Five Tips for Talking to Kids about Estrangement

“Mom, why don’t you talk to Grandma?”

Being an adult in a family with estranged loved ones feels challenging. Being a child witnessing that dynamic can be even more difficult. What does an adult daughter say to her child who asks why she doesn’t have a grandma? How do the adults in a child’s life explain estrangement? What can be shared when a child comes home with a family tree assignment and asks why they don’t have lots of family members like other kids? 

Over the years, child therapists and grief experts have emphasized the importance of straightforward and truthful answers to children regarding all sorts of difficult topics, including death and suicide. When it comes to the emotionally charged topic of estrangement, the same rules can apply. Let’s look at five tips for speaking to kids about estrangement:

1. Keep it Short and Straightforward

You may have heard of the acronym KISS. In our example, KISS stands for Keep it Short and Straightforward. The length of the explanation is directly related to the child’sage. Meaning a short, simple answer for a young child and a potentially longer, more detailed explanation for a teenager who wants to know what happened. Straightforward is important to emphasize because it captures the importance of being honest in our disclosures as parents. Just as mental health professionals would dissuade a parent from encouraging a child to view death as “the person is just sleeping,” to avoid or lie about a family estrangement could also backfire and have harmful consequences. 

2. Breathe

It’s understandable that your child’s questions about the estrangement can bring up emotions for you. It’s also not uncommon to overshare when feeling anxious or irritated. A great way to keep your emotions in check is to take a breath and ask your child what they want to know about the estrangement. Their answer may surprise you! 

3. Share as Much as They Want to Know

Don’t panic! As we alluded to in the previous tip, kids may have a simple thing they want to know that surprises you. They may have a quick question that doesn’t warrant significant anxiety, like asking where the person lives or if they look like anyone else in the family, or how old they are. Or they may want to know more about the conflict that led up to the estrangement, which would warrant a more detailed response. Even in this instance, taking a moment to pause allows you to remain mindful of what you share, keeping it focused on simple, straightforward details while grounding yourself in your emotions to avoid unintentionally oversharing with your child.

4. Validate their Feelings

It goes without saying that acknowledging your child’s emotions can go a long way in this conversation. How are they feeling with the information you shared? What if they are feeling sad, angry, or confused? Do they feel it’s safe to express these emotions to you?

5. Encourage other questions if they have them now or in the future.

Sometimes kids don’t know what other questions they have until they have some time to process what you’ve already shared. By saying out loud that they are welcome to ask other questions at any time provides a sense of reassurance and safety that it’s okay to come to you with questions, which most parents want their kids to do when navigating difficult topics of all kinds.

What would you add? With one in 12 people being estranged from at least one family member, the likelihood of kids having questions about family estrangement is pretty high. Check out our model of this conversation in our children’s book Penny McGee’s Family Tree: Talking to kids about estrangement. You can do this!

Four Signs of Readiness to Reconcile with your Estranged Adult Child

You want to reconcile with your adult child, so what do you need to consider or do to make that happen? What needs to be in place for efforts to reconcile to be successful? Let’s take a look at four aspects that might support your process of re-engaging your adult child.

1. Identifying Readiness to Reengage

Consider the following tough questions regarding your readiness to reconcile with your adult child:

1. Why do you want to reconcile? Being honest with yourself is the first step. Do you want to repair the relationship? Do you want to feel heard and validated in your choices? Are you looking to get even? Do you want a relationship with your grandchildren? There are any number of reasons why a parent wants to reconcile, and being prepared with a response for yourself and your estranged adult child should they ask would be an important first step.
   

2. What are your expectations of the reconciled relationship? As humans, it’s not uncommon to hear folks say they want everything to go back to the way it was, or to start over, both of which would be problematic for the estranger/adult child who made this choice reflecting that something wasn’t right. Going backward or to sameness would be a significant issue for them. What do you want the reconciled relationship to look like? Recognize that the relationship could be better or worse, but most likely just different. 

3. What steps will you agree to for reconciliation? As you attempt
   to reengage your adult child, what offerings or compromises can you accept? Are you open to phone calls to start? Are you willing to have a relationship with your daughter-in-law but not speak to your estranged son? Are you pursuing a relationship with your grandchildren, even if it means you aren’t on speaking terms with their mother? Knowing your own boundaries in the reconciliation process will help both you and your adult child navigate the testing phase of reconciliation. 

4. What can you take responsibility for? In other words, have you done your own reflection of what happened? Are you prepared to accept your adult child’s accusations and avoid arguing? Can you clearly name the offending actions prior to estrangement being pursued? Are you clear on the priority being repairing the relationship over determining whose memories of events are right? 

Several authors say reconciliation is possible by owning your behavior and acknowledging your adult child’s experience. Although it’s tempting, arguing about the accuracy of their memories of trauma or abuse isn’t helpful. This is their experience as they know it. Even though you may remember something completely different, arguing about what happened will further drive the wedge between you and your adult child. Instead, consider family therapy. Consider focusing on the future instead of the past. Be accepting of their hurt and resulting caution in wanting to take it slow to see if the relationship is mendable. Be prepared for tests from them to determine your truthfulness and authenticity. Several authors emphasize that reconciliation can take years. 

2. Pinpointing Parent Dynamics 

What about when one parent is still talking to their estranged adult child. Is this a good idea? In my experience, it’s rare to have one parent in contact with their estranged adult child because of the assumed unification between parents who are still in a committed relationship with one another. Your estranged child might worry that their information will be shared with the parent they are choosing not to be in contact with. The experience of one parent being talked to by an estranged child may be more common with divorced parents because your lives are separate. In this situation, an adult child might feel it is safer to connect with one parent without the risk of information being shared with the other without their consent. 

3. Recognizing Shared Grief 

It may be difficult to imagine that your adult child is experiencing their own grief and loss reaction in response to the estrangement, but they are. Although they may look calm, even relieved, Agillas (2016), author of Family Estrangement: A Matter of Perspective, shares that survey respondents indicate similar grief responses and symptoms to the shared estrangement status, including anticipatory grief when considering the decision to estrange, and post-traumatic stress symptoms for weeks or months after. Adult children report symptoms of sadness, helplessness, anger, and shock when choosing estrangement. Unlike grief and loss as the result of a family member’s death, there isn’t a sense of finality or closure when it comes to grief associated with estrangement. This experience of grief emphasizes how difficult the decision to become estranged from a parent can be, especially when the adult child indicates they are having to choose between several hard choices to protect their physical or mental health. 

4. Supporting Self-Awareness 

A significant part of reconnecting with your adult child or healing and moving toward acceptance of the estrangement is doing your own work. How can you gain clarity on the parts you played in the relationship rupture? What contrasting evidence do you have for healthy familial relationships? Where can you bridge the gaps to show up as your healthiest, authentic self for possible reconciliation? What reframes can you discover in the estrangement to help you heal? Agllias (2016) describes the pursuit of enhanced self-awareness as a critical part of the process of learning how to live with estrangement. Although we can’t predict the final outcome of your efforts, the hope is that any self- awareness work you complete will benefit you at this stage of your life, regardless of the final relationship status with your adult child. 

Another strategy to consider in your own estrangement healing is to recall the positive qualities or memories of your adult child’s younger years. Although you may not be speaking at present, which is incredibly painful, can you feel more connected to them by recognizing the values you both share? For one family I spoke to, the shared value was a never-wavering commitment to their spouses, regardless of what their family members thought of them. Instead of focusing on being angry that they were not on speaking terms, the parent was able to uncover respect for their adult child who had conveyed a strong message of loyalty and commitment to their partners or spouses, in response to scrutiny or judgment by the family. With some time and space, this parent found themselves admitting this response was admirable because they, too, would feel compelled to defend and align with their spouse as well. 

As a parent of an estranged adult child, you are riding waves of uncertainty on if reconciliation with your adult child is possible. Fortunately, there are several books available to take a deeper dive into the reconciliation process or that focus on healing from permanent estrangement with your adult child. Check out the following books written for parents: 

• Rules of Estrangement by Joshua Coleman (2021);
  

• Done with the Crying by Sheri McGregor (2016); and
  

• Estrangement of Parents by Their Adult Children, revised second
  edition by Sharon Waters (2019).
  

Your efforts to reflect and grow from the estrangement can be empowering, while also supporting reconciliation efforts with your adult child should they choose to reengage you to explore repairing the relationship. Although we can’t predict your outcomes, we do believe reconciliation is possible if both parties come in with authenticity, communication, and open hearts.

The Effects of Estrangement on Adult Children

What if I told you that the experience of estrangement often feels like someone has died? At least initially. It’s not an easy decision for adult children who estrange from their parents (as one example) and experts have discovered that the grief and loss response to estrangement is similar to our anguish or pain response when someone we love dies. Dr. Kylie Agllias (2016) recognizes that “estrangement is a particularly difficult loss to accept because it has no predetermined outcomes or end points.” Within her research, Agllias (2016) describes a grief response to estrangement where a person is mourning someone as if they have died, which can feel painfully accurate when permanent estrangement occurs and reconciliation isn’t an option.

Symptoms of Estrangement

Even with personal agency to end a relationship through their choice to estrange, many adult children can’t predict the significant reactions and emotions that will arise with their decision, resulting in feeling a sense of shock when they are fully immersed in it. They struggle with grief and loss symptoms, some of which include:

● Sadness

● Anger

● Shock

● Helplessness

● Shame

● Guilt

● Loss of identity

● Feelings of blame

● Feelings of failure

● Social avoidance

The estranged adult child may report strain and mistrust in other relationships due to the circumstances of their estrangement. They may report difficulty trusting others or leaning significantly on their partner or other family members to prove that estrangement is not the fate of all their family relationships. An adult child may report symptoms of anxiety or trauma responses, such as:

● Muscle tension

● Headaches

● Hypervigilance

● Sleep disturbance

● Difficulty controlling thoughts

● Avoidance

● Rumination on all that happened prior to estrangement

● Flashbacks

With prolonged symptoms and repeat triggers for grief, the stress of the relationship rupture can result in chronic stress symptoms for some adult children, especially women including:

● Hair loss

● Weight gain

● Inflammation

● Moodiness

● Elevated cortisol levels

● Adrenal fatigue

● Thyroid conditions

● Sleep disruption

● Water retention

● Brain fog

● Headaches

● Fatigue

It’s not hard to imagine how reporting these symptoms to a medical doctor could lead to a diagnosis of anxiety, depression, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). However, are we missing the mark in not asking about relationships and their contribution to an individual’s symptoms? It could generate a clearer clinical picture to ask a client or patient to describe their current relationships by asking questions like, “How are your relationships right now? Who are you closest to in your family? Who do you rely on for support?” By asking several questions about family dynamics and relationships, professional helpers begin to explore the physical, emotional, and relational impact of estrangement on an adult child’s mental health presentation when seeking support or starting therapy. 

It’s important to emphasize that not all symptoms listed above have to be present, nor do they have to be severe or long-lasting. Some folks will have the symptoms they experience from estrangement lessen over time, similar to other grief and loss experiences where symptom intensity may be reduced with time and space. Some healing happens in a process we’ve named the Estrangement Energy Cycle.

The Estrangement Energy Cycle

The Estrangement Energy Cycle starts with a pattern or cycle of abuse. This may be the culmination of various attachment traumas from childhood that were not acknowledged or addressed by a parent, or it can be a series of events that have happened more recently in the adult child’s life.

After gaining awareness about an abuse cycle, an adult child can move into a stage of questioning. This can reflect their ambivalence about the parent-child relationship, including questioning their own part in it not feeling healthy or good enough. This stage can also represent an adult child wondering if they try harder or communicate more effectively, maybe they can get through to their parent.

If an adult child determines that the cycle of abuse and dynamics within the parent-child relationship are damaging to their health, they may then move into relationship rupture. This is a painful stage where the processing of the abuse and the implications for how it’s shaping the adult child’s life in the present cannot be unseen or ignored any longer. Typically an internal process where they recognize the impact of abuse, they may have epiphanies about poor boundaries and people-pleasing, or identify a connection between their quest for perfection and seeking approval and love from a parent. Relationship rupture can also occur from an additional event of hurt or violation from the parent in question, that pushes the adult child from contemplation to preparation for estrangement in wanting the repeated abuse to end. 

From a painful relationship rupture comes the active choice to become estranged. The choice is a challenging one, resulting in a move toward grief and loss. The grief and loss stage includes finding space for the adult child’s emotions and self-doubt about their relationship with their parent. After extensive grief and loss work, an adult child can move to discovering a new sense of self. How will they define themselves now that estrangement from their parent has occurred? What will other relationships look like with healthy boundaries in place? An adult child may seek new communities of connection and new hobbies or interests in feeling unburdened from the unhealthy relationship or repeated conflict with their parent. 

The deeper work comes with the support of others, whether it be a spiritual congregation, wellness-focused community, or engaging in ongoing mental health therapy. An adult child may recognize that they’ve done all they can on their own to heal from this estrangement, but find they need additional support and guidance to continue the work. The final stage of the Estrangement Energy Cycle is redefining self- worth. Through hard work, reflection, and developing healthy relationships with others, an adult child can begin to regain self-worth separate from their parent. This may be finding the bandwidth to set boundaries with others, challenging people-pleasing urges, and practicing saying no, as just a few examples.

Each adult child’s journey is different in how they heal from estrangement, however we have some ideas from the clients we’ve served in therapy for the last twelve years. Check out our book Understanding Ruptured Mother-Daughter Relationships: Guiding the Adult Daughter’s Healing Journey through the Estrangement Energy Cycle and access all our therapeutic tools for adult daughters available for download at estrangementenergycycle.com.

Challenging Ten Assumptions about Estrangement

As the author of a book on mother-daughter relationship rupture speaking to adult daughters and the therapists that serve them, I would be doing women a disservice if I didn’t name and challenge the assumptions others make of estrangement. The community at large, as well as a handful of authors, have taken it upon themselves to be the voice of estranged parents everywhere. These parents, in an effort to understand the causes of their estrangement, report a number of similarities in their children that they feel contribute to why they have chosen to disconnect from their parents, which has led to the following assumptions:

1. Selfishness

The first assumption is that adult children who choose estrangement from their parents are selfish. They are accused of being self-centered, narcissistic, and focused only on themselves. We argue that adult children who choose estrangement from their parents do so for a variety of reasons, none of which are solely selfish in nature. Rather, the choice to estrange comes from an effort to protect themselves, partners, and children from further pain or trauma from their parents. Therefore, this difficult choice may be for the well-being of others in addition to themselves and doesn’t omit them from their own grief and loss response when disconnecting from a parent.

2. Suddenness

Many parents of estranged adult children claim that the estrangement came on suddenly, sometimes without warning. Upon further reflection, parents are usually able to pinpoint signs that their sons and daughters were not happy with the relationship, but perhaps didn’t feel it would result in estrangement. Although it may feel sudden, the process of deciding to estrange from a parent takes significant time and energy for an adult child. Contrary to assumptions that choosing estrangement is easy for adult children, many spend significant mental energy evaluating and re-evaluating their options in not wanting to miss an opportunity to improve the situation.

3. Therapist Recommendation

Another assumption is that therapists are encouraging or championing estrangement for their adult clients. Oftentimes found in the same breath as the word ‘boundaries,’ parents and professionals alike feel that therapists are pushing an agenda for adult children to be estranged from their parents in response to trauma. As a mental health professional myself, I can see where certain clients may seek out advice or interpret a conversation about boundaries as permission to cut off a parent. However, a quality professional will remain neutral and help their client explore the implications of remaining in a relationship cycle that feels healthy or unhealthy, reaffirming that the client is the sole decision maker within their own life.

4. Exaggerated Trauma

Trauma remains a primary theme for exploration of estrangement. Several authors lament on how adult children may exaggerate their experiences of trauma to reinforce their decision to become estranged from their parents. To serve as a means to vilify and justify cutting off a parent. The challenge here is that society fails to recognize that trauma is defined by the person who experiences it. It is not our job to argue about what is and is not, trauma. Instead, trauma work remains an appropriate modality in the therapy space in order to explore healing and goals for adult children seeking change in their lives.

5. Refusal to Reconcile

Parents want to believe that reconciliation is an option, and yet for some, it will not be a choice. Rather than seeing this refusal to reconcile as a ploy for power and control by an adult child over their parent, it’s important to explore the circumstances for when reconciliation isn’t appropriate. For families damaged by repeated physical or sexual abuse, for example, reconciliation can feel like wishful thinking. How do we acknowledge the damage a parent-child relationship can suffer when subjected to repeated physical abuse? What supports reconciliation when a mom aligns with a boyfriend who is sexually assaulting her daughter? Each adult child’s choice to reconcile or not is to be respected because reconciliation remains difficult to near impossible for some individuals.

6. Too Much Toxic

The word ‘toxic' has shown up frequently in media for at least the last decade if not longer. As it became associated with relationship dynamics, this word has been seen alongside the words ‘estrangement’ or ‘family estrangement’ more often. Some folks believe that adult children are using this word to justify their decision to estrange from their parents and to seek sympathy from others by painting themselves as victims. This viewpoint only serves to discount the actual harm victims of abuse have suffered. Toxic as a word, has encouraged folks to cleanse themselves of toxins, including unhealthy relationships. What if describing a relationship as toxic is a means of simplifying something immensely confusing and painful? Toxic may serve as a label for an experience that we don’t have the emotional energy or desire to explain to someone else because of the stigma, judgment, or emotions it stirs up when talking about it. 

7. False Memories

A common disclosure found in interviews and surveys of estranged parents is that they have been accused by their adult children of neglect, abuse, or of being a bad parent. Additionally, parents can claim that their adult children possess false memories of abusive or unsafe situations that did not occur per the parent’s recollection, leaving parents baffled and confused. Trauma has a way of being stored in people’s memories in different ways with different things being the focus, which can mean one person’s recollection can look completely different than another’s. It’s a similar phenomenon to why eye-witness testimony doesn’t hold up well in court. You can interview three witnesses and get three completely different recollections of the events that took place. Parents are left feeling angry that their children are subscribing to false memories in order to validate their decision to separate or abandon a parent when in actuality, an adult child’s reports of mistreatment, however inaccurate to the parent, deserve curiosity and compassion if there is to be any hope of repairing the relationship.

8. Mental Health Problems

Another common culprit in the blame-game of estrangement is mental health. The seeking of mental health diagnoses or labels placed on either the adult child or parent can be problematic and stigmatizing. In several books supporting estranged parents, authors argue that adult children may have undiagnosed mental health issues such as Bipolar Disorder that cause them to seek estrangement from their parents. Which, as a mental health professional, feels like dangerous ground because of how simplified it sounds. It’s possible that some adult children have mental health challenges or diagnoses that make them more likely to pursue estrangement. Equally possible, however, are times where a parent’s mental health could be a factor in why estrangement is pursued when their children grow up. Perhaps it’s severe depression, PTSD, or a personality disorder that prevents a parent from attaching or showing up consistently for their child. By no means is mental health the only factor to consider in the research on estrangement, and if we are going to look at mental health within the family, it’s best to look at the mental health of both adult children and their parents in our quest for answers on the growing rates of parent-adult child estrangement.

9. Control Over Grandchildren

An increasing concern for estranged parents is access to their grandchildren when their adult child chooses to estrange from them. One assumption we saw reinforced in several books on the subject was that adult children use grandchildren and withholding contact from those grandchildren as punishment for parents' poor choices. Although this is a possibility for some adult children who are angry about the mistreatment they’ve felt they’ve received from their parents, the clients I’ve served over the years are more likely to limit contact between grandparents and their grandchildren when they are worried that the abuse or neglect they experienced in their own childhood could be repeated with their kids. In an effort to protect their children or to break an unhealthy relationship cycle, they may prevent contact between grandparents and grandchildren.

10. Pettiness

Our last in the list of assumptions about estrangement is the accusation of adult children being petty in their refusal to reconcile or re-engage in a relationship with their parent(s). The underlying theme of most media representation that sides with parents conveys a concern that adult children are refusing out of spite. To punish their parents. To hold power over them. As you might guess, this remains another narrow view of the complexities that contribute to family estrangement. It may very well feel this way to a parent who is confused or hurt by their adult child’s actions. However, it can also serve as an opportunity to get curious about their adult child’s viewpoint on holding rigid or strong boundaries. What would their adult child say when asked what they need to repair the relationship? 

Assumptions of estrangement are widespread. This could be because of the emotional charge it leaves in both adult children and their parents, as well as the limited research to date that could shed light on why estrangement is being pursued more often in response to family conflict. By challenging these assumptions, we can find ourselves successfully providing a compassionate, judgment-free space for ourselves and others experiencing estrangement in their families. We invite adult daughters to check out our book Understanding Ruptured Mother-Daughter Relationships: Guiding the Adult Daughter’s Healing Journey through the Estrangement Energy Cycle and access all our therapeutic tools available for download at estrangementenergycycle.com. 

What is the Estrangement Energy Cycle for Adult Daughters Estranged from their Mothers?

Would it surprise you to know that 1 in 12 people is estranged from at least one family member (Agllias, 2016)? With estrangement on the rise, further exploration is needed to best understand the complexities that contribute to making estrangement possible in families. As a mental health professional, I first wrote about estrangement and adult daughters in 2020, asking my therapist colleagues if they too were seeing a pattern in women who were contemplating estrangement from a parent in their clinical work. From that blog, I felt called to take a deeper dive into the cycle of events adult daughters may experience when considering mother-daughter estrangement, a cycle I came to call Estrangement Energy.

There are various stages a daughter may work through by herself or within therapy as she explores her relationship with her mother. Let’s take Gina* as one example. Gina sought out therapy for processing her divorce, expressing interest in grief and loss work as well as reporting feelings of depression and failure when attempting to meet her children’s needs. As Gina moved towards deeper work on her relationships, she began to question why she allowed multiple people in her life to exert power and control over her. She discovered that the start of this relational pattern resided with her mother.

Cycle of Abuse

Gina engaged in a personal narrative that helped her to recognize her mother’s behaviors as physically and verbally abusive. She had learned to cope with her mother’s volatile mood swings by reading her body language, voice, and mannerisms to best determine if she should engage her mom or go hide in her room until the emotional storm blew over. 

Questioning

Having made the connection between an unpredictable and oftentimes unsafe childhood and her honed skill of reading others’ moods, Gina uncovered suppressed feelings of anger and outrage at her mother’s behavior. She began to question her current relationship with her mother and the long term effects it was having on her mental health.

Relationship Rupture

Gina wanted to talk to her mother further about her childhood and the impact on her life, yet every time she attempted to share her memories and feelings about events, her mother told Gina she was exaggerating and remembered things wrong.

Estrangement

Feeling devastated and minimized, Gina determined that she needed some distance from her mother. She started by reducing the amount of time she spent with her, claiming her work and her daughters kept her busy, which were partly true.

Grief and Loss

As the contact between Gina and her mother dwindled, Gina felt a mix of sadness and relief. On one hand, she felt she had more time and energy to give to people in her life who valued and appreciated her. But on the other hand, Gina was grieving the loss of the mother she wanted and needed—one who could respect her and love her unconditionally.

Discovering Sense of Self

Amidst her grief, Gina found herself seeking new experiences that left her feeling vibrant and alive.

Deeper Work

As Gina began to discover herself and her identity without mom, she found she still struggled with the idea of dating and intimate partner relationships. Her latest therapeutic goal was to address underlying fears of intimacy and connectedness, which resulted in uncovering negative core beliefs of being unworthy, unlovable, and not enough.

Redefining Self-Worth

Gina’s therapeutic journey left her feeling stronger and more present that she had in the past. She celebrated having stability at work and solid relationships with her friends. Gina took her role as a mother seriously, wanting something completely different for her daughters than what she’d had with her own mother.

Each client’s story is unique, and yet Gina’s story is one inspired by multiple clients seeking therapy at a critical point in their relationships with their mothers. Estrangement is a challenging and emotional choice that oftentimes leads to an adult daughter seeking therapy for additional support. Whether her goal is reconciliation with mother or full estrangement, having a solid understanding of the estrangement process and stages, as well as tools that can support her on her journey supports each woman in doing this deep and oftentimes difficult work.

For more on mother-daughter estrangement and the Estrangement Energy Cycle, check out our book Understanding Ruptured Mother-Daughter Relationships: Guiding the Adult Daughter’s Healing Journey through the Estrangement Energy Cycle and access all our therapeutic tools available for download at estrangementenergycycle.com.