When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don't Get Along

There are very few books that lay out the factors that might be at play without adding to the blame and black and white thinking that can plague families w the problem of alienation and estrangement. This book is great and exceeds expectations

Being an adult child of alcoholics, I have spent a lifetime in the self-help section of bookstores, along with much therapy trying to understand the craziness. So I raised my kids the exact opposite from my abusive childhood, never drinking and no physical abuse. Not perfect certainly because I will always feel somewhat broken after a traumatic childhood. I thought that if I rewrote the story the ending would be different. But my greatest sadness is that no, it hasn't turned out much different. My children (who are in their 40s), act like my parents did towards me, so I am reliving the hurt and emotional blackmail.I had this amazing blinding flash of the obvious while reading this book. My kids haven't EVER treated me with care, kindness, appreciation or respect since 7th grade. I just made excuses then and throughout their teenage years. Little did I know it would morph into a full-blown betrayal, way beyond hurt. Your children always have a special place in your heart... more than parents, spouses and friends. You can walk away from those who are toxic to your well being, but it is so much harder with your children. But they can be just as toxic as anyone with more guilt, blame and heartache than anyone else could cause. And if you allow it, they will twist that knife of condescension and blame even deeper.This book points out without the over-your-head psychobabble all the contributory factors to these bad behaviors that might not have much to do with you at all. It helps relieve your guilt and always asking the eternal WHY and HOW? Especially when you did your absolute best to have a different outcome which is now completely out of your control. This book is the best that I have read about when your wayward children then turn around and blame you without accountability, recognition, and apologies for their own poor choices.I have tried to reconnect 3 times recently after a 15 year estrangement... as they erased me. All I got in return was the blame game and self serving, rewritten history, or ZERO response. To bring myself some peace I ask if they would help me or hurt me right now. From experience, the answer is, of course, hurt me. While the door is still open, it is time to move on, redraw the line in the sand and receive the respect, care and compassion that should be the foundation of any healthy relationship. I deserve no less. This book has given me the strength to see that more clearly.

I really respect Joshua Coleman's presentation of this information. He is able to portray situations in child/parent estrangements in very compassionate terms and he is obviously experienced with this. I read his newsletters too and sought any kind of encouragement on actions I could take to not hurt when I was going through a period with my oldest son. There wasn't anything -- just a lot of allowance for kids to cut off their parents without explanation, without recourse, for no explained reasons, even very hurtful actions against the parents. Coleman doesn't excuse their behavior, but he leans to them for the solution. He advocates letting go of them, not calling or writing them if they've asked you not to, and letting them know you're available for talking if they want. It left me feeling more hopeless and thinking that yet another door was being shut in my face. There are many reasons for kids to cut off their parents, some completely justified, as in cases of physical or mental and emotional abuse -- but, there are also trends of narcissism and extreme selfishness in younger generations today and this can be seen throughout our culture. They tend to view parents as old, uninformed, ignorant, old-fashioned, useless, and unnecessary and in a sense, cutting the parents off from socializing with them is a way to gain their autonomy, more than a need for healing, although many cases can be exactly about that healing. Abusive parents have earned any disassociation and its definitely more healthy for the kids to go to that extreme of cut off to heal. But, some kids do it because they see others doing it and maybe they just need to mature themselves and are acting out some vengeance, rather than talking to their parents with a family therapist or other neutral party to work through any differences. Its not helpful to take away the grandchildren, or tell hurtful lies to friends or other family members to "get even". This is where I didn't see a lot of address in Coleman's book. I'd recommend it anyway, however, to parents who are newly experiencing this with one or more of their adult children because it helps to know others are going through it too, and some are having a much worse time of it. Also, it gets the parent out of the merry-go-round of "what can I do?" We always try to help our kids or fix things and this is a situation which has to ride out on its own. But, I will still say, the kids are not making a right by creating a wrong, as long as there has not been physical or mental/emotional abuse. They should also realize they are creating more bad karma around their relationships by withholding their love and grandchildren, or even acknowledgement. Its not healthy to at least let them know that while they may have their reasons for cutting you off, they're not helping themselves or anyone else, least of all you by not letting you know what they are angry about. It just creates a black hole. Joshua Coleman should write a follow up book to kids who cut their parents off. That might be interesting.