Sep 17, 2025
I was talking to a reporter the other day about one of those psychological ideas that explains so much but doesn’t get talked about enough. It’s called “soiling the nest,” and if you’ve got a teen who’s about to fly the coop, you might have seen it in action. It’s that strange, frustrating phase where a kid who’s almost an adult suddenly starts making a mess of things right on the brink of success. It’s not them being bad on purpose. It’s more tightening than that. It’s them being scared.
Think about it from their side for a second. For years, home has been their whole world—the rules, the comforts, the safety. And now the pressure is on to leave it all behind and become a fully formed adult, as if by magic. That’s a terrifying thought. So sometimes, without even realizing it, their fear comes out sideways. The straight-A student stops doing homework. The reliable kid picks fights over nothing. The teen with a job shows up late until they get fired. It looks like rebellion, but if you listen closely, it sounds a lot like a quiet, panicked question: “What if I can’t do it? What if I fail out there?” Messing things up at home almost creates a reason to stay. It’s a lot easier to get grounded than it is to admit you’re terrified.
I think the hardest part for parents is not to take it personally. It feels like a rejection of you and everything you’ve taught them. But it’s really not about you at all. It’s about this huge, overwhelming feeling of inadequacy they’re wrestling with alone. Their brains are wired for big feelings, not calm conversations, so they act out their fear instead of talking about it. The trick is to shift from being the enforcer of rules to being a detective of feelings. Instead of asking “Why did you get this F?” you might try, “I’ve noticed school has been feeling like a lot lately. What’s going on?” The goal is to open a door, not to win an argument.
So what do you do when this starts happening? First, just listen. And I mean really listen, like a sounding board. They don’t need you to swoop in and fix it right that second. They just need to feel heard. A simple “That sounds really tough” can do more than a dozen solutions. And some of the best talks happen when you’re not even looking at each other—in the car, or while you’re both doing the dishes. The pressure is off, and the truth often comes tumbling out.
And for the teens reading this, maybe because your parent sent it to you, try this. See if you can name the weird feeling in your stomach. Is it fear? Is it sadness about leaving your friends? Just saying it to yourself, or writing it down, makes it smaller and less powerful. And remember, your parents are just worried about you. They’re on your team, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.
Finally, remember that leaving isn’t the end of your relationship. It’s just a change. A quick text about a funny thing you saw, or a short call to complain about the cafeteria food, these little things build a new kind of bridge between you. It’s not about checking up anymore; it’s about checking in. The whole point is to become the home they know they can always come back to, not the nest they felt they had to make a mess of just to leave. It’s a messy, confusing time for everyone, but a little understanding goes a very long way.