When your kids leave home: Why it feels so hard
Fall is in the air. The back-to-school promos are everywhere, advertising cute sparkly notebooks and those fancy binders that my mom never said yes to. First day of school pictures of your friends’ kids are all over your social media feed. And perhaps it feels even more real to you this year because you just dropped off a kid at kindergarten. Or college. Or sent one on a gap year backpacking trip around the world. Or moved one out of the house for his first real job and into his own apartment.
My oldest is leaving tomorrow for the year, and although I’m so excited for him, there are other and more complicated feelings involved as well. The years go fast, and suddenly these baby birds are heading out of the nice safe nest. True, some need a gentle nudge, but some are launching without looking back.
Maybe you just sent your first to preschool. Maybe yours have all been out of the house for years, and now you’re watching grandchildren find their way. Maybe you don’t have kids but you’re the fun uncle or just have a lot of friends who have kids. No matter where you or your family is on the spectrum, here are a few good things that you can do to prepare your kids, the next generation of fledglings.
3 ways to prepare your kids spiritually before they leave
Prepare their hearts with Scripture
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:4-7)
More important than feeding your kids, more important than making sure your kids are in the right preschool or dance class or sports club, more important than buying your kids those sparkly notebooks or binders, is impressing God’s Word upon their hearts. Every waking moment, God wants us to love him and teach our children to love him with all their hearts, souls, and strength.
In other words, God’s Word should not be a small part of our day or an even smaller part of our week. Rather, it permeates everything we do. Mornings. Meals. Discussions. Hikes. Drives. Bedtimes. And it is never too late to start.
This command in Deuteronomy, given around 3,500 years ago, was a gift from God to prepare our kids to leave the nest without leaving him. We’ve got roughly eighteen years to make sure our kids know the Bible and are steeped in its teachings before they launch headfirst into a world steeped in all sorts of other teachings.
Just as we prepare our kids to drive at scary highway speeds, just as we prepare them for the ACT test, just as we prepare them to practice good hygiene and table manners, so must we prepare them to give a reason for the hope that they have (1 Peter 3:15). If your kids can’t tie their shoes, there’s always Velcro. But if they can’t defend their faith, they’ll trip and stumble over those loose ends.
Pray for them daily
Okay, so maybe I didn’t allay your fears about sending your kids out into the world with that last point. Maybe I unlocked new fears, because maybe you don’t feel like you prepared them enough. Perhaps we never can prepare them enough. So I bring you the second point—pray.
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. (1 John 5:14)
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)
The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. (James 5:16)
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6–7)
Pray continually. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
Five good passages about praying. I could have chosen so many more for this blog because the early Christians needed to be reminded, and so do we. Sometimes prayer seems futile. Or silly. Or one-sided. Or we don’t know what to say. But God wants us to talk to him. We can’t understand it, but he has the capacity to listen to all of us at any point in the day or night.
Most of my prayers these days are for my children, but the Bible assures me that God is not tired of listening. Pray for your kids. Pray for your kids’ future spouses. Pray that they find great friends. Pray that they find their passions. Pray that the Lord keeps them safe in the big wide world and that he keeps them close to him. And know that God hears you and that he answers prayer.
Remember God is their better parent
Remember that God is a better parent than you are. God knows your kids even better than you do. You’re sending them out into the world, and they might be away from you, but God has this amazing Godlike ability to be right there with them. In that classroom. In that dorm room. In that hostel in Portugal. In that office at their new job. In their worry and indecision and their false confidence and their homesickness. He will never leave them or forsake them (Hebrews 13:5). He will watch over their coming and going (Psalm 121).
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:9-11)
God has entrusted these children to us, but they are his own dear children. And he is a good Father. We can remember that he is able to protect them so much better than we can and that he somehow loves them even more than we do.
Trusting God with your kids as they leave home
As we face seasons of launching, preparing, praying, and remembering, we probably won’t entirely cease worrying. We spent so long building these nice cozy nests so that our families will be safe and warm and nurtured. But in keeping with this bird/nest analogy I’ve got going, it seems fitting to turn to the book of Matthew again, where God reminds us that he even takes care of the birds!
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6:25–26)
Your birds are in good hands. Prepare them. Pray for them. And remember that Jesus loves them more than you ever could and that he died to save them from the mistakes they’ll inevitably make along the way. Be there for them to listen and love and point them to God. And then let them fly.
