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Key points
- As a parent, it is natural to feel sad and anxious as your child prepares to graduate.
- Everyone in the family may have different and even conflicting emotions.
- It helps to think back about your own experiences of graduation time, as this influences how you react now.
It's graduation time. How do you handle your joylessness when you are meant to feel joyful on behalf of your child?
Cynthia's story
This, an amalgam of many stories taken from our clinical practices, illustrates the experience many parents have when their child graduates from high school. We offer it, along with some pointers, on how to manage this life transition.
The great day was now two months away. After years of hard work, including overcoming learning difficulties and social anxieties, Hailey was graduating from high school and on her way to the college of her choice. So why was Cynthia, her mom, filled with so many upset feelings? Particularly the feeling that she was not up to celebrating her daughter's great achievements. Dave, her husband, was so enthusiastic he barely noticed his wife's upset, though he commented, more than once, on her low-keyed mood when they attended various parties and school awards ceremonies. Truth was, these gatherings made her feel worse. She did her best to appear upbeat when with Hailey and her friends, and worried that her daughter would read her mood and feel badly because of it. Internally, Cynthia felt that there was something wrong with her for not being able to shake her mood and feel the blessings of this moment in her daughter's life.
As she talked this over in her therapy sessions, including the extra ones she scheduled, as she realized how off she felt, she appreciated her therapist's non-critical, accepting attitude and openness to how badly she felt and how badly she felt about feeling badly. In a very open and honest way, she explained her feelings and talked through what Hailey's graduation meant to her. Through her tears and feelings of self-loathing, she talked about her worries for her daughter and for herself.
She found herself feeling worse during these sessions, but she always walked out feeling better for having taken on her therapist's questions and facing her upset. In doing so, she conceded that her daughter's exciting beginning meant her own ending of being an up-close mother as she had been for the past 18 years. She found herself fretting about how Hailey would manage on her own and how she would be a mother at a distance. What was she going to do with herself now that her daughter didn't need her anymore in the same ways that left her scheduling and filling her time?
As she responded to her therapist's inquiries, she recognized how being a mom, up close, was so defining of who she was. She realized she really didn't know what she was going to do now that this part of her life was changing. She recognized, with great discomfort, how much life with Hailey filled the void between her and Dave. Their talks and activities were so much about their daughter that they weren't sharing much about anything else. She worried they would not be able to re-create the spark and enthusiasm they had once felt for each other. As though this was not enough, her therapist started to ask her about her own high school graduation and how her parents had been around her celebration and leave-taking. The endings to those sessions were very different. Instead of feeling relief and lightness, Cynthia found her mood darker and her thinking more confused.
On one occasion, she became so upset with her therapist for her persistent prodding that she almost stormed out of the office wanting to quit therapy altogether. That night, as she sat gloomily alone, Dave and his ball game in the background, she found herself starting to well up with strong emotions. In contrast to her upset over Hailey's graduation, her parents were very present, very joyful, and very proud. They were filled with excitement for her and her friends and even made them the best party. But then things changed. She realized, through her memory, that she had buried her confusion when her father picked her up alone for Thanksgiving break. Their holiday celebration was smaller than usual and her mom brought in most of the meal instead of cooking it herself. In great discomfort, she remembered her mom being very quiet when she alone drove her back to school. It being just a long weekend didn't cause Cynthia any marked recognition, especially since she was so excited to see her friends. Christmas break with the long January interlude was a different story. Though they tried to cover it with smiles and laughs, Cynthia realized her parents were not getting along. In fact, they were now sleeping in separate rooms. When she asked her mom about it, she laughed and said Dad's snoring had finally gotten to her. Cynthia didn't buy it. Her father seemed upset and angry all the time. Her parents weren't having friends over as they usually did and their interactions felt lifeless. Not wanting to think about the past anymore, Cynthia decided to go to bed. As she washed up, she realized this must have been the beginning of their end. Indeed, by the finish of her freshman year, when she came home for summer break, she found out that her dad had taken his own apartment and the house was up for sale. Her parents were getting divorced. That night she found herself snuggling close to Dave. In her next therapy session, she recounted her gloomy realizations and recognized how she had buried so many upsetting feelings associated with her own graduation from high school. Through her wailing tears, she realized how afraid she was for her own self, her marriage, and her daughter. Once again feeling better as she left her appointment, she conceded how much she appreciated her therapist's probing questions. It was this activity that led her to connect how this new beginning for Hailey was bringing back buried feelings and memories that were impacting her as she faced a part of her life ending when she was also having her own new beginning.
What was happening—and what you can do about it
1. It is important to recognize that graduation is a time of deep emotion for parents and children. They can have very different emotional reactions, and partners may have different emotions from each other. Both parents and children may have simultaneous seemingly conflicting emotions, feeling happy for their child but also fearful of the changes yet to come.
2. A parent may feel a deep sense of loss reflecting on the impending separation and the need to redefine their role. As hands-on parenting is less prominent in their daily lives, that can feel confusing and leave a void in a sense of purpose. It can also be a time to reinvigorate your partnership.
3. One's past experience with separations from one's own family may influence how it feels to see one's child go off to school. As seen in Cynthia's experience, it is very important that a parent work these feelings out so their child can be kept free from their emotional struggles and able to focus on their own feelings. Your child is having their own profound reactions to this period of time in their own lives.
4. Recognize that your feelings about your child and for yourself will evolve as you continue to feel and think about them. Talking them through with your partner and/or friends can be very useful. Psychotherapy can be very helpful.
5. Most importantly, talk about this transition with your child, keeping in mind that the conversation can be ongoing and one in which you reflect anew on perspectives as they become clearer to you.
Postscript
Though she cried as she watched Hailey receive her diploma at graduation, Cynthia was filled with joy and pride as she handed her daughter a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. She and Dave hosted an after-prom party for Hailey and her friends. Dave complimented her on the great efforts she had made, including making Hailey's favorite, key lime pie. As they stood on their porch watching the festivities in their backyard, Cynthia held Dave's arm tight and appreciated his laughter with Hailey and his affection towards her.
Staring at her daughter, in the midst of her celebration, Cynthia found herself smiling and tearing at the same time. As she did, a warm sense of joy settled in her. At that moment, she recognized how this was not only an ending. It was a new opportunity for all of them—one in which she could realign her ways of mothering, invigorate her life with Dave, and refind interests she had let go of when she became a mom. At the top of her list was that book on therapy she had read in college. Who knows what lay ahead, but whatever it was, she could face up to what was occurring for herself and her daughter and their new beginning.
