estrangement

Parent-Child Estrangement Is Sometimes (But Not Always) About Abuse

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Girl, upset, with mother in backgroundI received the following feedback about an excerpt from my book, Reconnecting With Your Estranged Adult Child, and I wanted to respond.

Unfortunately, the feedback was anonymous.

Surely this person is not alone. So I thought I’d respond with a blog post…

S/he wrote:

I read through your entire page on Estrangement and I’ve got to say that it all felt a bit like you’re condoning the behaviour of abusive parents; telling them they need not feel any remorse for the suffering they’ve caused and they need to practice more self-compassion.

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Differentiation, Part 2

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In last week’s post I talked about how differentiation can contribute to estrangement between parents and their young adult children.

This continuation of that post talks about the married adult child, and offers some tips to help you trust the process.

Remember, differentiation is a normal and healthy part of human development. It’s not due to a lack of gratitude or character.

Everyone goes through differentiation, and if you pay very close attention to your own relationship to your parents, you’ll see it in action! Read More

Differentiation: “Normal” Estrangement From Parents?

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young woman holding out her handDo you have an adult child under 30 who’s pulling away from you?

It could be part of a normal process of development called differentiation.

We all know that children eventually (or rapidly!) grow into adults, but not without going through some developmental stages.

It’s easy to see these stages in kids’ behavior when they’re young. For example, something they used to love is now boring, or vice versa.

But technically, all of us remain adolescents until we’re 25. Read More

What to Do When Your Feelings Are Hurt

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Man with hurt feelings

When your feelings are hurt in a relationship, sometimes it seems like your only choices are 1) exact revenge, 2) stop talking to the person, or 3) try to forgive and forget.

But there’s another choice, one that’s often the better way to go with relationships that are important to you, and that is to communicate about what happened and how you feel about it.

For many of us, that’s a tall order. We have to be able to sort through our hurt feelings first AND we have to have the self-esteem to assert that our feelings matter in relationships. Read More