In a September 2022 BBC Radio Wiltshire interview, host Sue Keeney talks with Salisbury‑based anxiety specialist and therapist Caroline Cavanagh about the emotional impact of children leaving home for university. Caroline explains that the primary drivers of the “empty‑nest” anxiety are sudden change and loss of control over a child’s daily life. She offers concrete coping tactics: redefining household routines (e.g., adjusting meal portions and freezing excess mince), creating new norms through small, manageable adjustments, and using familiar learning curves—like learning to drive—to normalise the discomfort over time. The conversation also addresses the challenge of staying in touch without smothering, recommending parents recognise the decades of successful parenting they’ve already completed, take pride in those achievements, and trust their adult children to manage their own lives. Caroline stresses that anxiety eases with time, encouraging listeners to accept the new household dynamic, embrace personal space, and look forward to a different, but still rewarding, phase of life.
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Becky Hill and Galantis on BBC Radio Wiltshire with Run, and that is what we're talking about on BBC Radio Wiltshire with me, Sue Keeney, this morning. When our children run from the home, head off to start their own lives, leaving us with empty nests, how do we cope with that? Are you one of the hundreds of parents across Wiltshire that's got a bit of a, well, quieter house right now? The end of September, beginning of October sees the start of the university year, of course, and that means there'll be lots of new so-called empty nesters. And although many of us joke about how nice it'll be when our kids move out, when it actually happens, it can be quite emotional and upsetting. Caroline Cavanagh is an anxiety specialist and therapist from Salisbury, and she joins us on BBC Radio Wiltshire now. Good morning, Caroline.
Good morning, Faye.
You're halfway there to having an empty nest yourself, aren't you?
I am indeed. It's not quite 72 hours since my daughter turned and walked away into her promised And my husband pulled out of his pocket a massive bag of tissues.
Oh, and you both needed them.
Absolutely, actually. He was trying to do the old dad stiff upper lip thing. But yes, so I still do have a 17-year-old at home, so he's year 13. But fundamentally, our home has now changed. It is different.
And, and how are you coping with that change? You know, you're a therapist yourself, but presumably it just feels very weird.
Absolutely. I may be a therapist, but I'm still a human being, and all of these feelings are absolutely normal. There's 2 things that really, um, should we say, spike our fear, anxiety. One of them is change. So for the last 18 and a half years, I've woken up every morning knowing my daughter's tucked up in the bedroom across the road, Mm-hmm. and knowing largely what she's doing all day, who she's with, Yeah. And now she's somewhere where I have no idea who she's with, what she's doing, so I've lost that control. And change and loss of control are the 2 things that are going to make us feel anxious.
Yeah. And what do we do about that, Caroline? I mean, that anxiety— my daughter used to phone every day at least twice in tears, struggling to make the adjustment when she first started 2 years ago. And that feeling of helplessness, of like trying to say, look, you know, you've just I'll come and see you, Molly, but no, you can't come home because you won't go back again. You know, it's so hard. What can we do to sort of manage those feelings of anxiousness and worry?
I think the first thing to do— let's look at the change element— is you're outside of your comfort zone, it's new. So see what you can do to help make that more comfortable. So for example, yesterday I got out the normal 500-gram pack of mince and merrily started cooking, only to think I don't need to cook for 4 anymore.
Oh!
So it was then, okay, so what do I do? I can either make for 4 and then stick 1 portion in the freezer for the next time that my 17-year-old has the munchies, or I can cut a slice of the mince off, freeze that, and then in a few weeks' time, I will have several packs of frozen mince and I can chop it off the shopping list for that week.
Hmm.
So it's thinking about what can you now do to make those adjustments to make this comfort zone more comfortable, to create a new norm. And we have done that many, many times in our lives already.
Yeah.
Many of us can probably relate to learning to drive. The first time you got behind the wheel, your heart rate would have been racing, you'd have felt sick, your palms all clammy. But then 5 lessons later, it would have been easier, and now we jump into a car without even thinking about it. So take some comfort from the fact that over time, you know, for those of you, for those of your listeners who perhaps dropped their children off 10 days ago, they'll be feeling a little less anxious now than they were 10 days ago. And by Christmas it will feel different. It does get better. And that can help give you a little bit of solace in that it's not always going to be like this.
And one of the things that Jane, Jane Wilson in Durrington, was saying was that she messages her daughter on every available platform, you know, social media, WhatsApp, texts, and it's like her daughter is, Mum, I get the first message, I'll get back to you when I can. It's like it's difficult to get the balance of contact with your child that's left, to not, you know, sort of be nagging and be worrying and then coming across as kind of smothering. It's difficult to get the balance right, isn't it?
It is difficult, and the advice that I would give to Jane and other of us that are in that kind of feeling of, I need to know that you're okay is accept that you have looked after this person for 18 years. You've done an incredible job already in creating, keeping that person alive. That's no mean feat. And you've got them through the hardest element of education, A-levels. And throw into that, you've got them through that wonderful period that we can look back on and go, oh yeah, that was COVID lockdown.
Yeah.
Wow. They have got through all of that. They got their exam results. They're where they want to be. Take pride in what you've achieved and now let them fly.
Oh, great advice. Thank you, Caroline, so much. Just before I let you go, how is your daughter doing so soon into her university career after being dropped off at the weekend? But how's she doing as far as you know?
It was a little bit tricky for me when I woke up yesterday morning to find a message that was sent at 1:34 AM Oh, young lady. Nightclub going, I've just listened to Grandma's song. It's just like, oh my gosh, no, here we are Sunday morning, she's at university and she's clubbing. So, but again, I could worry or I could choose to go, do you know, she is living her life. I trust that she's going to keep herself safe because she's got those skills, and it's now time for me to embrace this new part of my life.
Fantastic, wonderful. Well, good luck to your girl Caroline, and thank you so much for talking to us on BBC Radio Wiltshire this morning. Caroline Cavanagh there, anxiety specialist and therapist from Salisbury, on adjusting and adapting to a new life without your child in your home anymore.
