When Family Hurts - Parental Estrangement Part 2

For those who missed our part one, can you explain what is parental estrangement and how common is this?

That is such a good place for us to begin, Dennis, because many people listening might not understand what we mean by this topic.

But unfortunately, parental estrangement is becoming very common.

And it represents a situation in which there is conflict between a parent and an adult child, and that conflict resolves in the parents being cut off.

and there is no communication or very little communication between both parties.

And it's important that we differentiate this from regular family discord, because in family discord, family members will still meet, and they will still try to work through the conflict.

But in estrangement, there is... and a desire by one or both parties to be separate from each other.

And in most cases, it is the adult child that is setting that boundary of no contact.

Unfortunately, as I said before, it's very common.

One study showed that about 6% of adults reports that they have experienced some form of estrangement from their parent.

And 6% of that estrangement is from a mother.

26% of respondents in the study said that they have experienced estrangement from their father.

And so it's unfortunately very common.

And this is one of the reasons that is why I think this is a good show for us to do, because many parents out there are suffering secretly, and many parents carry shame, feeling as if they're failures because of estrangement.

But estrangement is a very complex thing, and through this two-part series, we are looking into it and providing guidance that can be helpful to grieving parents.

Thank you for such a great explanation, Michael, because I'm sure a lot of people are wondering about this topic of parental estrangement.

So I really want to revisit the question of parents needing somewhere safe to process their grief.

Because they're really grieving that separation from their child or children.

So rather than them pouring all of it into messages to their child, writing and texting, emailing, or even trying to call.

So after the parent gets calm, What if the reason the adult child gives seems unfair or inaccurate?

That's such a good question, because as we said, parental estrangement is very, very complex.

And often there are two different sides to the story, as in any conflict.

So a child may have a very different version of their experience in the family than what a parent has.

And so it's important for the parent in this example to approach the situation not in the form of a courtroom defense where you're defending your position to prove that you are right and that the child is wrong.

Approach it instead from a position of humility where you're trying to understand and use it as an opportunity for self-examination to figure out what role you may have played in the estrangement.