CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Can My Parent Become More Emotionally Mature?

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

In this episode, Whitney Goodman explores the complexities of emotional maturity, particularly in the context of adult children dealing with emotionally immature parents. She discusses the common fantasy that parents can change if children learn the right ways to interact with them, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness, accountability, and setting boundaries. Whitney also highlights cultural influences on emotional immaturity and provides insights into recognizing signs of potential growth in parents. Join The Family Cyclebreakers Club at Calling Home: www.callinghome.co/join Join my free webinar on January 21, 2025: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_j2TGSXofQMqQt-BhJLcFSA Estranged Adult Child Group: https://callinghome.co/estranged-adult-child-group Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. www.ca slash ymex. Hey everyone, welcome back to calling home. Happy Tuesday.

I'm your host, Whitney Goodman. I'm excited to be back this week for a solo episode. And we are going to be talking about if your parent can actually become more emotionally mature. And you can probably apply everything I'm going to talk about in this episode, honestly, to any family relationship where you find the person to be quite emotionally immature. So we'll get to that in a second. But first, I wanted to update you just on everything new at Calling Home, let you know what's up this week.

As you know, if you're a member of the Family Cycle Breakers Club, which is our membership community, it's an extension of this podcast. So if you like the podcast, you will love what happens in the community. We have new content that drops every Monday to help you with your family relationships. If you've ever listened to this podcast and thought, I really need to take this like one step further, or I'm just not actually making change. I'm getting a lot of knowledge and information, but I'm not doing anything with it, then the Family Cycle Breakers Club is for you. And this week on Monday added a new worksheet, which is your emotional maturity inventory, and that will help you identify what traits of emotional immaturity and emotional maturity that you have and really give you a good sense on what you might

want to work on. You can also use that to identify traits that come up with other people in other relationships and really help you get clear on what that looks like. I also also, put up a video about how to repair after you slip into emotional immaturity. I think this is so important. And I talked about this more in the episode on how to be more emotionally mature. There's a script, which is really a guide on just like how to say things. It's always a step-by-step guide with tips, scripts, exact things you can say in any situation. And this one is about how to communicate with emotional maturity while triggered. Some good scripts and advice there. And then the article that we have this week is about how to become more self-aware.

So if you're looking for any of that content, you can visit callinghome.co and join the Family Cycle Breakers Club and you'll get access to all of that plus all of our previous and future content. I am also hosting a free webinar today. I will link this in the show notes. If you are listening to this episode before 12 p.m. Eastern time, I will still be hosting that webinar in the future. So the webinar is for adult children of parents who will not apologize. And it's going to be all about grieving the apology that you're not getting, moving on, how to ask for an apology, all that good stuff. And that is free to join today at noon Eastern time. It will be recorded and the recording will be sent out to everyone that attended the webinar.

We also have a new group launching for adults who are estranged from their parents. And that's going to begin on Monday, January 27th at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, members of the Family Cycle Breakers Club can join any of our groups, and you can find out more about our groups at callinghome.com backslash groups, and I will also link that in the show notes. All right, let's go ahead and dive into the episode. So I mentioned that we have been talking about emotional immaturity and emotional maturity all month at Calling Home. And And today I want to talk a little bit about adult children of emotionally immature parents who are wondering, can my parent ever improve? Can they change? Can they become more emotionally

immature? This is a question that I get all the time, right? And I'm sure you've wondered that. Like, what are the odds here? Can I expect that there will be some type of change? And I think that there is a really common fantasy that happens among adult children of emotionally immature parents. And Lindsay C. Gibson talks about this in her book, adult children of emotionally immature parents, that sometimes we can engage in this fantasy that if I learn just the right way to interact with them, if I send them this article and show them this book, and I tell them to listen to this podcast calling home and I send them links and I start modeling emotional maturity to them that certainly they're going to get better at some point. They are going to improve

and they're going to become this parent that I want them to be. Right. And this fantasy is very enticing because it all goes back to that childlike version of yourself, right? That little kid that has to live in the fantasy because that's what keeps you connected to your parent. It's what keeps you alive and protected and safe is to think, this isn't really that bad. This can get better. I can make this better. I can make this livable. I can make it even enjoyable. And I think that that fantasy is actually quite necessary for a lot of people, especially when you're growing up or when you're dependent on your parent in some ways for financial resources, a roof over your head, food, all of that. And some of you in adulthood might be in that position with your emotionally

immature parent or family member. And so the fantasy really helps you keep your head in the game, keeps you safe, it's protective. And then there are sometimes where that fantasy really gets in the way. It gets in the way of us changing, of separating, of kind of forging our own path. Because all of our energy is fixated on changing this person, getting them to be different, teaching them, teaching them, helping them along. And it is wild. I think when you really get clear on how much energy you are expending, trying to fix or change an emotionally immature person. And so some things I want you to think about are like, how many of your conversations involve talking about this person. Are you venting about them a lot? Are you talking about them all the time in therapy,

with your friends, with your family members? Like, how much mental real estate does this person's moods, attitudes, what they do take up in your conversations with other people? How much time and energy and mental space do they take up for you? How much of your thoughts are about this person and making them change, making them better, what they're doing to you, how they're making you feel, how much of your like brain do you think you give to this person? And if you're still living in that fantasy, I would bet it's a lot. I would bet it's almost everything outside of like what you're doing to take care of yourself. And there's some people even that that fantasy and that work takes over even you caring for yourself. And it gets in the way of you sleeping,

eating, doing things for yourself. It gets in the way of you having other healthy relationships because you are so drained after interacting with this person and just doing what it takes to keep them in your life in a manageable way that you don't have any energy for anything else, for any other people. And if you notice that, wow, I talk about this person a lot with a people. It's really like kind of all I talk about to some degree, if I can be really honest with myself. A lot of my thoughts revolve around this person, what they're doing, what they're thinking, how I can help them, how I can fix them, how I need to interact with them. That's a lot. I feel drained after I'm with this person, so I don't have a lot of energy to give to other people or other

relationships. I find myself being like I just don't have time or the bandwidth for anything else but this. And maybe you're not aware that it's this person and this relationship that's doing that to you. But I think if you really sat down and kind of tried to like map out, map this out in a really tangible way, you might be shocked at how much time and energy you're spending on this person and this relationship. And when you realize that, if you're sitting here thinking like, wow, okay, this is me. I definitely do this. I do this. this is my parent, with my spouse, with my partner, a friend, whoever it is that is this person in your life, then I think that if you can relate to that, you're probably still really

wrapped up in that fantasy. And you're probably still thinking, if I just change X, if I just do Y, if I just do this little thing, if I just tell them about this new thing that I found, this new way that they can improve their life. If I explain things in a certain way, like, they're going to get it. They're going to go to therapy. They're going to start walking. They're going to take care of their health. Like, I can just crack the code. And I know people that have tried to do that for 50 years with a person. It doesn't work, guys. It really doesn't. It does not work because that's going, and that's going to be the message at the core of this episode, right, is that you can do absolutely everything to try to make your parent more emotionally

mature and they absolutely cannot do it unless they see a problem and they want to fix it. And of course, emotional immaturity exists along a spectrum. And so I know many people with family members. I know clients. I know people in my personal life that have exhibited some traits of emotional immaturity. And when they start to notice that things in their life are not going well, maybe that's a relationship that's important to them. It's their work, whatever it is. They start to take some control. And they have like some agency over the situation and say, okay, I need to work on this. And they might. still fall back into those patterns, but they start to make progress and they get a little bit

better. But the key piece there is that they have that self-awareness and that insight to say, this is something that's impacting me and that I need to do something about it. There are other people who have more intense, extreme levels of emotional immaturity that would rather die than admit that. They're never going to say, I'm emotionally immature and I need to do something about it because the shame and guilt and everything that would have to come without the work they would have to do, the level they would have to expose themselves to work on that is just way too steep of a hill for them to climb. They are not interested. They don't want to. Even just the act of admitting that they have something to work on is too much for them.

So I think that, you know, let's take a pause here. And let's talk about understanding emotional maturity and really like what it takes to improve it and the level of awareness that needs to happen. So you've heard me talk about in the previous two episodes this month, you know, how to deal with emotionally immature people and also how to be more emotionally mature. And if you listen to those episodes, you'll remember that, Two of the biggest pieces that I talk about are awareness and a desire to change and a commitment to change, right?

And in that awareness and that commitment to change comes accountability. And that is something that very emotionally immature people really struggle with, right? Because they don't want to be accountable. It's too painful to be accountable. They struggle with it. They are not going to admit that they were wrong. And so that's going to be one of the biggest roadblocks. A couple of other factors that are going to come up here that will influence someone's

ability to change or improve will be their level of motivation and their life circumstances. So in a couple of the episodes this month, I'm thinking also like about the Q&A episode that I did that's about parents who are really different in public versus private. if someone's life circumstances show them that they are respected, they're successful, they're loved by some people, you know, in their circle, they get a lot of accolades, you know, they have a lot of reasons for maintaining what they do, for maintaining their mechanisms of self-protection, right? Because they are looking at their life and saying, well, look, I'm really successful

over here. This person likes me. I have friends. I have power. I have authority. When we're talking about that type of emotionally immature person, there's not a lot of reason or motivation for change. Their life circumstances do not give them as much feedback for why they would need to do that. And they often use that as a way to negate any type of conflict that they're having in other areas of their life. So if I'm really successful at work and I have people in the community that love me and I have power, but my kids are telling me, I think you're emotionally immature and it bothers me and I don't like how you are around me, then the parent might look at that and say, well, you're the only one that's bringing up a problem. Everyone else loves me. I'm great to

everybody else. And when you are looking to protect yourself from any type of accountability or awareness, of course, like, that's all you need. You know, you've got evidence there to back up your position and that can keep you stuck. There are some people who are going to have to lose a lot before they would ever get to a place of saying, I'm going to take inventory of my life and see how these patterns of behavior are impacting me and impacting what's important to me, right? And if that person does not value certain areas of their life that are getting impacted or they don't view them as important as other areas, they might not ever do that. The other thing that is very important here to think about is that also some emotionally immature

people will think that their emotional immaturity is actually a big part of their success. The fact that they are cold and callous and calculated and they don't think about other people could be a reason why they have been so successful. You know, it could be part of what has allowed them to achieve what they have achieved. And some people will look at that and say, I don't want to give up that quality, even if it is hurting other people in my life. There's other parts of emotional immaturity, of course, that also serve certain people. It allows them to be taken care of, to get their way all the time, to be seen as fragile or as someone who needs extra care. You know, the flip side of that coin is a person whose emotional immaturity allows them to gain access to support and care and affection by way of them coming across as a person. emotionally volatile or like a little child in a lot of ways. And so I think you're going to

see people who do not become more emotionally mature because their emotional immaturity serves them in a lot of ways. And there has to be this moment where there's kind of like a tipping of the scales for these people to say, okay, I'm not, I want this. And my emotional immaturity or the way I'm behaving is stopping me from getting that. But if I am so dead set on holding on to whatever I've got over here that this is getting me in a lot of ways, then I might not want to change. I might not have any motivation to change. Oh, hi, buddy.

Who's the best you are? I wish I could spend all day with you instead. Uh, Dave, you're off mute. Hey, happens to the best of us. Enjoy some goldfish cheddar crackers. Goldfish have short memories. Be like goldfish. We touched a little bit on like willingness to self-reflect, but I think that's also a big piece here. You know, when you hear me talking about tipping the scales, looking at what you're losing and what you're gaining from these behaviors, even looking at that, even interacting with that requires self-reflection. It requires self-relection. It requires self-wale. the ability to sit with your life and look around and be like, oh, what's going on here? Is this the life I want to live? How do people feel about me? How do people interact with me? What relationships in my life am I getting feedback from that isn't very good feedback? And without that, it's impossible to move forward to the next step. When we're talking about parents, I think it's

also important to acknowledge that some of these patterns are so deeply entrenched for some people that they are very hard to change at this stage of life. And that is something you as the adult child have to kind of think about and consider, right? Is that if I'm talking about a person who is 70, 75, 80, 80 plus, like, of course, as a therapist, I believe they can change if I don't have that inner belief, I can't do my job. But it's like to what degree can they change? What are they willing to do to try to make that change happen? And really, like, do they have the energy and the commitment to it to break some of these

patterns that have been so deeply entrenched in them since they were likely young children, even, you know, from their own childhood. And I think even for those of you listening, think about how difficult it is for you to pick up a new habit, for you to keep some of those New Year's resolutions you might have made, for you to remember to like take a vitamin every day. Like that stuff is hard to do. And someone has to be really motivated and committed to that change in order to actually make it happen. When we talk about, you know, some of these like barriers to change, I think we talked a lot about the lack of self-awareness. I also want to touch on culture or generational norms. So in some cultures, emotional immaturity or what we would define as

emotional immaturity is actually just seen as how parents are, how dads act, how moms, act when they're older. You know, when you grow up with generations of parents all behaving the same and no one really stops to question it or say, does this fit the life that we want to live today, then that just becomes culture. It becomes the way that we do things, right? And so if it's always been like, oh, every grandparent or, you know, older woman in our family talks this way. Every man is unfaithful to his wife or, you know, yells when he gets home from school or gets really stressed or sits and drinks on the couch while mom does everything or, you know, whatever these norms are in your family. And some of them are gendered. Some of them are

generational. Some of them are just part of your culture, your religious community, where you grew up. But if no one has stopped to deconstruct some of this stuff, what is actually, emotional immaturity or even a mental health issue can just kind of contort itself into being quote unquote culture. And we're less likely to question culture sometimes, right? Because it's just like, oh, that's the way things have always been. That's the way they will be. That's the way that they should be. And so someone in the family, if that person is emotionally immature, they have to be willing to step back and question things and say, is this culture or is this something else? Is this actually something that we have the power to change or dictate or make

be different, you know, if we wanted to? We also have to consider personality and mental health issues in this discussion, right? Some of these things that relate to emotional immaturity, some of these behaviors are also personality related or related to a mental health diagnosis. And it's hard to, I think, separate sometimes what is personality and what is like a behavior that someone has developed. But there are certainly people that are more prone to anxious type of behaviors that are more prone to being critical, more aloof. There are all these different types of things that can also just be part of how you are as a person that then becomes extreme and pathological over time when it is not dealt with

in the right way or when that person experiences adverse life events that intensify that behavior and make it worse and make it more of a relationship inhibiting behavior, right? And I'm certain that we all know people who are anxious, but who are actually quite relationally healthy and can have conversations and can be kind despite their anxiety. And then you know people who are quite anxious, who are highly emotionally immature, are reactive, can be cruel when they're anxious. And at its core, maybe the anxiety is very similar. among those two people, but they've certainly adopted different ways of dealing with it,

some that can be very destructive to relationships in comparison to others. And that's also why when we look at some mental health diagnoses from depression all the way to, you know, personality disorders, you're going to see certain things that might get in the way of that person changing. If someone has an untreated mental illness that they do not do anything about and it is worsening over time, certainly much harder to get that person to understand and work on parts of their personality or their behavior that are coming out as emotional immaturity and that are destructive to their relationship, especially between a parent and an adult child. And this isn't to say like, oh, that excuses that person's behavior

because it is the result of their personality or a mental health condition or a personality disorder. It's more to say that you can use this information to decide how you want to navigate this, because that's what we're talking about at the end of the day in this episode, is can this person change? And at what point should I give up on trying to make them change? So let's move into, you know, signs that a parent may be open to growth and then also if and when you should decide to give up. I think an emotionally immature parent who is at all receptive to listening without defensiveness, someone who you can even give little bits of information and slowly over time you start to see that they're listening to you, they're

hearing what you're saying, they're just like nodding and taking it in without jumping at it and trying to defend themselves or punish you for sharing how you feel. That can be a good sign. You know, if you have a parent who traditionally was very defensive would even like mock your feelings or shut them down or say like, oh, I'm just the worst mom ever who then starts to say, okay, I want to listen to you. Maybe they're not doing anything about it yet. They're not changing their behavior, but you see a little bit of a shift there. That could be a sign that maybe they're open to more and you want to go further with that discussion.

A parent, of course, who is willing to take accountability for anything. So let's say you bring something up in the moment of like, dad, I really didn't like when you said that to me. And they're willing to say like, oh, I'm sorry. This is what I was trying to say. Can we try that again? Even if they just apologize for like small things and you notice that they're starting to work up to maybe seeing their role in any type of problem or situation, right?

That can be a sign that there is some willingness there to change. Also, if they are seeking therapy, if they're listening to podcasts, reading books, they're open to any type of personal development or exploration about how they can can make their lives better, I think that is a positive thing. And not every parent is going to do that, right? And so what I really want you to take away from this episode is that regardless of if you see those signs or not, we have to get really clear on what your role in this process is. Because a lot of you have taken on the role of being your parents' parent and therapist. And you've taken on this role of like, I am going to teach them. I'm going to show them

the light and I'm going to make them better. And I really want you to take yourselves out of that role because I promise you, if it was going to work, it would have worked by now. I want you to be really honest about how long you have been trying to help your parent with this. What age did you start trying to help them with their emotions and their outbursts and how they act and their level of insight? I mean, I bet that this did not start yesterday. And if you're one of those rare people listening to this that has just started this journey, you might be the exception to the rule here. But most of the people that I work with in our groups at calling home that have been my clients over the years have been doing this work with their parents

since they were like, you know, eight, nine, ten. They always remember being like the voice of reason to their parent. And so if you started off this episode realizing I spend a lot of time on this, it's taking up a lot of my energy. And my parent hasn't changed. And my parent hasn't changed. then you fall into that camp of like it's time to try something different. Right. And so when we talk about your role in this process, this is your role. Your role is to have boundaries and limits for yourself that you can set and maintain on your own without any input from them. And that could be boundaries around how much time you spend with them, the things that you talk about, how you handle that relationship. That's your responsibility. You are responsible for communicating

clearly and respectfully. You are responsible for accepting that their growth is their responsibility and not yours. And you can lead by example. You can become an emotionally mature person that has boundaries and limits and self-respect and communicates well, regardless of how they act. And for some of you, that might mean I can have a relationship with them and do all of those things. There are others that will need to have a limited relationship in order to do all those things.

And there are some of you that will say, I cannot be a healthy communicator, have self-respect, except that have boundaries while having a relationship with them. It's just not possible because they don't allow me to. do that with the way that they are behaving. This takes two in a lot of ways to make this possible. And with all of that, while you're doing that, you also need to have realistic expectations for how this relationship is going to go. This is when it's time to say, I am going to release the fantasy that I can make my parent into this perfect person that I want them to be. And by perfect, I mean emotionally mature, respectful, good communicator.

I know a lot of you don't actually want your parents to be perfect. You just want them to be accountable and to listen to you and to be kind and respectful. It also means releasing the fantasy that they're going to become that person in this lifetime and that you're going to be the one that does it. Okay. Another realistic expectation is that you have to know that even if your parent is showing some little signs of openness or potential for change, that it's likely going to be slow. And it's going to be baby steps. And it's going to be two steps forward, three steps back, and two steps forward, three steps back. And it's just going to slowly happen over time.

The other thing I want you to remember is that you have to focus. on yourself while all of this is going on. You are listening to these resources for you. You are reading books for you. You're going to therapy for you. None of these personal development things should be in the service of making your parent better. It needs to be about you. And I don't say that as a way to promote, like, being individualistic and only caring about yourself. It's more that if you are doing all of this stuff in your life as a way to pass on the knowledge to this other person, it's not genuine. You're not actually trying to improve your own life. You're just trying to change them and you're still seeing them changing as the key to you having a better life.

when in reality, the only thing that's going to improve your life is you getting better at this and you changing. Once we connect our happiness and our progress to someone else's change, it's over. You've totally given up your agency and your ability to be happy on your own. It's not a good way to handle this. So you've probably listened to this. and now gotten to the end and said, but Whitney, you never told me if my parent can actually become more emotionally mature, like, is there hope for them? And I will give you the most,

you know, therapist answer of all time that will probably drive you guys crazy is that anybody can change. Anybody can become more emotionally mature with the right tools, enough motivation, some insight. They can do it. but very few people actually do it. I think that I have met many parents, you know, in our groups at Calling Home, we have estranged parents who come. And they are starkly different from some of the estranged parents that you maybe see speaking on the internet. You know, these are parents who want to be accountable. They want to develop insight. They're actually really, really open to learning and understanding and trying to be better. And I see that in them.

and they're doing it. Like I have real tangible proof that throughout my career, I have seen it happen. But those parents did have to go and make that decision to do that on their own. It wasn't their child who, like, by osmosis, you know, made them more emotionally mature and, like, quote unquote, fixed them. I've never seen that happen. And I have seen a lot of adults really, really struggle when they live in that fantasy, that they are the key to unlock this for their parent.

And so the advice is the same, whether your parent can change or not, it's that you have to separate yourself from that outcome and from that process. the only thing you can do is lead by example, set boundaries, and live your life trying to foster more emotional maturity for yourself and breaking those patterns within your own family. But if you are someone that grew up in a family system where there was a lot of emotional immaturity or your parents were emotionally immature, I want you to take note to the fact that, like you're changing. You're learning something that you weren't taught that you didn't know. You're becoming different. And so that doesn't rule out. You know, that doesn't mean that you're

the only person that can do it. Certainly a lot of people can make that happen. And if you spend your life waiting, hoping, wishing, trying to make that happen, it is going to be painful. That is the deepest pain that I've seen. right is people coming to me time and time again saying I tried this with them and it didn't work I thought they were going to change I thought this would be the time they promised me they were going to go to therapy and then they didn't even go and so if you can when you when you end this episode today make a promise to yourself that from today for this work is going to be about me and me only. It is going to be about me becoming the person that I want to be in my life.

And if they decide to change and they decide to be more mature or different, okay, I will learn how to deal with them if and when that happens and it will be great. But until then, I am going to live in the reality of my life. I am going to look at the person that I have in front of me and I'm going to say, this is my parent. This is how they act. This is the way they talk to me. This is what they have done every day for the past, however many years of my life. And that's what I'm going to learn to deal with today. And I have zero control over how they choose to show up in this life. The only thing I have control over is how I choose to show up and how I choose to interact with them and to what degree. And because I am an adult and I am no longer a child, I don't have to live in that

fantasy anymore because that's a fantasy that kept me safe as a child. It is not a fantasy that is keeping me safe as an adult. In fact, it's probably a fantasy that it continues to put me in harm's way and continues to put me in situations that I don't like and that I don't want to deal with. And that acceptance does not mean that you have a relationship with your parent where you talk to them every single day and you do everything together. And that acceptance doesn't mean necessarily that you cut your parent out of your life and you don't have any relationship with them. That acceptance just gives you the clarity to make the best decision for you. And you are the only person that knows your family relationships and the full context of what it means to be

in a relationship with your parent at this age, at this time in your life, with everything you've experienced. No one else knows that better than you. Not me, not your therapist, not strangers on the internet. And so after you listen to this episode, you can really run through all of those checkpoints that we just went through. How much of my time? in energy, is this taking up in my life? What is it taking away from in my other relationships or things that I want to pursue? What are my parents' barriers to change? Do they show any willingness to become more emotionally mature? What am I responsible for in this relationship? How do I want to show up? When I get to the end of my life, how do I want to say I was as a person?

what behavior do I want to model to my children in the situation if you have children or do I want to model to other people in my life who I care about who are watching me and looking to me for advice. And then from there saying, I accept that this is my parent. This is the parent I have in front of me. What do I want to do from here? And the answer then to that question for all of you is, you know, can my emotionally immature parent change? The answer to that is, I don't know and it doesn't matter because no matter what they do, I am going to take responsibility for myself. And I am going to behave this way no matter what they change. And I am going to relinquish the responsibility of being their therapist, their emotional coach, the person that gets them through today.

Today I am going to stop playing that role. And I am going to let them be radically accountable for themselves and how they show up in the world. That is my challenge to you today. And if you need more help with accepting your parent, we have four weeks of reason resources on the calling home website for people who are working on accepting your parents and it will take this exercise a whole step further. There's four worksheets, videos, articles, tons of stuff to help you with that. All right. I hope that this was helpful for all of you. Just to recap,

you know, we have new stuff on the site, your emotional maturity inventory, how to repair after you slip into emotional immaturity, how to communicate with emotional maturity while triggered and how to become self-aware all pieces of content that will help you take the work from this episode to the next level. So you can join the Family Cycle Breakers Club at callinghome.co today and get access to all of that content. And I hope to see some of you in my free webinar today at noon Eastern time about parents who won't apologize or in our new group for estranged adult children who are estranged from one or both parents. That is beginning on Monday, January 27th at 10 a.m. Eastern time, and that group will be two Mondays

a month. Family Cycle Breakers Club members get access to all of our groups, and I will link in the show notes, the link for the groups as well. Thank you so much, everyone. I will see you on Thursday for a Q&A episode, and I hope you have a great week. health advice or other medical advice or services. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified health care provider and does not create any therapist, patient, or other treatment relationship between you and Colin Colm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Calling Holmes' terms of service linked in the show notes below.