CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT - Part 3: What We Know About Adult Child and Parent Estrangement

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

This is Part 3 of a 3-part series on adult child and parent estrangement. In this episode, Whitney compares the survey results of estranged parents and estranged adult children. She shares her thoughts about the survey results and dives deeper into what this survey has taught us about this issue. 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 yamex. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Calling Home Podcast.

I'm your host, Whitney Goodman. I am currently evacuated for Hurricane Milton and I am recording this podcast from a bed in my in-laws house and that is why there is no video this week and I'm going to try to make this audio as clear as possible but I really did not want to wait and push this episode off. I've worked so hard on this series, and I promised you all that this would be out on Tuesday. So we're going to try to make it work.

Hopefully you all can hear me okay, and this episode turns out well. But let's go ahead and get into it. So you listened to part one and part two already. hopefully if you haven't, I would go back and listen to those. So part one is the first episode that came out a week ago. And that is the estranged parents perspective where I go through all of their survey results, how they answered the survey questions, et cetera. I will say there is one TikTok that I put up that has been making the rounds. It has a lot of views on it. And it's of me saying that I was really surprised that 60-something percent of estranged parents said that there are

a lot of valid reasons for being estranged from your adult child. And people are like, oh my gosh, you're surprised by this? Like, can't believe you're a therapist, et cetera. And I want to clarify for you guys. I'm not surprised that people feel this way. I, of course, believe that there are a million valid reasons for why you can end a relationship with anybody, including a parent. I am surprised that parents who are estranged from their adult children, specifically those whose adult children cut them off, feel this way. Because the majority of the time, what I'm trying to figure out here with this survey in part is, are the voices that we are hearing online, especially in places like estranged parent

forums, Facebook groups, TikTok, are these the loudest voices? or is this really a consensus of how estranged parents feel? And so because when I have interacted or read a lot of what these estranged parents are saying, the majority of them typically tell me, you know, I don't think there are a lot of valid reasons. Abuse is the only reason. Extreme situations are the only reason. This is the type of language that I typically hear. And so I was really surprised to see such a high percentage of estranged parents say that they believe.

there are a lot of reasons for their adult child or for any adult child to be estranged from their parent. So in this episode, I am going to compare and contrast some of the results that we saw from the first and the second episode or the differences in the responses between the estranged parents and the estranged adult children. I'm going to pick out some of the data points where I felt like there was some agreement. There was a lot of difference between the two sets of responses. And I want to remind everyone that, like I said in part one, this is not like a peer reviewed research study. These are questions that I came up with that I asked estranged parents and adult children to answer if they were interested so that we can try to get a little bit more

feedback from these two populations that wasn't so tense and argumentative. And really, I just wanted to see if these two groups were given a set of options, what would they choose and what would it look like to compare how each of those groups responded? Now, of course, we know that I only got 204 estranged parents to complete the survey and I had over 2,000 adult children complete the survey. So these data sets are very different sizes and there are a lot of flaws with this, right? But I think if we can just look at this as a way to kind of learn about the other side, how they're feeling, or even learn about how other people like you are thinking of these things and what they may have selected and how that fits in with your view and your perspective of

adult child and parent estrangement, instead of looking at this as fact or law or something that has to absolutely be applied, you know, to your life. So let's go ahead and dive in. Most parents and adult children report that adult children are the ones initiating the estrangement. So this was similar in both groups. 82.7% of adult children said it was them who initiated it. And 89.7% of parents said it was their adult child who initiated it.

So I think both groups seem to be in agreement here that it is typically the adult child that is driving this. And, you know, when we think about why are more adult children initiating estrangement and not parents, I think there's a couple of things that come to mind, right? There's a huge rise in boundary discussions and being able to set boundaries and what is an appropriate way to be in a relationship with someone. And also just discussions of mental health has changed. I think our awareness of how certain things impact us have changed. And I'll talk about that more when we get into the discussions of like emotional abuse, neglect, et cetera.

And also a lot more people are going to therapy. And there's this idea of chosen family, right? We have a lot more of an ability to be able to connect with and spend time with the people who treat us well and who matter to us. we're also moving farther away families, things like that. But I did write an article for calling home, and it's on the website for members to read, and it's called This is Why a Strangement happens. And in that article, I talk about how, you know, 50 years ago, even less, actually, there was the ability to kind of just disconnect from your family, move to the other side of

the country, only see them on holidays, and really avoid. a lot of this behavior and this animosity and like tense type of interaction that comes up when you have a family member that you don't get along with. And those people didn't have to declare like that they were going, no contact or low contact or becoming estranged. They really had just the gift of distance and not being able to contact one another. And now we have Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp. We have, you know, all these social media. We have cell phones. We have texting. We have email. And there are so many ways if you have a difficult relationship with them or if they are someone that does not respect boundaries, someone who

is harmful, abusive. It is almost impossible, you know, to outrun some of these relationships without setting these very strict, aggressive boundaries. And so I think that's one of the biggest factors here. And I put up a post about this today when I'm recording this with this one of a week ago about how the really big difference between relationships that just kind of fizzle out or not that close or just are impacted by distance and estrangement is that these relationships are being ended on purpose. Someone is coming and saying, I do not want to have a relationship with you. This relationship is over and you are no longer able to contact me. And so there is this purposefulness behind the decision to end these relationships.

that I think is a very important thing to keep front of mind when we talk about these two groups of people that were surveyed for these episodes is that these are people who are saying someone deliberately ended a relationship with me. I deliberately ended a relationship with them or we both decided to do it. But this wasn't just like a gradual growing apart really. This was more of a we made this decision for a reason. Whether you agree with that reason or not or whether you understand it or not, there was still a reason. All right. So parents and adult children also report similar time periods for how long they have been estranged across these two surveys. So 58% of parents report being estranged for one to five years and 53.1% of adult children

reported being estranged for one to five years. Under one year was the next most common response for both groups. And I think some argue that, you know, estranged is a relatively new phenomenon. And these responses seem to validate that sentiment of that purposeful estrangement, no contact where someone is saying, I do not want to have a relationship with you. We are terminating this relationship. Please do not contact me, et cetera. And I think there's some validity to that when you compare it to what I just talked about where like, you know, before the advent of cell phones, email, social media, people didn't really have to do that. So I'm not sure if we can classify this. We have enough information to classify this as a

something that is happening primarily among young people, or if it's just that the way that we needed to do this has changed. I know that anecdotally in my groups at calling home, we have people that range, you know, from 70 to 18 who have cut ties with a family member or with their parents. And so I know that this is something that has happened and does happen among a variety of age groups, but the way that it's being handled today might be quite different, especially among young people. The adult children who completed the survey were a little bit different in terms of age composition when compared to the children of the parents that completed the survey. So the majority of adult children that completed the survey were between the ages of 33 and 46. And I think that

this is reflected mainly of the people who follow me and engage in my content. When you look at my analytics across social media profiles, who join the typical calling home member, I would say that they, the majority fall between 25 and 45. So this isn't surprising to me just given the pool that I was pulling this data from. And that's going to influence the results, of course. The majority of parents reported that their estranged child was between the ages of 18 and 32. So a little bit on the younger side. And there was a big discrepancy between these two groups on this question. When I asked people, how would you describe your childhood with your parent or how would you describe your child's childhood with you as a parent.

74% of adult children describe their childhood as either challenging or extremely poor. So the vast maturity, three quarters of the adult children who completed this survey described their childhoods in this more negative light. 51.7% of estranged parents reported their child's childhood was mostly good. And 14.3% selected amazing, while only 0.3% of, of adult children selected this response. And I've talked about this phenomenon before, you know, that parents and their children seem to have widely different memories and perceptions of their childhood. And I think this is one of the main things that holds back

adult children and their parents from reconciling or from finding a way to get along is the fact that they have such different perceptions of the past. I've also discussed this before and I have a post about this on my Instagram where I do find that a lot of estranged parents try to engage in this, I don't want to call it a rewriting of history because that sounds like it's always negative. I think it's a coping mechanism, to be honest, if I were to look at this and this was my client sitting in front of me that's doing this and saying, well, but their childhood was so good and we did all these good things for them. I had a parent message me saying my adult child cut me off. Can't believe it. I paid for

their trips. We went to South Africa. They listed all these amazing vacations that they took. And this is kind of an example of that phenomenon. I think on the more extreme end, you'll find parents who say, well, you had a roof over your head and food on the table. You never wanted for anything. And so you just shouldn't cut me off. And there can be this type of narrative spinning that I think is ultimately a way to cope with shame and blame and discomfort of like having the good erase the bad. And So there could have been food on the table, you know, a roof over their head, vacations, even private school, college paid for. But there also might have been a lot of emotional neglect, even physical abuse in the home,

yelling, screaming, divorce, moving around, all these things that could have been very traumatic to the child if they were not handled in the right way. And then when the child comes and says, you know, this time was kind of hard in our life. And you say, well, but what about that car that I got you? It kind of reinforces this dismissiveness and this feeling of not being heard, et cetera. And I know that there is a large discrepancy here between how parents view things and how children view things also just because of the way that memories are formed. And so when you're talking about what feels really big to a child compared to what feels really

big to a parent, those are going to be different things. You're also going to remember things very different. I mentioned at the beginning of the episode that I am evacuated for this huge hurricane. And by the time this comes out, we will know, you know, how it has impacted my family and I, but I look at my children and how they're being impacted by this and how they're handling it in comparison to what I'm dealing with and what's going on for me. And I think it would be easy for me to dismiss, you know, how they're feeling like, oh, you were just having fun and you're on vacation.

And I was the one dealing with all the stuff. and I had so much pressure on me, but really, they're also being impacted and they're also afraid and they're showing it in their own way. And I have to really, you know, when you're in a stressful situation and you're a parent, you have to walk this delicate line of constantly being like, what's it like for my child? What's this like for me? How can I help them understand? And how can I also understand that it's my job as a parent to make this easier for that. And so I find that this is this to me, this discrepancy between how childhood is viewed between the parent and the adult child is one of the biggest points of conflicting and contention between these two groups.

The next question that I asked both adult children and their parents was about CPS, DCF, any type of like child welfare or family agency getting involved in their childhood. And I wanted to see if reported abuse was a factor in a lot of these estrangements. and if the adult children or the parents would report this type of abuse as being something that led to their estrangement, and 12.1% of adult children reported that CPS was involved during their childhood, and 14.6% of parents reported the same. The majority of parents and adult children reported no CPS involvement or DCF involvement, whatever it's called in your state. And I think the idea that abuse must be present to cut ties with

parent is a pervasive belief. And yet, we're seeing here that the majority of these respondents did not have abuse that escalated to this level of being reported and being followed through on by an agency within their state. But let's also remember that CPS or DCF involvement is not the only signifier that abuse is happening. And many, many cases go unreported, uninvestigated or unsubstantiated because of the cracks in these systems. And I have worked with plenty of adults who were certainly abused as children. And those cases were never reported or never discovered by anyone, or at least not reported by people who were aware in their orbit. But it's certainly interesting, you know, to see this statistic given how many estranged parents I have seen publicly state

that abuse must be present in order for it to be a warranted separation from that relationship. It seems that most parents and adult children agree that there are a variety of reasons why someone may choose to not have a relationship with a parent. And I brought this up at the beginning of the episode that this was surprising to me that a lot of estranged parents reported this. I knew that adult children would and I think the general population might feel that way, but I did not expect estranged parents to feel this way. And the only significant difference here was that 8.9% of parents reported that physical abuse

was the only valid reason and 3.9% felt a child should maintain a relationship with their parent no matter what, while only 0.2% of adult children surveyed agreed with those parents that a child should maintain a relationship with their parent no matter what. So there's certainly some discrepancy there. And I think obligation to parents is a big component of this discussion, especially for parents. There's certainly a lot of cultural significance behind that. I think there is this idea of like parents bring a child into the world and then children should help them at the end of their life.

And what I find is that actually a lot of adults want to do this for their parents if they can. And I've worked with a lot of estranged adult children that have a significant amount of grief around not being able to help their parents when they are sick or dying or ill because of how poorly they were treated and feeling some guilt around not being able to meet that obligation. And I don't think that in my experience, I have not interacted with this population of adults who are just like, screw my parents, they don't want to help them. And if they are saying that it's coming from a deep place of hurt, that they don't want to

help someone that abused them, harm them, treated them poorly, the same way they wouldn't want to help anybody else that put them in that situation. One question that did have a huge difference between the two populations was the question about boundaries. And 84.7% of adult children reported that they attempted to set boundaries and they were not respected. While 43.3% of estranged parents said their adult child did not set boundaries. And 7.4% know that their adult child tried to set boundaries, but they think those boundaries are unfair. And I want to reiterate this definition of boundaries from Nedra Glover to Wob in her books at Boundaries Find Peace, where she says, boundaries are rules, expectations, needs, and desires that help you feel

safe and comfortable in life and in your relationships. And I do think that there is a big generational divide and misunderstanding over what boundaries are and what they mean. I put a clip up on TikTok of me talking about this question in the estranged parents episode and the adult children, of course, were commenting on this video saying like, oh no, I bet my parent would say that I did not set boundaries with them or that they thought my boundaries were unfair, but I know that I definitely did. And we can see here that there's a big difference between. how this question was answered among the two groups. Addiction and substance use were not a major contributor for either population to the

estrangement. The mental health response was very interesting when I asked the question about, you know, did your adult child's mental health play a role in the estrangement or did your parents' mental health play a role in the estrangement? And a majority of adult children, 61.5% believe that their parent struggles with their mental health and this has contributed to their estrangement, and 54.5% of estranged parents believe their child struggles with their mental health, and this has led to their estrangement. And we talked about this in one of our groups at Calling Home, actually this morning before I recorded this episode. And there was a really interesting conversation about how a lot of the adults who are estranged from their parents in

this group felt that their parents would often call them crazy, mentally ill, would use certain, like, mental illness coded language, like you're anxious, you're depressed, you're bipolar, things like that, to dismiss their concerns or to call them crazy when they were setting boundaries. And that was an interesting angle that I hadn't really thought about how it is certainly in some cases the reality that either adult child or a parent has a mental health condition that makes it difficult to have a relationship. You know, when we're talking about things like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, personality disorders for either the adult child and or the parent, that is going to play a significant role in how this relationship functions. And someone brought up

an interesting point, you know, that some of these adults suffered trauma at the hands of their parents and they're dealing with complex PTSD that is manifesting, you know, as symptoms that are correlated, you know, with a mental health issue. And I think, think that this is one of those dicey questions that there's really no way to totally disentangle this. You know, I would never say that parenting is the sole and only cause for a child developing mental illness because we know that's not true. It's definitely a very layered discussion when we're talking about how mental illness develops and we're looking at genetics and what the child has experienced throughout their life and they can

experience traumatic events outside of what their parent is doing or outside of even the role that their family plays. We have to look at socioeconomic status where the child's grew up. So many different factors can play a role here. But certainly, if a child was subjected to abuse at the hands of their parents or a very chaotic and traumatic family system, that can play a role. And we can also see that people can use struggling with their mental health or mental illness, like kind of use that as a way to separate themselves from accountability and say, well, you have mental illness. So this isn't my fault. And if you didn't have this mental illness or if you stopped using drugs or if you took medication, whatever it is, we could have a good

relationship. And sometimes that's true. And sometimes it's a way to avoid actually looking at what's going on in the relationship and within the family. So I thought that was very interesting. Now, we're going to take a little bit of time here to talk about emotional abuse. Okay. So 77.8% of adult children say emotional abuse in childhood and adulthood is a reason for their estrangement. This is a large percentage. 54.2% of parents say no. Emotional abuse in childhood and or adulthood is not a reason for our estrangement. I did not emotionally abuse my child. 23.7% selected. My adult child says I was emotionally abusive and I do not agree. So a total of 77.9% of estranged parents believe that emotional abuse did not play a role in their

estrangement and 77.8% of adult children say emotional abuse did play a role. in their estrangement. And this is where I think there is a huge divide between parents and adult children about what emotional abuse is. And so I want to talk about that. I am going to be using this signs of emotional abuse from parents article that was written by Sanjana Gupta and was medically reviewed by Yolanda Renteria. She's wonderful. I had her as someone that hosted a Q&A inside of calling home. So you can definitely go watch that. And her and I have done webinars together in the past. She's wonderful. But so I was great when I found this article and saw her name. That was very exciting. So first I'm going to give you a definition. Emotional abuse,

also known as psychological abuse, is a pattern of behavior perpetuated by a parent that causes a child to experience emotional distress, harms their sense of self-worth, and affects their emotional development. It can include rejection, constant criticism, threats, or emotional neglect. And so this is a definition of science of emotional abuse from parents. Obviously, emotional abuse can be perpetuated in other types of relationships. I think that a lot of us do not want to identify with the word abuse. It seems very extreme, whether you're an adult child or a parent. It can be difficult to feel this sense of like, oh, I perpetuated abuse. I think there's a lot of shame that comes with that word, but emotional abuse is something that we have come to understand on a much deeper level

in the last even 10 years, right, that we now are becoming much more aware of and understanding of the ways that we can harm people through emotional abuse. And this is what is really tricky is that as parents, myself included, there are going to be things that we do to our children. medications we give our kids, parenting practices we participate in that later on we find out we're harmful. And it can be really challenging as a parent to step back and say, wow, I did a lot of these things that hurt my kid. And now we know that it hurts them. In the same way, we know that kids should be rear-facing in a car seat. And now kids shouldn't sleep in a crib surrounded with like bumpers and a million pillows. And, you know, we learn these things over time. And as parents,

we have to look at our children and be like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe we did that. You know, that wasn't right. And I know when the word abuse is attached, it makes it feel so much more extreme. But these are some examples of emotional abuse children may experience from their parents. Okay. I'm constantly criticizing the child, blaming the child for adult problems, rejecting the child repeatedly, dismissing the child's feelings, deliberately causing the child emotional pain, ridiculing or mocking, humiliating or publicly shaming, talking down to the child, calling the child names,

getting angry at the child often, yelling or swearing at them, threatening to abandon them, threatening to harm the child or their family members, friends or pets, intimidating and scaring the child purposefully, coercing or manipulating the child, gaslighting, frequently harassing or picking on them, ignoring the child or using silence to control their behavior, withholding love, support, and guidance, neglecting to care for the child and their needs, allowing the child to witness domestic violence and abuse. And obviously, every parent on the planet, even myself, I could say that I could be accused maybe of talking down to my child, getting angry at my child, yelling, these things happen.

But what we're looking at here is a pervasive pattern of these things happening. consistently throughout the child's life and the parent not repairing after them. So yelling at your kid all the time and not repairing for that, not trying to say, you know what, I shouldn't have done that, criticizing them all the time and never having repair. We're not talking about, you know, providing your child with advice or guidance. This is criticism, rejection, dismissing them. And doing this as a consistent parenting practice can result in emotional abuse and long-term consequences. And emotional abuse can be perpetuated in so many ways, especially in adulthood. We can do this in person online through text messages, emails,

social media, et cetera. And this is not limited just to childhood. I want you to remember that 77.8% of the adult children selected the response that emotional abuse in childhood and adulthood is a reason for estrangement. I also offered them the response of just saying emotional abuse only in childhood or only in adulthood is what led to their estrangement, but they selected both. And I think that's very interesting. Now, emotional immaturity was also a big one. This was the most consistent response among adult children. 98.6% reported their parent is emotionally immature and it has contributed to the estrangement. Parents did not agree or believe that their child has described them as emotionally immature as a whole. A large percentage

of them did not know if their adult child had referred to them that way or believed that they were not emotionally immature. And so I think emotionally maturity, very interestingly, has come out as kind of the frontrunner for one of the main reasons why adult children are becoming estranged. And I think that that is fascinating. And if you want to learn more about emotional immaturity. We have a group at Calling Home two Thursdays a month for adult children of emotionally immature parents. It's a very popular group and a wonderful group, especially if you're wanting to dive deeper into some of the work that Lindsay C. Gibson has done. She's the author of the book, Adult Children, Emotionally Immature Parents, and the person that coined this term.

And she was also a guest on this podcast on Calling Home, so you can definitely go back and find her episode and listen to it. I want to give you a couple of the signs of an emotionally an immature parent, so you can see if that resonates with you. They're rigid and operate with a strict wrong and right mentality. They're quick to misinterpret communication as a threat or criticism towards them, which makes them reactive and defensive. They can have the contrast of either being extremely controlling or very uninvolved in their child's life. They throw tantrums or have big reactions that feel chaotic and uncomfortable to be on the other end of. In a ability to cope with their own emotions in a healthy way. Things tend to only go smoothly

when things are going in their favor. Their emotional responses tend to lack empathy or rationality, and their reactions are often off-putting. They have a need to be needed, inability to meet your emotional needs, an inability to hear or validate your feelings. They tend to hold grudges, especially if you cross them. It can feel like the relationship is strained, and they are highly critical. So you can see if maybe you resonate with some of that as a parent or if you're an adult little child listening, thinking about if your parent fits some of that criteria.

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. When I asked about the other parent, more parents believe that the other parent contributed to the estrangement than adult children.

And this is something I hear a lot from parents who are estranged from their adult children, especially on TikTok, is the idea that they were alienated from their children by their spouse. And that was echoed within this survey as well. Another interesting difference was that the majority of adult children with siblings believe sibling rivalry and preferential treatment played a role. And our sibling content is really popular at Calling Home. We have a sibling relationship module on the site under content and 48.6% believe that it played a role and then the other split, you know, people who didn't have siblings and then a smaller percentage that did not believe it played a role. estranged parents disagree with this 57.3% saying sibling rivalry did not play a role,

and then another about quarter of those people, I believe it was, you know, didn't have multiple children. When we talk about physical abuse in the survey, there is some disagreement here about what constitutes physical abuse. 6.9% of estranged parents say their adult children says they were physically abusive and they don't agree. While 36.7% of adult children say there was physical abuse in childhood, adulthood, or both, and 96.9% of estranged parents deny that any physical abuse happened. So those are the ones that said they disagree with their children about what constitutes physical abuse and or they just said no. And I want to talk a little bit about parents who commit physical abuse. So when we look at what an abusive parent looks like,

these parents are unable to control their anger and turn to violence, which can include hitting, kicking, choking, slapping, things like that. Children may develop broken bones or bruises, and abusive parents often tell their children that they would lie if their injuries were ever questioned. Teachers, coaches, and pediatricians may all play an important role in detecting physical abuse since they may be the first ones to notice the signs. The use of violence to punish a child is called corporal punishment. And when a child displays negative behavior, physically abusive parents turn to physical action to show their disapproval.

And there are many studies on corporal punishment that showed it's not an effective form of punishment and can be detrimental to children's physical and emotional health. And I know that there are a lot of parents who used spanking with their children because that is what they were taught was correct. There is a lot of literature, especially in Christian and religious parenting circles from, you know, decades ago that has been pervasive, that this was the best way to raise children. And I think a lot of parents followed that guidance. This was a very different set of times. You kind of just followed what you were told. There weren't a lot of these spaces to get other types of advice. And there has been a major shift. in the culture, in many cultures that we're spanking used to be pervasive. And there's been a lot of new research that the child's brain cannot interpret the difference between this type of quote unquote punishment or discipline and abuse. And so hitting is hitting. And I think this is another thing where it becomes very challenging for a parent to look back and say, wow, I was doing this thing that is actually very harmful to you and was not good. And of course, there is a huge range

of behaviors here between kids who were spanked five times when they did something bad as punishment and kids who were physically abused on a regular basis constantly by their parents in a variety of different ways. And I think all of those adult children are going to have a different type of discussion and feeling about this in adulthood, but there is certainly the reality that your adult child could learn about how this is not great, doesn't have a good impact on them, and they want to talk about it, and they want to understand why you did it, and they might feel that it harmed them in some way. And so I think parents have to be open and willing to have a discussion about this. Politics and religious beliefs didn't have any major differences

between the two groups and the majority report it was not a cause for a stranger, which I thought was interesting. I expected that to be higher. Sexual abuse, only 2% of estranged parents report sexual abuse was a factor, but 12.2% of adult children report that it was a factor in their estrangement. And I understand that. I think that there might be some hesitancy to report that, especially just in an anonymous survey like this.

Sexual identity and gender were not a large reason for either group. I expected that to be much larger also for the adult children or for the parents. And emotional neglect, this was an area where there was a major difference between the two groups. Ninety five point six percent of adult children reported emotional neglect was a factor in the estrangement. And majority of them said that it happened in both adulthood and childhood. And 59.1% of estranged parents said emotional neglect was not a factor. And 17.7% reported their child cited emotional neglect, but they refute it. So we're looking at around 77%ish here saying that emotional neglect was not a factor and or their child said it was a factor, but they don't believe that it is.

We talked about emotional abuse, but childhood emotional neglect is also a term that seems to really be up for debate among adult children and estranged parents. And there are a lot of differences, I think, between how each of these groups thinks about emotional neglect. And so I'm going to be sharing some information about an emotional neglect that's from an article that is called Childhood Emotional Neglect, Science, Effects, and How to Heal from Choosing Therapy. author is a licensed clinical social worker named Elizabeth Marston, and it was medically reviewed by Kristen Fuller, who is an MD. This is an article from July of 2024. So emotional neglect in childhood involves the absence of critical nurturing interactions like connection, support,

and response to a child's distress. A parent being occasionally distracted would not classify as emotional neglect. Rather, it is an ongoing failure to meet a child's emotional needs. Emotional neglect is traumatic and can overwhelm a child's developing system, potentially leading to symptoms of trauma or complex PTSD. And here are some examples of emotional neglect in childhood. Caregivers may ignore emotional needs by dismissing or minimizing a child's feelings. The caregiver may meet emotional expressions such as sadness or anxiety with indifference or by telling the child to just get over it. They may withhold affection, so consistently avoiding physical touch or

verbal expressions of love towards a child can create emotional distance. Lack of validation occurs when a caregiver fails to acknowledge or confirm their child's feelings or experiences. For instance, a child may share excitement only to receive a dismissive response or no acknowledgement at all. Caregivers failing to listen may frequently interrupt or change the subject when their child tries to discuss their feelings or concerns. a caregiver downplaying or minimizing their child's successes or efforts is minimizing achievements.

The caregiver may respond to their child's accomplishments with indifference or criticize their achievements as insignificant. Emotional unavailability, this is one that I hear about often from adults, is when a caregiver can look like they're unable to engage or respond to a child's emotional needs consistently. So the caregiver might seem distant or disinterested. did when their child seeks comfort or validation after like a challenging day at school, leaving the child feeling dismissed or invalidated. Emotionally neglectful parents also do not provide comfort so they don't provide soothing

or reassurance during times of distress or upset. So when a child falls and hurt themselves, they might respond with indifference being like, you're fine, don't cry, get over it, or without offering any comfort or support. Emotionally neglectful parents also avoid difficult conversations. So they might not have discussions about feelings, conflicts, or challenging life events. A neglectful caregiver might change the subject or dismiss the child's emotions. There's also inconsistency in emotions and in how they provide emotional support. So a caregiver might react warmly and supportive to a child's achievements one day, but be dismissive or critical. The next, depending on their own

mood or external factors, and this inconsistency can lead to confusion and anxiety in the child. They also might treat their child like an emotional burden, and this means they get annoyed or frustrated when the child expresses an emotional need or seeks comfort. They may also sigh heavily, make dismissive remarks when their child tries to talk about their feelings or convey the message that emotions are unwelcome or burdensome. They also fail to provide guidance or boundaries. So caregivers who neglect to set clear expectations or limits for a child's behavior or decision making fail to provide guidance or boundaries. For instance, a caregiver may avoid discussing rules or consequences leaving the child uncertain about acceptable behaviors or feeling unsupported

in making decisions. And the last thing is they might isolate the child. So this occurs when a caregiver consistently minimizes the child's social interactions, emotional expressions, or experiences, and they might discourage their child from spending time with peers or participating extracurricular activities, emphasizing solitude, or restricting social outings. And I think what is probably really hard for a lot of parents is that when you hear these signs, you may think, wow, my parent was emotionally neglectful because I think a lot of parents were, you know, in the last several decades when we were not aware of the impact that this could have on children, and how it affects them. And there's been a lot of changes in parenting practices. And so it can be

very difficult to accept like, wow, I think I might have been emotionally neglected. And maybe I decided to pass that on. And there are also parents who believe that when they hear all of this, they're like, oh, that doesn't really harm a kid. That doesn't matter. And so that can also get in the way of any type of acceptance or accountability. It seemed that adult children, and their parents were very aligned on marital issues and divorce, not really being a huge factor or being somewhat of a factor, also very aligned on remarriage. There wasn't a huge discrepancy there. I was surprised on this one that parents and adult children are actually quite aligned on the role that therapists play in estrangement. Most report that the adult child

did not attend therapy before becoming estranged and that the therapist helped them when they were already contemplating estrangement. And it's worth noting that the majority of parents did say that they're not sure what role the therapist played. And the majority of adult children say the therapist did not play any role or they did not attend therapy. But there wasn't this huge percentage of parents or adult children, of course, saying like, yes, a therapist convinced me when I had no thought of my own about doing that. And with social media, the majority of adult children say they did not view any social media post before deciding or that it did not play any role. And the majority of parents are unsure or believe that it helped their child feel less

alone. It influenced them. So again, this is a really, really common point on social media, especially, especially on TikTok, that therapists on TikTok are brainwashing people to become estranged. And I found it interesting that the majority of parents were not saying this with certainty. They were saying they were unsure or they believe that it helped them feel less alone and that it influenced them, not that they had absolutely no idea and they saw social media posts and then just decided to cut off their parent, which I think is one of the more like louder discourses in that space. And then when we're talking about going to therapy together, there's some agreement here, you know, that most adult children report they did not ask their

parent to go to therapy with them. And most parents say they were not asked. And 17.9% of adult children do say they asked and the parent refused, while only 1.5% of a strange parent say they were asked and refused. And I think we knew we were going to see that, that difference. They are just based on the way that people typically talk about this. And many of the parents who wrote me reported they would be willing to go to therapy with their adult child. And I think if I could give some perspective on this from maybe the adult child's point of view that I have interacted with is that a lot of the adult children seem very fearful to go to therapy because of how their emotions and their reactions have been treated in the past. And so if you have someone that has

been dismissed, ridiculed, ignored, boundaries have been violated every time they bring up an issue. I think that they feel that this will be no different in front of the therapist or they're even fearful maybe that the parent will perform differently in front of the therapist as a way to win the therapist over, whatever it is. And so it seems like there's quite a bit of hesitancy to engage in therapy because of that. I also want to say that if your adult child feels that they were abused or they are reporting clear signs of abuse to a therapist. The therapist is going to tell them likely that it is not safe to do therapy with someone who is being abusive currently at this time who has the potential to be abusive, especially if that abuse is physical or could be threatening

to their well-being in some way. You know, we don't do couples therapy with couples where there's abuse happening. You would typically separate them into individual therapy. And so I think that that's likely a consideration here as well. Explanation about why people are going no contact is a big point of contention among adult children and their parents. And this is a recurring theme. If you listen to my episode about the missing missing reasons, this is something that we talk about, that it is a well-documented phenomenon within estranged parent groups and on social media where the majority of estranged parents report that they were not told why their child was becoming estranged. And I want to say, I made a video about this the other day and you can find

it on my TikTok that there are times where people just cut off contact with a parent without giving an explanation right before they do that. But what I want to emphasize is that they likely are doing that because either through their behavior and or their words, they have shown you that there is some type of violation or problem happening within the relationship. And what I mean by that is that throughout the life cycle of a child, as they become an adult, there are so many moments where they are unable to communicate their feelings in childhood in a way that makes sense to an adult, you know, of a five-year-old who's having difficulty with their parent probably isn't going to sit down with them and say, mom, when you do this, it makes me feel this way, especially if that

is not the culture of the family already. And if that is the culture of the family, then they probably wouldn't be having this issue. Now, that being said, as the child ages, they may come into, you know, stages of development where they are able to communicate and they're saying, I don't like you do this. This doesn't feel good. I'm uncomfortable about this. And if you have a culture of emotional neglect, emotional immaturity, emotional abuse, the child is learning and developing a core belief over their life cycle that when I bring up my feelings, nobody does anything about it. They dismiss me. I get hurt even more. And so why am I going to continue bringing that up? Why now, right when I'm feeling like I want to go with no contact, am I going to come to you with a letter and a list and have this

sit down and say, let's go to therapy, because in their mind, they have been expressing themselves a million times along the way. And so that's why I think this can be very difficult for parents that you have to really sit down with a therapist, with your spouse, with a trusted person, and say, okay, we need to look back. We need to be reflective. We need to go back and say, what happened along the way? If I can think about the hardest moments in my family's life and in in my child's life. What were those moments like? And I don't want you to think about all the things that you did and all the stuff that you bought and how they had a roof over their head. I'm talking about was their divorce, was their illness, was there times where your housing was inconsistent,

where there are times where you were really stressed out. And I'm not saying you have to blame and shame yourself, but this is just an exercise in taking the perspective of your child and thinking about what would it have been like for them to go through X at this time in their life, not as an adult, not as the adult that's before you. And that doesn't mean that it wasn't also hard for you and that it wasn't challenging and that you didn't try really hard, but this is just an exercise in trying to understand why they might be feeling, the way they're feeling and what that was like. Now, 39.5% of adult children report that they did not explain their reasoning before going no contact. And I believe that this is likely an error in phrasing on my part that

if I had to guess, that's people were saying I did not explain right before I went, no contact. But the majority of adult children report explaining their reasoning at least once. So maybe not right before they went, no contact, but at least once throughout the life cycle of their life with their parent, and the majority of parents report that they did not get an explanation. The other part that I want to look at is apologies. I thought this was interesting because we have a module at calling home about what to do when your parent won't apologize. And in there, I talk about asking your parents for an apology. So if this is something that you're working on, I would definitely suggest checking that out on our website that's accessible to members.

but 62% of adult children did not ask for an apology and 79.9% of estranged parents reported not being asked for an apology. But there is a major difference in this part when we're talking about apologies. 78.3% of adult children say their parent has never apologized to them and 85.3% say they have apologized to their adult children. There's something going on there. That's a really big discrepancy. And 6.4% of parents believe that they have nothing to apologize for. So there's obviously a huge discrepancy going on here between adult children feeling like they have not been given an apology and parents feeling like they have apologized. And what I see in this survey, I have seen reflected in my work that a lot of adult children will express like I just want an

apology. I just want recognition. And I'm wondering if some of the discrepancy here is that parents are saying, like, I'm sorry for whatever I've done, or I'm sorry, can we just move on? Like, they feel that they've said the words, I'm sorry, but the adult child doesn't feel like there's been recognition or accountability for what happened. That's just a theory that I have about this difference in results. And the 6.4% of parents who believe they have nothing to apologize for, that's kind of concerning, just because I feel that. we all have things as parents that we can take accountability for, try to understand, you know, that happens every day as a parent that you are learning about what is helpful

and what hurts your child and things you could have handled better in moments that you may be snapped. And so I think this idea of like, I have nothing to apologize for can be a little bit damaging to those relationships. When we talk about changed behavior, the majority of adult children say they don't want to pursue a relationship with their parent, and so they don't think that they need to change their behavior because they're not pursuing it. So the question that I asked was, you know, do you need to change any of your own behavior in order to have a healthy relationship with your parent? And one of the responses was, I don't want to pursue a relationship.

But 20.4% that would like to agree that they need to change some of their behavior, the majority of a strange parents are not sure if they need to change their behavior, but 39.4% do believe that they need to. And I think that's a really good sign because I think anybody who is having a difficult relationship with someone who wants to reconcile and wants to move forward needs to be willing to look at themselves and say, okay, how can I show up, you know, as the best version of myself in this relationship and how can I also make it so that we are both like modeling that behavior for one another. Now I'm not ever saying that if someone is physically abusing you, that you need to find a way, you know, to change your behavior to make

that relationship work. We're talking about two adults who are both saying, I'm working on this, you're working on this. I'm going to do my best to show up in a healthy reciprocal relationship. way with you, and you're going to do that with me. And we kind of have this, like, you know, contract between the two of us that I think is implicit in a lot of healthy family relationships that, like, I'm going to respect you, you're going to respect me, and we're both going to work on ourselves in tandem so that we can be in a healthy relationship with one another. I did want to talk about grandparents a little bit because I think the percentages were pretty similar about adult children not allowing their parents, you know, to be active grandparents

if they were estranged. And I mentioned in the parent episode that a lot, I think it was about 18% of parents mentioned that the hardest part about their estrangement from their adult children was not seeing their grandkids. And I understand why this is painful. But I do think that we have to be very cognizant about the fact that if you are separated from your child and are not speaking to them and you're not able to make that relationship work, how deeply painful it is to feel like your parent really doesn't care about reconciling with you or having you in their life. They just want to have access to your child. And I'm a firm believer and I've recorded a podcast episode on grandparents before and we have a module inside calling home for

anyone that's working through issues with grandparents or a grandparent that wants to try to improve their relationship with their adult child. But I believe that only healthy relationships matter for kids. And I find it very hard to reconcile a relationship where there is a person that is very mean or hurtful to a child's parent being healthy for that child. Because the child is going to pick up on that. They're going to notice. And it's not a good dynamic. And so if you want to have a relationship with your grandchild, you also have to find a way to have a relationship with your adult child and to make that relationship respectful and healthy. Now, of course, I know there are grandparents out there that are raising children because their adult child is

addicted to substances, is not able to take care of their children because of health reasons, mental health, physical health, et cetera. And there are certainly situations where this does not apply because your adult child is not doing the right thing for their children at this time. And so you're having to step in and take care of the children and protect them. And I think at the end of the day, what I always come back to is like what is good for the kids here? What is going to help the kids not be exposed to emotional neglect, emotional abuse, physical abuse, physical neglect by way of a grandparent or their own parent. And so, of course, these situations are very nuanced. But I think when we're talking about the relationship between an adult child and their parent, and they have a parent that

says, I'm okay not having a relationship with you, I don't really, that's not really what I'm grieving. I'm grieving the loss of my grandchildren. That speaks to a larger problem in the relationship. And I think is something that can be very painful for the parent of that grandchild to deal with. And then the last thing we're going to talk about in the survey results was life improvement. And I think that this is interesting. It's sad. And it's also illuminating that the vast majority, almost 90% of adult children who took this survey, feel that their life has improved since becoming estranged.

55% of parents say their life has gotten worse. And only 1.9 of adult children feel the same. And so I think we can see here that there is something freeing, something helpful, some type of unburdening happening when adult children free themselves from a parent that they feel like is being harmful to them. And there is a really negative thing that happens in the life of a parent as they age when they do not have a relationship with their child. And to me, this speaks volumes about what is happening in this dynamic and who has the most to lose and who is hurting the most. I think that we really need to think about the impact that this is having

on these two groups and how this plays out long term for both adult children and their parents and what parents really have to lose when they are not able to maintain a relationship with their children in adulthood, and this becomes a crossroads where it's like, what am I willing to do? What am I willing to change? What am I willing to work on or look at in myself in order to move forward with this relationship? And I think for some of these adult children, the relationship is so beyond repair at this point. You know, a lot of them expressed that they don't want to work on the relationship and I think some would if there was truly change and recognition and I know that that's where this gets really difficult because it's like how do I work on a relationship with

someone that isn't speaking to me and I think we can have a lot of dialogue around how that works I want to talk about that more in a future episode about going no contact and I still am working on an episode about all the things that adult children did before going no contact and I got about 500 stories and that episode is going to come out in the next couple of weeks. And so I think then we can talk a little bit more and go deeper into, you know, what adult children are saying they would like to happen during this period of no contact and also talk a little bit further about all the things that were done before they decided to take that step. But I think what this survey really shows us is that there is some agreement around reasons for going no contact, some things that I expected to be much bigger contributors like politics, religion, sexual identity, things like that, that really for this group of people that took this survey do not seem to be some of the major contributors. I think when we look at for the adult children, what is leading to estrangement the most, it's the

this emotional stuff. It's, it's mental health is a big one for both adult children and their parents, but for the adult children, especially it's emotional immaturity that was off the charts. I mean, I think like 98% of people selected that as a contributor to their estrangement. Emotional neglect, emotional abuse, other huge contributors. I think sibling rivalry, you know, for adult children who had siblings, that was a big one. And that's something I've seen come up a lot. And like I mentioned, our sibling relationship content and calling home is one of our most popular. And that's on there if you'd like to go check it out. But I think for any parent that's listening to this and wants to take something away from this episode about an

understanding about why their adult child might have pulled away, I want you to think about some of these big percentages that jumped out like emotional neglect, emotional abuse, and emotional immaturity and really think about how emotions were managed and handled in your household and not even just in how you interacted with your child, but how you talked about them yourself, how you and your partner or your spouse talked about emotions with each other. How were these types of things handled in your home on a day-to-day basis? And can we just look at that and see, okay, how is my family handling that now in adulthood? Because I think that was also something that really stood out to me from the survey is that a lot of these questions about emotional neglect,

emotional abuse, emotional maturity, the people were selecting that this is something that's going on in adulthood. They're not as upset about it happening just in childhood. This is a pervasive pattern that has continued throughout their lifespan. And so I think we have to think about, like, what's happening now in our families? How am I interacting with my adult child when they bring their problems to me? You know, for that group that's selected, I haven't apologized and I have nothing to apologize for. I think that that might fall into the realm of emotional immaturity or emotional neglect for an adult child. They might feel like someone who takes that approach to a relationship like this is not really being understanding.

aware or willing to communicate about some of these issues. But what I will say is that I am really pleasantly surprised by a lot of the responses from estranged parents in this survey. I think that there was a willingness to answer the questions, to look really objectively at the roles that therapy, social media, all these things have played. And I am feeling more convinced that the people who are messaging me and making these videos about therapists brainwashing their kids and you know, really blaming these external factors and not being willing to take any responsibility could actually be a small grouping of these parents and that there are a lot more parents out there that maybe made mistakes, didn't do things how they wanted to do them, didn't grow up

with the best tools or the best messages, and that they are now saying, you know what, I'm hearing this and I wanted to do something about it. And I can't tell you if your adult child is going to be open to that, if they should be open to that. I can't tell the adult children listening to this if your parent even falls in that grouping. But my whole goal for this episode and for this series was really just to try to understand how each group felt about a couple of key areas and to try to see if we can have estranged parents come to a little bit more of an understanding of what are the main themes and issues that adult children are feeling hurt over and that they're wanting to solve. And I hope that this series provided you with a little bit of clarity

on that. I think in the future, I am definitely going to do some more content for calling home and for the podcast on emotional abuse, emotional neglect, and emotional immaturity. For any adult children that related to this emotionally immaturity part, we do have a group at calling home for adult children of emotionally immature parents that meets two Thursdays a month. You need to join the Family Cycle Breakers Club to access that group, but it's a great group. It just started in October, and I think that you will really enjoy it if you're looking to meet other people who have gone through this, go deeper into the work, especially if you've read Lindsay C. Gibson's book or listen to my podcast episode about emotionally maturity. I have another

one also with Morgan Pommels on the podcast that is one of our most popular episodes and it's about emotionally immature parents as well. So I again hope that this episode was helpful to you. Thank you all for being patient with me this episode. I know that the audio quality might not be as great. I am still evacuated from this hurricane that came through the Gulf Coast of Florida. I hope everyone that was affected by Hurricane Milton is safe and good. And I promise that the next episodes will be back in the studio with the microphone and all that good stuff. Thank you again. I hope to see some of you inside of our groups at Calling Home. And I will see you next time. providing therapy services, mental 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 Collingholm or Whitney Goodman. For more information on this, please see Collingholm's terms of service linked in the show notes below. Thank you.