Children Who Divorce Us

.It was a delight to meet her recently at a conference for parents who are facing estrangement from one or more of their adult children. She is a tireless warrior for marriage and helping couples find ways to reconcile and grow rather than divorce. At this conference, the focus was on adult children divorcing from their parents. It was a very tough gathering of parents who are dealing with an estranged child. There were tears and stories exchanged about the cutoff from their child, but also hope and support from others who have experienced the wounding of being rejected by an adult child. As one mother with whom I worked put it: having an adult child who refuses any contact with me is worse than if they had died.

Ambiguous Loss and Therapist’s Mistakes

What she was describing was the experience of “ambiguous loss,” a phrase coined by Pauline Boss, a professor I had in graduate school. It is a loss that you can’t fully grieve because the person is still alive but has refused contact. Unfortunately, there is a growing trend of young adults cutting off contact with their parents at some point. The reasons may differ, from perceived abuse to overcontrol by parents to disagreements about values such as religion, gender roles, and politics.

Unfortunately, my therapist colleagues can inadvertently contribute to this trend by accepting and supporting the narrative the young adult brings as to why they have cut off contact with the parents. These therapists fail to contact the parent to get a better understanding of the parent’s experience, and even more troubling is buying into labels of a parent as narcissistic or toxic. I have to confess, in the past, I have done this by buying only the young adult’s perspective and not trying to get the parent’s view. My work currently is focused on parents, and although I have had a few cases where estrangement has occurred, I like to think that my work can prevent this.

Working Upstream

I tell my colleague, Josh Coleman, who is the expert on estrangement and has written a book entitled Rules of Estrangement, that I work upstream from him and try to prevent the cut-off from either the young adult or parent side. My most popular blog article is “Never Kick Your Young Adult Out of the House.”

In this article, I try to normalize the event of leaving the home if the adult child can’t abide by certain nonnegotiable rules. I acknowledge their desire to live someplace without such parental rules, and I help them find another place to live, set up an apartment, give them furniture, etc.  It doesn’t have to be an angry time of rejection. In other words, if you can’t fight them or, in this case, control their behavior, then join them in finding another place to live with your blessing.

Avoiding Estrangement

So, what are the practices that will help avoid estrangement? It’s important to acknowledge that the young adult has all of the power and can cut off communication any time. The six practices described in my book, The Parent’s Launch Code, give parents the best chance of heading off estrangement. These include expressing and demonstrating unconditional love for them as your child, no matter their behavior. This includes behavior of rejecting the parents’ efforts to communicate or engage their child. We must never stop loving our kids.

Second, start in the early teens to build a closer relationship, shifting from directing and controlling to consulting, coaching, and listening more. Shift the focus to how you can help them become who they want to be (identity), not who we want them to be, and on how they can experience and acquire more independence.

Third, the healing practices of apology and forgiveness are essential to addressing past offenses and mistakes – yours and theirs. Apology is the antidote to guilt and forgiveness is the antidote to resentment. We need to do both, and sometimes the biggest challenge is forgiving ourselves. The two launch pad practices include showing backbone with love and saying goodbye. As parents, we need to learn to say “no,” set boundaries, and stick to these so the young adult experiences a solid base for launching forward. 

Finally, the practice of saying goodbye and grieving the loss of the young adult is necessary and not easy, even if there may be some relief once the adult child leaves the home.

Conscious Parenting

When I have worked with couples, I have challenged them to build a conscious marriage. A marriage where they think about their approach and responsibilities and not default to autopilot of what they learned from their parents. My sense is Michelle Weiner-Davis takes a similar approach. Likewise, I try to coach parents into embracing and implementing the practices outlined above and not just doing what comes naturally because that’s what we learned. Young adults are different today; they are taking longer to launch, and as parents, we need to adjust our approach. We can all do better