager phase, this gaining independence, this discovering their power, you know, time of life, this teenagehood, even into young adulthood, it's a phase, and are you noticing how successfully you navigated all the other phases they've been through all these years coming up through their childhood, right? You've successfully navigated the teething phase, the toddler who bites kids at preschool phase, the, you know, had her first boyfriend in kindergarten, you know, whatever it is, right? Those phases, I think it, you know, when we get far enough away from them, we forget how, how successfully we navigated those things and how serious and how hard and how big they may have felt in the moment, you know, but look at what you've accomplished and look at what your child has accomplished and, and treat this, maybe treat this like a phase. Hey, you know what? I'm in the, in it as Becky would say, and I, and it doesn't feel great right now, but this is a phase, right? This too shall pass. Yes. And, and she's still going to need you or he, right? Like I know you said, she hear you that your daughter's leaving, but to anybody who's listening, they're still going to need you. Like it doesn't matter if they're going to college or they're getting married or they're having babies, there are still going to be points where like, nothing is like calling home to mom. There is still going to be wisdom that you're going to get to share with them. There is still going to be a role that you get to play in their life in most situations. And so this phase is like you said, just a phase. I used to say that with my kids all the time when they were little, I think the church we went to did a thing about it and it said, it's just a phase. Don't miss it. Yes. Oh, I love that. It's just a phase and you will still always be their mom. You will still always be their mom. Yeah. And, you know, to share a little bit more about my experience, Heidi with my daughter, you know, the, the things that we related around have changed, but the relationship really hasn't changed. The things we talk about now are different. She, my favorite thing about our relationship and how it's changed is that, I'm going to try not to get emotional here. She, she, I'm the first person she calls when something great happens. She wants to celebrate good things that happen, milestones in her life, achievements in her, you know, academic journey. She wants to celebrate those with me. I'm the first person she calls. And yeah, I mean, of course I would love for, I would love for there to be 10,000 other reasons that she calls me, but I can find the joy in that. And, you know, and, and I, it's a, I didn't write this down, but here it comes. It's a two-way street. If we want them to continue to connect with us and to cultivate a new and different mother-child relationship, mother-daughter relationship, we have to pour into it too. We can't just sit at home and expect them to call. We can't just sit at home and pine away over their Instagram. You know, we can't, we can't wait for it. We have to be proactive. We have to reach out. We have to be loud and proud with our love and celebration and encouragement. And even frankly, our needs, right? You know, if you don't share with your young person, you know, that you are feeling sad or you would love for them to reach out to you more often, or you would really appreciate a phone call on your birthday or, you know, whatever that thing is for you or that set of things, you know, if we don't communicate, if we don't let those things be known, then we can't, it's not fair for us to hold expectation. We have to be clear and upfront with it. And you know, one of the things that I think we did well with my daughter was I asked her for a beauty of the day. I asked her if she would be able to send me a beauty of the day every day. And that would be, it could be a picture, it could be a, a meme from social media could be, you know, the outfit she decided to wear that day, you know, whatever it is, beauty of the day. And actually the term beauty of the day came from my mom, which I think is wonderful. And thank you mom for that idea. So I, I asked her if she would be able to do that, you know, rather than calling me three times a week, or rather than setting some sort of schedule, I thought, let's try this. Let's see what happens. If all we do is exchange a beauty of the day. And the first thing about beauty of the day is that it brings your consciousness, your awareness to beauty, to positivity, to joy, to nature, to, you know, a lot of things that are just plain old good for us. Right. And so I asked her to do that. And I'm proud to say she did it most of the school year. She was able to follow through on that most of the school year. And I in return would send a beauty of the day. Right. So it was a little bit of a responsibility on me, but it was on me too, but it was something that we connected over and it was just for a minute, right? Like, Oh, look at this beauty of the day. It didn't have to have a message. It didn't even have to have a long text. It was just, here's my beauty of the day. Awesome. I love you. Here's, you know, have a great day. And I would send her a picture back or I would send her a look at this great quote I found, or, Hey, look at this really comfy bra. I found on Amazon, right? Like we would just exchange, you know, beauty things that made us feel great and caused us to think about the other person. And I know I'm going on and on about this, but I have a point. She didn't know this was happening, but one of the ways I missed her a little less, uh, was that I created something called chat books for her. So every day, uh, a chat book, in case you haven't heard of this wonderful app memory, keeping service that I love. It's a 30 page little memory book, and you can do like soft cover, hard cover, whatever 30 days. So when she would send me her beauty of the day, every day for 30 days, I recorded those, I documented them in a chat book and I gifted those chat books to her once a month. And so when she was away, I collected them and that, yeah, and I didn't send them to her. And then when she got, when she came home for Christmas, I gifted her a set. And then for a second semester, I collected them and collected them. And then I gifted her a set when she, you know, upon completion of her second semester, when she came home, it was a, well, it was just as much for me as it was for her, quite frankly. But it was a wonderful way because I love scrapbooking and memory keeping. That's a thing for me anyway. So it was a neat little hobby and connection that I could use, you know, to feel connected to her, to share in her experiences, even if she wasn't as close as we had been in the past. But my suggestion is find ways to connect that, that maybe fill both your cups. So what the flap are you waiting for? Hit the subscribe button now and become part of our growing flock because let's face it, it'll be fun and you're worth it. I had something similar on here. I had, make sure that you're talking about it because like you said, there has to be awareness, especially if right now she's still in the house, right? So if you want to lay the foundation for those types of communications, Lacey, like you said, with beauty of the day or things like that, after she leaves for college, you need to start laying those now. And you know, you could make a bucket list maybe for the summer of these are things that we want to do together, like both you and her, not just you or not just her, but these are things that we'd like to experience together before you go. And then the other part of that, I journal to my kids. Like I have, they each have journals and I journal to them like today you did this. And I was amazed by that or, or this, or something happened and it made me think. And I just am collecting similar to, like you said, Lacey, with those chat books, I'm just collecting those memories for them. So beautiful. Of course you are. And yeah, so there are a lot of different things that you could do for your own self and her, like writing letters or journaling or, or chat books or scrapbooking or whatever that is to help with the here and now to move, to move through those feelings. And really just the last, the last thing I wanted to say, Heidi, is that you've done a really great job. Being a mom is not for the weak of heart. It's not right. We are creator, like literally holding their life in our body. We are nurture. We are teacher. We are nurse. We are chef. We are chauffeur. We are maybe referee. We are a coach. The roles that a parent plays is endless. And it is a job where, at least for me, it sometimes feels like it can, like, I cannot be enough, right? Like there could have been more, Oh, maybe this, or maybe that. And I mean, that's my own thing, right? Like, so don't, don't take that on. That's not what I'm saying, but I'm just like, you've done a really, really, really amazing job. And the fact that your beautiful little baby is about to leave the nest with her full color on and go out and make her and begin to make her biggest impact in this world says just as much about you as it does about her. And that is something worth celebrating, not just for her, but for you too. It's kind of the first birthday. Everybody says the first birthday isn't really for the kid. It's for the parent. Like you made it. And this milestone is that same way. It's not just for her. It's for you too, right? Because you have poured love and commitment and time and energy and like everything, right? You, I am certain that there were probably days where you were like, if I could just have one minute and now it feels like, Oh God, I'm going to have them all, but you've done a really, really good job. And now is the time to celebrate that. And so if nothing else celebrate for yourself, even if she's still staying in her room, right. Take the time to celebrate that because you deserve that. And so does she. So beautiful truth bombs from Becky. I love it. I, we could end right there, but I have one more thing. I have one more thing. I guess I wanted to share. I wrote down. It isn't a hard stop for your relationship. It isn't, it doesn't have to be. It can be if, if neither one of you care enough, you know, to keep it going, which obviously that's not the case for you, Heidi, with the way that you've shown up here and shared your question and, and, uh, you know, put it out here, uh, hopefully to help and support other mothers who might be going through the same thing. Right. But it isn't, it isn't a hard stop. And I, Becky can speak to this. I sort of had some rigid feelings around redefining our relationship last year when my daughter moved away. And I'm so grateful that I chose to move through the experience with open hands, rather than clenched fists. If that visual helps you try, even when you're mad, even when there's a situation at home, even when, you know, you're, you're sad, even try not to tighten up that energy, right. Stay open and just let the energy flow and, you know, show up and love as much as you can every single day. And just try, you know, just, just try to be present, try to be understanding, try not to, you know, try not to constrict the energy around it. Right. Because it isn't an end. It's a shift. It's a big change. Yeah. And, you know, one thing that's sort of worked at my house, um, because my daughter's now home for the summer, home for her first summer, um, back from undergraduate studies. And she is a, uh, it's a whole new world. Uh, we'll do another, we'll do another episode on what it's like to have your college age student come home for the summer because, well, it's a whole new sort of fresh new hell, if I'm honest, but I was going to share one, my one last point here is that, um, one thing that's worked for us is offering experiences, events, or opportunities to be together that are easy for her to say yes to, because if your child is anything like my child, she was burning it at all, at all the ends, right. She had, she had work stuff. She had school stuff. She had friends stuff. She had scholarships. She had, you know, academic applications, you know, she had her social life. She had her boyfriend, you know, I mean, if it could be done, she had it going pretty much during like may of, um, last year. And one thing she said to me is she said, mom, I'd, I'd love to spend more time with you, but I need it to be a yes or no. I need it to be. And at first I was like, what do you mean a yes or no? Of course, you're going to spend time with me. I'm your mother. But what, what she meant is, you know, don't ask me what do you want to do? Because I am so, you know, busy in the brain, if you will, that like, I don't have the bandwidth to come up with an idea that's going to be good for the family or, or even just good for me and you, you know, I don't, I don't have the energy for that, but I would love to spend time with you. So if you, you could help me by offering it up in a way where all I have to do is say, yes, I can, or no, I can't. Yes. I would love it or no, I can't do it today. And you may get a no, right? And you kind of have to prepare your heart for that, right? You may, you may get up mom. I can't, you know, or no thank you. But in my experience with my daughter, so, so much of the time, if I say, would you love to go to our favorite consignment resale shop near our home? She'll say yes. If I say, would you love to celebrate the 4th of July in our backyard with sparklers? She'll say yes. But if I say, Hey, I'm sad because you're not planning anything. And it's been two weeks and you haven't spent any time with me. And you're always spending time with your boyfriend. And do you, do you see the difference? I mean, energetically, keep it simple, make it easy for them to move in closer, to spend more time to, you know, strengthen that connection. If you know, it's hard. I don't know. It's hard for it's a busy time for everybody, them and, and you. And so I know it's an additional ask for the mom, right? But we're usually already doing all the planning and all the scheduling and all the moving people, places and things around anyway. So maybe it's just a simple matter of kind of, you know, resetting the process to more of a, do you want to do this? Yes or no? Becky? Yeah. No, I agree completely. And even finite or way to look at that is as simple as like the difference between, Hey, do you want to go to dinner or what do you want for dinner? Or where do you want to go for dinner to like, Hey, do you want to go to dinner at right? Or does pizza sound good? Yes or no. Or one or two options. Right. And as opposed to this whole big thing. Yeah, I completely and totally agree with that. And you may find in return that they do those same things for you when they're like, Oh, I would really like to spend time with you. So let me see if I can, you met me here at a place where it's easy to say yes or no, I'm going to meet you at a place where it's easy to say yes or no. Also. Perfect. Love it. Heidi. Great question. Thank you. Thanks for sending this along. We Becky and I were just reflecting right before we hopped on the recording today about how much we're learning from our listeners and how this is really becoming such a, such a beautiful reciprocal, fun group of women and such a, such a neat community with beautiful energy. And, and we just were so thrilled. And I just want to say, thank you. Thank you for sharing with us. Thank you for helping us learn new things as well. And we're going to continue to show up for you, Becky, any closing words? No, I was just going to say the same thing. Thank you guys for being vulnerable and for being your true selves with us. And we feel very blessed to be, be here with you. Have a wonderful week until next time.