Warriors, hello and welcome to episode 414 of the Love Your Life Show. I am your certified life and parenting coach, Susie Pettit, and I want this episode to feel like a warm hug for you.

I am just feeling all the feels for all my clients right now. I’m always thinking of you and what can best support you. As I sat down to write this episode, I knew I wanted to focus on parenting, the empty nest, and the reality that as our kids grow, their job is to grow away from us. That is the definition of us being successful parents.

Because I have raised kids, had them in the home, transitioned to the empty nest stage, and now have them all out on their own, I know exactly what that feels like in a mother’s heart—and it’s not always fun. I am here to support you in it because this is important work. Navigating this transition in a conscious, educated way with the tools I’m about to teach you is what sets our kids up for confidence and success, and it preserves your future relationship with them.

To be completely transparent, when I first got on here, I almost turned to ChatGPT to ask it to take some of my old thoughts on the empty nest and refresh them. But then I thought, “No, just give them the exact episode you recorded before.”

Because what I know to be true, warriors, is that even if we’ve heard a message thirteen times before, we hear exactly what we need to hear when we encounter it in the present moment. So, I invite you to listen to this with an open heart and a growth mindset. What do you need today? What are your big takeaways going to be?

An Invitation to Free Live Support

Another way I am pouring a hug on you is on July 16th at 7:00 PM. I’ve decided to host a free parenting support session. Coaches like to call these things webinars or workshops, but this is just going to be a incredibly supportive session where I bring my expertise, my knowledge, and my own mom heart right to where you are.

I just want to give my mamas—and dads, you are absolutely invited too—some free support. You do need to register to hold your seat at (https://smbwell.com/event). Again, that is at 7:00 PM on July 16th. If you can’t make it live, there will be a replay available.

So, let’s listen in to this episode. I hope it feels like a warm hug.

Voiceover: Hi, this is the Love Your Life Show with Susie Pettit, certified life and wellness coach. Join Susie as she helps you with your wellness and mindset so you can live a life you love. Let’s go, warriors!

Warriors, hello and welcome to episode 365. This episode focuses on parenting through all of its various stages.

As a quick aside, I don’t think I’ve mentioned this recently, but do you know whose voice that is in the intro? That is my eldest son, the one I was just visiting with in California! It feels especially relevant to point that out today since we are talking about parenting.

Whether you’ve listened to me before or this is your very first show, it’s important to know that I am well-certified. I have the qualifications to talk to you about these things—I hold certificates in life, relationship, wellness, and ADHD coaching. But equally as important, I am a fellow midlife traveler right there in the trenches with you. I am 53 years old and have five sons: three biological and two bonus sons from my second marriage.

I’ve done it all: divorced mom, single mom, stay-at-home mom, working mom. I’ve been in narcissistic relationships. I bring that entire wealth of lived experience, alongside my education and research, to help you live a life that feels genuinely good to you.

Today, we’re revisiting a topic so many of you have asked me about, and one that I am actively living: the empty nest. This is going to be deeply relevant for you whether your kids are still in the house, half-in and half-out (like a college student who comes back for breaks), or entirely gone—leaving you staring at an eerily quiet kitchen table or an eerily full refrigerator (you know, like when you buy a dozen eggs and they’re actually still there the next day).

This episode is a blend of two past shows I’ve done on the topic, updated with what I have learned, what I have lived, and what I see to be true right now. I want to dive into this beautiful, challenging truth of parenting—or what Glennon Doyle calls “brutiful,” a combination of brutal and beautiful.

Part 1: If Your Kids Are Still at Home

If your children are still living at home, you have an incredible opportunity right now. There are three specific things you can do to set both yourself and your kids up for a rich, fulfilling life, while naturally building a deep, connected relationship.

1. Learn How to Self-Regulate

First and foremost, learn how to feel your feelings instead of reacting from your feelings. Trust me on this: anything and everything you do to expand your ability to stay calm when those around you are losing their cool—anything you do to increase your emotional intelligence—will benefit you and your family for the rest of your life. It is one of the greatest freedoms on earth to not feel completely out of control around your own emotions.

This is the exact skill I wish they taught all of us as parents. We are constantly encouraged to focus on logistics: figuring out which sports to sign them up for, making healthy dinners they’ll actually eat, organizing carpools, or managing sleep schedules. Don’t get me wrong, those things matter. But without a doubt, the number one thing impacting homes today is a parent’s ability to regulate their emotions.

It has the most profound effect on your children. It’s about noticing when you’re feeling triggered and intentionally choosing how you want to respond. Essentially, it means acting like an adult when those around you are acting like kids.

This is the core skill of parenting. It’s not about whether your kid gets straight A’s, how clean their room is, or how perfectly you put on a diaper. It’s about you. How do you show up when they’re moody? How do you show up when they don’t turn their homework in? How do you show up when they push your buttons? Because they will.

If you want to look back on this chapter of your life and feel incredibly proud, it won’t be because you successfully controlled them; it will be because you controlled yourself. Self-regulation is your superpower, and it is contagious. The calmer and more centered you are, the more peaceful your home will feel.

A Note to Parents of Grown Kids: If your kids are already out of the house and you’re thinking, “Oh my gosh, I was an unregulated mess when they were home,” it’s okay. Me too, for many parts of it! When we know better, we do better. There is still ample opportunity for you to practice non-reactivity and show up as a regulated adult in their lives today. It is never too late, and today is a wonderful day to begin. Don’t waste time beating yourself up over the past; use it as motivation to learn about emotional intelligence now.

2. Know Your Three Jobs as a Parent

When you leave the hospital with a newborn, I wish they handed you a corporate-style job description outlining your core responsibilities. If you’ve taken my parenting class, you already know what I’m going to say. (And if you haven’t, this is a great time of year to take it. It’s quick, impactful, and perfect for anyone with kids ages eight all the way up into their twenties).

Your three jobs as a parent are:

1. To keep them physically safe.
2. To provide guidelines and boundaries for them to push against.
3. To teach them how to self-regulate.

This is the ultimate framework for raising less anxious, more resilient kids. I dive deep into how to actually implement this framework in my parenting class at [smbwell.com/parenting]. I love hearing from clients who tell me these simple exercises did more for their household harmony than years of therapy.

Many of us are deeply uncomfortable with our children being uncomfortable. Yet, raising humans who can persevere and thrive in this world is our primary role. Allowing our kids to experience discomfort and figure things out on their own is exactly where their growth happens.

It’s fascinating that parenting is one of the only roles in life where we expect to be naturally excellent without an education. We are told, “Your instincts will guide you.” Are you kidding me? We would never say that to a surgeon or an airplane pilot. We expect them to go through years of rigorous schooling. Yet, for the most important job on earth—raising the next generation of humans—we are expected to just wing it.

Left unexamined, our parental instincts are usually just a mirror of how we ourselves were parented. Unless you were raised by a total unicorn, you were likely raised by parents who didn’t have an emotional education either. We end up either repeating what our parents did or doing the exact opposite.

That is why I love listeners like you. I love that you click on episodes like this because you have an open mindset and a willingness to grow. You are the people who will raise a generation of resilient, emotionally regulated humans.

3. “Get a Life” (With Love!)

The third thing you must do while your kids are still in the house is what I say with a big dose of Susie-love: Get a life.

Seriously, the transition into the empty nest goes infinitely better for both you and your kids when you have a purpose, identity, or passion outside of just being “Mom.” This has nothing to do with whether you are a stay-at-home mom or a working mom. I’ve been both, and in both roles, it is easy to consume your entire brain tracking your kids’ lives.

Take a look at your mind like a pie chart: how much of your daily thought space is dedicated to your life, your desires, and your excitement? When kids are under eight, they need a massive slice of that pie chart. But as they hit the developmental benchmarks of ages 8, 9, and 10, we need to intentionally start widening the sliver dedicated to ourselves.

It is not selfish to do this. In fact, it’s selfish not to. When a mother spends 100% of her brainpower worrying about and managing her kids’ lives, it can enable them in a crippling way. They don’t learn how to use their own brains to solve problems because Mom always solves them. When they finally leave home, it manifests as intense anxiety or an inappropriate dependence on you.

On your end, if you haven’t built a life of your own, you will either experience massive angst in the empty nest, or you will find yourself “over-parenting” them from afar.

I remember joining a Facebook group for college parents when my son first went off to school. I quickly had to leave after seeing a parent post: “Make sure you text your student today to tell them to bring a sweatshirt because the weather is dropping.” These kids were living hours away at college, and parents were still trying to micro-manage the weather for them!

We want to step back and let our kids live their own lives. When the house is calm and your brain defaults to worrying about them, push pause. Ask yourself: What can I do right now that would bring me joy? Read a book, do a puzzle, go for a walk, or rediscover an old passion.

Raising kids changes you. You are a completely different person than you were ten or twenty years ago. Get to know this wonderful, evolved version of yourself. Your hobbies, friendships, and interests aren’t selfish—they are survival.

If you aren’t sure where to begin, hop into the Love Your Life School. We are about to start our Life List Experience, and it’s the perfect roadmap to guide you through this process. You can join us at (https://smbwell.com/lifelist).

For now, repeat after me:

I am more than a mom.
I have so much life left to live.
The second half of my life is going to be better than I can even imagine.

Research consistently shows that women aged 50 and above are among the happiest people in the world. Allow your brain the room to believe that your best chapters are straight ahead of you.

Part 2: When They Are Gone and You Miss Them

Now let’s talk about what happens when you actually do these jobs well, and they successfully launch out of the house. This phase isn’t talked about enough, and it can feel like an absolute gut punch.

One minute you are needed for every car ride, every meal, and every single crisis. The next minute, they don’t call you back for days, or they go on a trip without asking for your advice. You’re left standing there thinking, “Wait, what?”

This happened to me recently. My son planned an entire trip to Canada all by himself. He handled every single detail, didn’t ask for input, and didn’t need a thing from me. Part of me felt this immense, soaring pride—look at him handling an international trip!—and another part of me sat down and genuinely cried because I missed being needed.

The very thing that used to drive me crazy five years ago—the constant, exhausting demand of being needed—landed me in tears. Being needed makes us feel useful and like we matter in the world.

But we are here to redefine our roles. Just because you aren’t needed doesn’t mean you don’t matter. The shift in this new stage is moving from being needed to being wanted.

How did I find out about my son’s trip to Canada? Because he wanted to sit down and have lunch with me to tell me all about his life. He didn’t need me to help him figure out his passport or paperwork, but he wanted to share his world with me.

That is the beautiful, real essence of the empty nest. You will grieve the end of an old role, but you open the door to a magical new one. It means you did your job perfectly. You raised an independent, capable human who can survive without you.

And the most freeing, beautiful feeling in the world is when they choose to spend time with you simply because they want to. Because you didn’t smother or nag them, they genuinely want to try a new restaurant with you, call you up to catch up, and hear your perspectives. This stage of parenting has been truly magical for me—getting to see them as young adults, exploring how their brains work, and no longer carrying the heavy weight of responsibility for their daily choices.

And yes, to be honest, I still occasionally miss the days when they could fit on my lap while we read a book. It is a “both/and” experience.

Life is 50/50. It always has been, and it always will be. There is yin and yang, positive and negative, in everything we do:

Nursing a newborn can be brutally exhausting, yet it holds some of our most beautiful memories.
Parenting an eight-year-old involves brutal tantrums, but it’s incredibly beautiful when they slip their little hand into yours.
Parenting a teen is beautiful as you watch them chase their goals, but brutal when they push hard against your boundaries.
Parenting a 25-year-old is beautiful when you connect over a three-hour lunch, and brutal when you say goodbye as they head back to the life they’ve built outside your home.

This is the human experience, and I am right here on this journey with you.

Conclusion: You Are a Warrior

We don’t receive a formal education for the hardest job on earth, but there are so many tools that can make it easier. I teach these exact concepts every single day inside the Love Your Life School. If you don’t have a dedicated community to keep learning about yourself, or if you are looking for one-on-one coaching, I would be deeply honored to be your coach. I will put all the links to join me in the show notes.

For now, dear warrior, if no one else has told you today: you are amazing.

There is a very specific reason why I call my listeners warriors. There are not many people in this world who actively tune into podcasts like this, and there are even fewer who take real action to better themselves after listening. You are a true warrior, and I love you. I am so incredibly grateful to be on this planet at the exact same time as you.

Big love, my dear one. See you next week!