"We see the world not as it is, but as we are." In this episode, Tina invites parents unwillingly estranged from their adult children to take a step back and consider their beliefs about themselves, others, and the world. She compares our individual worldview to a pair of glasses, with lenses of a particular color. We can't help but perceive the world in a limiting way as long as it reaches us through a fixed filter. The central idea in this episode is that even if your adult child's estrangement is an objective fact, the meaning of it, and your response to it, will mirror your habitual feelings, beliefs and expectations. This is a contemplative episode. Listen when you have time and energy for reflection. For information on why adult children become estranged and what parents can do about it, read Tina's book, Reconnecting With Your Estranged Adult Child. Reconnection Club members can discuss this and every episode in the General Discussion forum inside the Reconnection Club. Not a member yet? Learn more and join. EPISODE LINKS: RCP Ep. 160: Emotional Reasoning

TRANSCRIPT: These are uncertain times for those of us who create and freely share content via the Internet. I mentioned on the podcast earlier this year that I needed some time to assess the impact of all the changes happening in the world of digital information, including the widespread, unregulated use of AI. At that time, I removed the show from a couple of the larger platforms, and stopped releasing new episodes to those platforms. Unfortunately, many smaller platforms were also affected. And that’s made it a lot harder for the show to be found by new listeners, which is a dilemma I’m still wrestling with. Because it’s become clear that even more changes are necessary to protect the integrity of this podcast, even while making sure that you, the listener, can still access it. So here’s the current plan. Starting with Episode 177, which will be released on July 29th, 2024, new episodes will appear in more places, but with certain exceptions, they will expire when the next episode is released. And beginning immediately, I’m going to start expiring some of the older episodes – again, with certain exceptions. Namely, the following: - If you’re used to listening to the videos on our YouTube channel, or ... - If you listen on the Reconnection Club website... Nothing will change for you. There will be no expiration and you can disregard this entire announcement. (Again, that is if you listen on either our YouTube channel, or our website.) However, if you use a podcast player app like iHeartRadio or Pocket Casts, then new episodes starting with 177 will typically be available for only two weeks, and then they will expire. There are ways to get around that two-week time limit. Within those first two weeks, you should still be able to download episodes and keep them for however long you want, depending on the app. Please check on that directly with your app. I don’t have that information. But if you ever lose an episode or can’t find one that you’re looking for, remember you can always find every single episode, old and new, on the Reconnection Club website, at reconnectionclub.com/podcast, or by episode number, for example, "reconnectionclub.com/130" for Episode 130. Or, subscribe to our YouTube channel for free and listen there. I know that episode expiration will not be a welcome change, and I thank you for your understanding and patience as I try to strike a balance between limiting unauthorized access by AI, and preserving your access to the podcast as a listener. I also thank you for sharing the Reconnection Club Podcast with other parents experiencing unwanted estrangement from their adult children. Thank you for your continued support in these challenging times.

There are many more episodes to come! To find ALL episodes of the Reconnection Club Podcast, go to Reconnectionclub.com/podcast.

Episodes 97, 98 and 99 form a 3-part series outlining an overall stepwise approach to reconnecting with your estranged adult child. In the 3rd and final episode of this series, you'll find out why it's important to go through the steps in order, and not to enter Step 3 prematurely. By the time you get to this last step, you should already have completed 90% of the work of reconnection -- even without your adult child's participation. Tina cautions that many rejected parents go through the steps backwards, expending energy in fruitless efforts for which they haven't yet built a foundation. You'll also hear about three different traps that parents can fall into, in trying to repair an estrangement. Once you've spent constructive time in Steps 1 and 2, you'll be prepared for Step 3, which should be the easiest of the three, if approached in order.

Episodes 97, 98 and 99 form a 3-part series outlining an overall stepwise approach to reconnecting with your estranged adult child. In the first episode, Tina explains why it's important to slow down and avoid acting impulsively, from a place of desperation. This foundational episode provides a rationale for Step 1, and then lists specific tasks appropriate for this first phase of responding to your adult child's estrangement. You'll learn why it's necessary to pay attention to your nervous system, and how best to avoid unnecessary suffering. (According to Buddhism, pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional.) Reconnection Club members can find an annotated guide to the Road Map, with links to Tina's favorite resources, inside the Reconnection Club.

This week’s episode begins with an assertion that neither pain nor compassion is a zero-sum commodity. Estranged adult child are in some ways wounded by the relationship they share with their parents. Most people in this position are in pain over the necessity of estrangement. Acknowledging that fact, we can still find compassion for the rejected parent who finds himself left behind. It’s usually the case that he did the best he knew how to do, and didn’t mean to hurt his child(ren). Estrangement involves pain on both sides. Tina talks about three separate types of parental pain, which she suggests exist at deeper and deeper levels in the parent. If you’re hurting over the relationship with your adult child or children, this episode is a must-listen.

The parent-child relationship is not like any other. In so many ways, your role has always been a more demanding one than your child’s. If you were lucky, you had no responsibility for your parents when you were growing up; they took care of you, and not the other way around. Parents care for their children, and children are cared for by parents. There's something inherently asymmetrical about the relationship. That dynamic gets etched into both of your psyches as your child grows to maturity. And even though she’s now an adult, she’s never going to be exactly like your peers. Tina describes the ways and means that parents shoulder the burden of steering relationships with their children. It’s clear that although parents and children are not exactly peers, even in adulthood, parents trade the responsibilities of parenting for the honor of being irreplaceable. Most of us have just one of each parent. Never believe you’re interchangeable with anyone else in your adult child’s life.

Once you start learning, growing and healing through estrangement from an adult child, you might feel like sharing new insights with your child. Why wouldn’t s/he be interested in hearing what you’ve learned? And how exciting, to have new knowledge that can create a positive impact in your relationship. That’s why many parents ask, “How do I let my estranged adult child know I’ve changed, if we’re not currently in contact?” Tina’s answer is, “Don’t be in a hurry to do that.” Find out why you might want to wait on writing them a note about the work you've been doing, and what to do instead. For practical tips on how to repair an estranged relationship with your adult child(ren), see Tina's book, Reconnecting With Your Estranged Adult Child. Reconnection Club members can discuss this episode in the General Discussion forum inside the Reconnection Club. Not a member yet? Learn more and join.

Weekly episodes will continue through May 31st, but after that, the next new episode will come out the first Monday in September. Tina is available over the summer (or winter if you're in the Southern Hemisphere) for private consultation. Also, the Reconnection Club is open to all parents who've listened to the podcast and read Reconnecting With Your Estranged Adult Child. The Club offers even more resources created by Tina, along with a friendly community of parents experiencing estrangement from their adult children. For information about private consultation with Tina, go to tinagilbertson.com/consultation. To learn more about the Reconnection Club, go to reconnectionclub.com/learn-more.

It’s not uncommon for parents rejected by adult children to feel humiliated by the experience of estrangement. And humiliation is a terrible feeling for anyone. So when you’re faced with the idea of approaching your estranged adult child(ren) with humility, you might think, ‘Why on earth would I sign up for that?’ And also, ‘I’ve still got my pride,’ and perhaps also, ‘I’m not giving up my dignity along with my child(ren).’ But humility is not the same as feeling humiliated. Humility empowers, rather than disempowering, those who adopt it as an attitude. In this thought-provoking episode, Tina breaks down the differences and offers a clear illustration of the power of humility. Members can discuss this episode in the General Discussion forum inside the Reconnection Club. Not a member yet? Learn more and join. Check out Tina’s book, Reconnecting with Your Estranged Adult Child.

Parents of estranged adult children often get no response to messages they send. With every lack of response, parents become more and more discouraged. They take their child’s silence as continued rejection, and they start to feel powerless. While it’s true that adult children often don’t respond if they don’t like the message, there are other reasons why they might not reply, even if the messages lands well. In this inspiring episode, Tina suggests that getting a response shouldn’t be considered the only measure of success. As long as they know their messages are helping to restore the relationship, parents can feel good about what they send. If you’re thinking of offering an apology, or if you’ve sent apologies in the past without apparent effect, make sure you know the elements of an effective apology. (Go to https://reconnectionclub.com/87 for a link to Lesson 1 of the Reconnection Club apology course.) That’s just one example of how parents can educate themselves to become confident in what they’re sending to their estranged adult children. Make sure everything you send during an estrangement is both heartfelt and on target.

If you’ve been in the Reconnection Club environment long enough, you’re probably on board with the idea of taking your estranged adult child’s point of view. You want to be supportive, to validate his thoughts and feelings, while you work on repairing the relationship. But how do you do that in the face of poor behavior, without feeling like a doormat? In this week’s show, Tina looks at 3 scenarios where parents are vulnerable to feeling like doormats: - Your adult child only contacts you when she needs something, then disappears again. - Your child uses foul language when he speaks to you, but you don’t want to complain and risk losing contact. - You send invitations and wait for responses that never come, so you never know whether to set another place at the table. With these examples in mind, learn how to strike a balance between being supportive and being walked on.

Many parents rejected by an adult child are committed to working toward a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship. But they recognize that even if they work very hard and do everything right, reconciliation can take more time than they’d like. Some estranged adult children simply need more time before they’re ready to try again. They may be too busy or too anxious right now to take the relationship off the back burner and re-engage. This leaves parents with nothing to do but wait. Or does it? For unwillingly estranged parents, waiting should not be a passive enterprise. If you’re waiting to hear from your child, don’t waste valuable time. You could be preparing right now for a better outcome in the future. In this episode, Tina explains why parents should spend their “waiting” time constructively and offers specific suggestions for things you can do. You’ll be lucky if you have the time to do the recommended homework before your child comes back. If you do, it will make all the difference in a successful reconciliation. Members can discuss this episode in the General Discussion forum inside the Reconnection Club. Not a member yet? Learn more and join. Check out Tina’s book, Reconnecting with Your Estranged Adult Child

You’d be surprised how many estranged adult children come from close families. It’s a myth that parents must have been toxic and abusive for adult children to seek estrangement. Sometimes the very closeness that characterizes a family is what underlies the adult child’s need for distance. But how can that be? Aren’t close families good for children? Yes, close families are wonderful environments for children to grow up in. But not every family is close in the right way for children to thrive. In this episode, Tina distinguishes between closeness and enmeshment. While closeness is healthy and feels good for everyone involved, enmeshment pumps the brakes on individuality and autonomy, especially in children. The closeness that parents enjoy in enmeshed families may be experienced by children as control or benign oppression. As always, Tina offers hope for parents to turn things around.

How can they do this? Is it really okay with them? Are they happy? Research suggests answers to these questions, and Tina shares the information in this informative episode.

Estrangement from your adult child may or may not include verbal assaults from him or her, featuring foul language. If you’re faced with this kind of behavior, given the current estrangement, what’s the best way to respond? You don’t want to push your child further away. But does that mean you have to tolerate whatever language they may fling at you in a text? In this episode, Tina offers a 2-part response for parents. Her approach takes into account both your family’s communication history and the importance of healthy boundaries, even during estrangement. Don’t continue to put up with rude behavior. Know where your limits are, and calmly assert them. Do this with your child, your spouse or partner, other family members and friends. Setting boundaries, if you do it in the spirit of building better relationships, will not damage your bond with your adult children. Use the examples given in this episode to set your own boundaries around the disrespectful use of foul language. In the spirit of picking your battles, Tina also offers an opinion regarding your adult child’s use of “snarky tones” with you.

Estrangement doesn’t happen on a whim. If your adult child has cut ties with you at the moment, he has reasons that make sense to him, and that are probably long-standing. In order for the estrangement to end, those reasons usually need to be addressed and neutralized. Many parents rejected by their adult children are in such a hurry to end the estrangement that they don’t take sufficient time to investigate the “why” of what happened. They miss opportunities to understand and correct missteps that led to problems in the first place. Even if they search high and low for the cause of their children’s behavior, parents as a group tend to look in the wrong places for the causes of estrangement. In this informative episode, Tina helps parents slow down and focus their efforts where they’ll be most fruitful. If you can pinpoint the real cause(s) of your adult child’s desire for distance, you can start building a better experience for both of you in the future.

Mothers and daughters have the potential for a very close, lifelong relationship. But not every mother-daughter pair enjoys a harmonious, supportive bond. You may have seen your friends get together with their grown daughters, and watched them with envy. Your daughter, in contrast, has become estranged. How did this happen, and why? If the mother-daughter bond is supposed to be so close, why do so many mothers and daughters become estranged? Mother-daughter relationship coach Rosjke Hasseldine has some important thoughts on that question, and she shares them in this episode. Listen to an excerpt from Tina’s interview with Rosjke, who is also the author of The Mother-Daughter Puzzle and The Silent Female Scream. In this excerpt you’ll hear Rosjke discussing the roots of conflict between mothers and daughters – what often goes wrong in this very special relationship, and why the problem extends beyond just you and your daughter.

It’s common for rejected parents who are unwillingly estranged from an adult child to feel utterly powerless. And that's a horrible feeling in the face of a breach in an important relationship. But there are three specific assumptions parents make that leave them truly powerless. These insidious assumptions are: Your child’s estrangement is entirely about something that happened in the past, Someone else is controlling (or has brainwashed) your child, and Your child has a personality disorder that’s making him act this way. Each of these assumptions in the parent says, in effect, “This estrangement in entirely beyond my control.” Only when parents give up any hope of having a positive impact on their troubled relationship, are they truly powerless to heal estrangement from their adult children. The other episode mentioned on this show was Episode #62, Personality Disorders and Estrangement.

It’s the festive season – always a complicated time for people experiencing estrangement from family. The holidays are full of friendship, gift-giving, celebrating and creating memories. But for parents rejected by one or more of their adult children, it can feel wrong to participate. Having a good time feels … unseemly. How can parents enjoy themselves when such an important relationship is in trouble? Don’t they miss their children? Don’t they love them? In this episode, Tina suggests that it’s not only okay, but healthy and important, for rejected parents to enjoy themselves during estrangement. The holidays are a good time to practice this. But throughout the year, if you’re too sad to participate in good times and creating happy memories with others, you’re adding to your pain and loss. According to Tina, you deserve better. She outlines three typical reasons why parents find it hard to let loose, and counters them with common sense and compassion. This inspiring episode will give you permission to go ahead and enjoy yourself this holiday season, and beyond.