Peggy Nardini was so sad when her twins left for college last year that she kept the doors to their rooms closed. When she recently dropped them off for their second year away, she felt the same pull at her heart. “That initial moment when you give them that hug goodbye, when you walk away from the dorm and back to the car without them – that was awfully hard,” says Nardini, 48, a secretary in Madrid, Iowa. Her son and daughter go to different colleges about two hours away from home. “You want to teach your kids to fly out of the nest,” she says, “but you don’t want them to actually do it”/Megan K. Scott, AP. More here.

Question: What can parents do when children leave the nest?