Judy Holland - Happinest: Finding Fulfillment When Your Kids Leave Home

Praise for HappiNest

I don't say this lightly: this book could save your life. With middle-aged adults, particularly women, dying younger than previous generations from diseases of despair, finding a renewed sense of purpose and zest during the empty nest period is a recipe for happiness and meaning. Judy Holland has brilliantly woven together stories, research, and checklists that will appeal to anyone who wants to find out how to fill the empty nest in important ways. Caroline Adams Miller, author of Creating Your Best Life and Getting Grit

Beautifully written, interesting, and compelling. Holland teaches us about the challenges that empty nesters face, and, ultimately, about life itself. Highly recommended! Annette Lareau, Professor of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania; author of Unequal childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life

In her book HappiNest, Holland presents a vivid road map to help you navigate uncharted territory when your last child leaves home. This thought-provoking and evidence-based book presents valuable insights and practical advice such as how to set ground rules if your child boomerangs back into the household, how to prune and cultivate friendships for more soul per square inch, and how to add spark, novelty, and joy to your empty nest marriage. HappiNest entertains, enlightens, and eases the passage into the second half of life. David J. Pollay, MAPP, best-selling author of The Law of the Garbage Truck

With the variety of stories included in HappiNest, Holland provides a wealth of support and suggestions to help readers effectively manage this transition. Just like the title promises, the book absolutely delivers engaging and inspiring ideas that will set the reader on a path to a new type of personal fulfillment. Suzanne Degges-White, professor and chair, Department of Counseling and Higher Education, Northern Illinois University; author of Sisters and Brothers for Life: Making Sense of Sibling Relationships in Adulthood

When the children finally leave the nest, women and men can find themselves challenged by a new stage in their lives. Hollands book tells these parents not to despair! There are many roads to happiness, and Holland provides them with insightful tools and tips for self-fulfillment as they take this exciting new journey. Jocelyn Elise Crowley, PhD, author of Gray Divorce: What We Lose and Gain from Mid-life Splits

We have been in the empty nest for thirty years and work with couples dealing with empty nest issues. Hollands book, HappiNest, is by far the best resource available today for all those who want to prepare for and enjoy this stage of life. She has done her homework and gathered the best research, advice from experts, and good commonsense tips to guide you through the challenges of the empty nest years. A must-read if you are near or in the empty nestor even if your nest has refilled! Claudia and David Arp, MSW, authors of The Second Half of Marriage

Holland has written an exceptional book balancing personal narratives with sound empirical evidence focusing on the complex and dynamic process of the empty nest. She offers a thick description of the struggles, rewards, and multiple challenges that parents face as their children leave home (and sometimes return), while simultaneously maintaining and managing their own intimate relationships with each other, friends, and their children. Holland gives sound advice that can help us successfully make our way through this inevitable and significant life transition. I highly recommend this book to all parents, and departing children as well, who will soon, or who are in the lifelong process of transitioning to the empty nest. Jon F. NussBaum, liberal arts professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and Human Development and Family Studies, Penn State University

HappiNest is a great resource for those parents who find they have been successful at what they have been working toward for almost two decades (getting their children out of the house) and yet, when the time actually comes, find it may not be as easy to deal with as they thought. Elizabeth Lombardo, PhD, best-selling author of Better Than Perfect: 7 Strategies to Crush Your Inner Critic and Create a Life You Love

Very few people in the past felt either the luxury or the loneliness of having an empty nest. Holland perceptively analyzes why this stage of life has become a problem for many people and offers practical suggestions for how to deal with it. Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage

We live now in an era where most people have only one or two children and live to be at least 80 years old. That means there is a lot of life left once the kids leave home, as most do by their early twenties. This wise book provides a road map for how to make the most of the opportunities ahead once the nest has emptied out. and how to handle the challenges, too. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, author of Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens Through the Twenties

A wealth of information based on research and interviews done by an expert journalist; HappiNest will help navigate you out of the lonely post-kids woods into a joyful next chapter. John JW and Pamela Gaye Walker, EmptyNestersPlay.com

"A thoughtful meditation on living as an empty-nester, this book is chock full ideas inspired by philosophy, social science, and hundreds of real-life experiences. Holland has written a rich and compassionate work that will surely help the many who will read it not only avoid despair and isolation but, more importantly, lead increasingly meaningful and fulfilled lives. An inspiring and sorely needed work." Mario Luis Small, PhD, Grafstein Family Professor of Sociology, Harvard University

HappiNest

Finding Fulfillment When Your Kids Leave Home

Judy Holland

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

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Copyright 2020 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

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