What To Do When Your Adult Child Goes ‘No Contact’

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It’s been more than ten years since Patricia’s 49-year-old daughter last had contact with her—no phone calls, no visits.

Now, her 32-year-old son has cut off contact, too, leaving Patricia anguished and worried about his ongoing medical condition.

“I’ve been the best mother a mother can be,” she told Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak on their More2Life radio show recently. “As a mother, I am so worried. I wake up at three in the morning; I go to church and do the rosary.”

Another caller from Oklahoma shared a different version of the same story: her daughter went no contact two years ago, after the listener’s marriage ended: calls blocked, birthday cards returned. Worse, the daughter has maintained contact with her father (the listener’s former husband), even though it was his substance abuse and infidelity that ended the marriage.

The anonymous caller shared that she has been going to therapy for two years, working on various issues. Now, she simply wants to reconnect with her daughter. “I would give anything if my daughter would call me and say, ‘Mom, we’ve got to talk.’ Oh my goodness, yes! How do I reach out to her?”

Broken Family Relationships Are All Too Common

The Popcaks noted that they have received quite a few of these “no contact” calls in recent months. Cutting off all contact might be justified in some situations where the relationship is so unhealthy as to be harmful, they acknowledge. But for most situations, there is space for reconciliation in the relationship. 

Lots of people experience the pain of estrangement: recent polling finds that about 35 percent of Americans report being estranged from an immediate family member.

The good news is that it’s possible to heal these broken relationships, and many people do. Ohio State sociologist Rin Reczek tracked 8,495 mother-child and 8,119 father-child relationships for more than twenty years; of those experiencing estrangement, 69 percent of father-child estrangements ended, as did 81 percent of mother-child estrangements.

So, if you share Patricia’s pain, there is hope. But what’s the best way to get from “no contact” to a better relationship with your adult children?

The Road to Reconciliation Begins with a Question

A good way to begin, the Popcaks told Patricia, is to think about what your kids are trying to say by going no-contact.

“They’re sending you a message,” Dr. Popcak said. “They’re saying, mom, the way you care feels toxic.” They might even feel violated in some way.

The Popcaks had a similar challenge for the anonymous caller to consider: “If your daughter were the one calling this show, why would she say she cut you off?”

For Patricia, the answer was likely her habit of relying on her adult kids to manage her anxiety. The caller from Oklahoma acknowledged that her daughter would likely call her “controlling.”

In both cases, the callers insisted that they cared about their children and never intended to cause them distress. But that can be true right alongside the reality of the children’s feelings about the relationship. What is important, the Popcaks said, is that the first step toward reconnecting with your adult kids begins with acknowledging their account of the relationship — whether it seems fair or not.

Your goal here is to be able to state their case well enough that they would recognize it as theirs. That’s what provides the opening for renewing the relationship.

But what then?

Three Steps Toward Reconnecting with Your Adult Child

1. Don’t Argue Your Case

Above all, don’t argue your case, explain your actions, or otherwise attempt to persuade your child that what they are saying about you and your relationship is off base. It’s not that you don’t have a right to share your side of the story — eventually. It’s simply the reality that, no matter how unfair it seems, you need to “bite your tongue,” as Dr. Popcak put it, during the tender, tentative first steps toward re-establishing contact.

2. Help Them Feel Safe and Heard

When you make an overture toward reconnecting with your child, you want to remember that, in all likelihood, they have cut off contact to protect themselves. In order to re-establish contact, you need to make it safe for them to be vulnerable with you.

“Safe” in this context is about more than not yelling or saying hurtful things; you want to go beyond that, approaching the conversation with a humble spirit of acceptance and curiosity.

Dr. Popcak suggested the Oklahoma caller begin by writing her daughter a short note along these lines: I understand that you felt I’ve been controlling, and I’m sorry I’ve come off that way to you. That is not what I intended, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is how you saw our relationship.

Then, the overture: I want you to know that I’m ready to hear whatever it is that you have to tell me, whenever you’re ready to tell me.

In your initial conversations, continue to hold this posture of patient humility: Don’t explain; don’t justify; don’t argue. You don’t have to acknowledge that their account is the whole truth or even factually correct, but you can and should listen to their account of how they felt relating to you in the past.

3. Give It Time and Go at Their Pace

At some point, you may be able to offer to share your own side of the story. But to get to that point, you need to re-establish trust, which means letting them set the pace.

What does this look like? Dr. Popcak offered this “script” as an example: Look, there’s a lot I could say about why I did what I did or what I was trying to do, and I could talk about that if you’re willing, but I just want you to know that I understand that none of that really matters. What matters in the end is the relationship that we have and that you haven’t experienced me as supportive or listening (or whatever they say is the case). And moving forward, I’d really like to figure out how to heal that, when you’re ready. But I respect your boundaries, whatever they might be. 

“It’s only by taking that humble but sincere and strong approach that you can find your way through it,” Dr. Popcak said.

A Little Humility Goes a Long Way

Part of what makes the process of reconnecting with estranged adult children difficult is the crushing sense that, despite our best intentions, we messed up as parents. Remember, though, that many other parents have been in the same position and come out on the other side with a closer relationship with their adult kids.

Even Dr. Popcak has had to swallow his pride when his adult child was critical about the way something was handled growing up.

“Not only am I his father, I’m the parenting expert!” Dr. Popcak laughs. “But I’ve got to get over myself.”

Our adult kids are no longer two or ten or sixteen, Lisa pointed out, so we can’t continue to relate to them as if they were. “They’re adults, and they want us to get to know them as adults, and we have to let our children get to know us in a way that they never have before.”

If your adult son or daughter has gone “no contact,” Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak’s book Having Meaningful (Sometimes Difficult) Conversations with Your Adult Sons & Daughters provides a much more detailed roadmap toward a better relationship. And for more personalized support, reach out to the team of pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.

Even Jesus Had Needs; Here’s How to Make Sure Yours Get Met

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It’s an unfortunate fact of life that mind reading isn’t a real thing. If it were, maybe we would get the help and support we need without having to say anything.

Until someone invents a mind-reading device, though, we’re going to have to speak up for our needs — and we shouldn’t be afraid of doing just that, says pastoral counselor Rachel Isaac.

Isaac, who directs the faith-based success and performance coaching at CatholicCounselors.com, works with clients — athletes, executives, parents, spouses — who are learning to speak up for what they need without feeling guilty about it.

“If we have a need and we’re feeling neglected in meeting that need, we tend to think that maybe if I’m quiet enough, or if I yell enough, the other person will get the hint,” Isaac said on a recent episode of the More2Life radio show. “But this approach just hurts our feelings, hurts our relationships, and creates more distance between us and the other person.”

What Do You Need?

When she is working with clients who are frustrated that their needs aren’t being met by the important people in their lives, Isaac begins by asking a simple question: What do you wish the other person would notice that you need?

That’s usually an easy question to answer: I wish my husband would help more. I wish my boss understood how much I’m carrying. I wish my kids appreciated everything I do. I just wish someone knew I needed a break.

Then comes the tougher question: Have you ever actually told them what you need?

“Usually the answer is no, because underneath is this fear that if I ask for what I need, people will think I’m selfish, or I’m weak, or I’m too much, or they’ll just reject me altogether,” Isaac explained.

In other words, we often fail to say what we need because it feels safer to stay quiet and hope someone notices than risk being told our needs don’t matter.

‘Even Jesus Had Needs’

Isaac’s answer to that fear is simple and rooted in Scripture: “Needs aren’t weaknesses,” she said. “They’re part of being human.”

Even Jesus had needs, Isaac pointed out. He withdrew to pray, he rested, and he accepted help carrying his cross. If needs weren’t a weakness in Christ, they aren’t a weakness in us.

To be clear, Isaac acknowledges that the fear that keeps many people silent — that if we name our needs, others will ignore or trivialize them — is a real possibility.

But the solution isn’t to stifle our needs. Rather, the solution is to find another way to ensure your basic needs are met.

“How will you respond to ensure that you’re taking yourself seriously, whether the other person is taking you seriously or not?” Isaac said. “I always remind people that confidence isn’t a feeling, it’s a practice. So every time you communicate a need respectfully, you’re teaching your brain, ‘I can take care of myself without abandoning other people.’ And even more importantly: ‘My worth doesn’t depend on keeping everyone else happy.’”

None of this is incompatible with a faithful Christian life. In fact, helping others learn how to live God’s love in our relationships is part of our mission as Christians.

Three Questions to Ask

Isaac offers a simple three-question framework for moving from a passive stance toward actively making your needs known.

  1. What do I need right now? Before you can ask for anything, you have to know what you’re actually asking for. Get specific. “I need help” is vague. “I need my spouse to take the kids Saturday morning so I can take a break” is something someone can actually respond to.
  2. Have I actually communicated that need? Hinting or beating around the bush doesn’t count. Instead, aim for stating your needs plainly, out loud, to the person who can do something about it.
  3. If that need continues to go unmet, what do I need to do next? This question isn’t aimed at punishing the other person. It’s about deciding, ahead of time, how you’ll take care of yourself if the other person continues to ignore your needs.

“Expressing your needs and setting boundaries isn’t selfish or unnecessary,” Isaac said. “They’re acts of stewardship — for yourself and for your relationships.”

Not Either-Or, but Both-And

Sometimes people shy away from stating what they need because doing so feels confrontational. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Reframing your ask as good stewardship of the relationship suggests a different approach.

As Dr. Greg Popcak pointed out during his conversation with Rachael Isaac, naming your needs isn’t about dismissing the other person’s needs. Instead, in a healthy relationship, it’s about working together to find a way to attend to one another’s needs.

Take a moment this week to ask yourself Isaac’s question: What are you hoping someone notices that you’ve never said out loud? Then consider actually saying it. You can also practice this and other important reflection questions daily with Rachael’s digital journal Not Me First, But Me Too. 

For more one-on-one help learning to voice your needs and set healthy boundaries, reach out to Rachel Isaac or another pastoral counselor at CatholicCounselors.com. You may also find Dr. Greg Popcak’s book God Help Me! These People Are Driving Me Nuts! Making Peace with Difficult People a helpful next step.

Helping Your Kids Discern the Big Decisions

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As Karen’s high school age daughter began looking at colleges, she set her heart on a large school across the country. That worried Karen, who felt that her daughter, though a good kid, was more of a follower than a leader. What if, Karen worried, her daughter fell in with the wrong crowd? But when she said that out loud, her daughter accused her of being controlling.

“I want to trust her, but I also feel like part of my job is to keep her from walking off a cliff,” Karen said in an email to Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak, hosts of the More2Life radio show. ”Where’s the line between helping her discern and just imposing what I think is best?”

Karen’s instinct is right on target. As much as we might want to shepherd our kids around every pitfall that life throws their way, it’s far better to help them make good decisions on their own. But how do we do that?

Making Room for Kids to Practice Discernment

If we’re trying to teach our kids how to make good decisions, then instead of just telling them what the right answer is, “we have to kind of give up the idea that we have the right to kind of tell the child what to do,” Dr. Popcak said.

Yes, we parents have the right and responsibility to protect our kids’ well-being. But just as our kids won’t learn to ride a bike if we aren’t willing to give them some space, we also need to make room for them to practice decision making.

That practice can begin early with small decisions, said Rachel Watkins, developer of the Little Flowers Girls Club and a guest of the More2Life show. Even young kids can participate in a conversation about what to do over the weekend or where to go on vacation, she said. Even when it comes to big family decisions, like whether to accept a job offer or move to another state, kids can be invited to pray with Mom and Dad about the decision.

Start by Praying Together

Prayer is key to discernment, Greg and Lisa told Karen. They suggested that she and her daughter pray together about the decision—out loud, and addressing God, not one another.

“You’re talking to God in each other’s presence,” Lisa said. “You’re listening to each other while you’re both talking to God, and you’re asking the Holy Spirit to help you clue in to certain things that each other is saying.”

For example, Karen might talk to God out loud about her fears and concerns. Her daughter, in turn, might pray about how she feels controlled and not trusted by her parents. For this to work, it’s key that the prayer be genuine, not a lecture disguised as a prayer.

“You can use that prayer then as a springboard for deeper conversation,” Dr. Popcak said.

God Wants Us to Have an Abundant Life

Kids and adults alike will often ask whether the fruit of their prayer is really God’s voice, or just their own.

Dr. Popcak suggests that question is a red herring. “The question we need to be asking is, what direction does this voice lead in?” he said. “We can discover God’s will by prayerfully leaning into three qualities, meaningfulness, intimacy, and virtue.”

Those three qualities offer kids (and adults) a compass for making important life decisions because they are the three pillars of the abundant life God wants for us. Anything that points toward meaningfulness, intimacy and virtue is likely from the Holy Spirit, while anything pulling toward powerlessness, isolation or self-indulgence is not.

As you and your child practice discerning together, ask:

  1.   Meaningfulness. Which option gives your child the best chance to use their gifts to make a positive difference? Not which looks most impressive, but where this particular young person has something to offer.
  2.   Intimacy. Which option leads to deeper, stronger, healthier relationships?
  3.   Virtue. Which option will challenge your child to become more of the whole, healed, godly, grace-filled person God made them to be? 

You Don’t Need Trumpets to Move Forward

Sometimes people will fall into the trap of waiting for an explicit, obvious sign that they are making the right decision: a flash of light, a voice from the sky, a trumpet fanfare.

But such signs are rare, and in most cases, we don’t really need anything more than to trust that God will walk alongside us, continuing to guide us as we go along. A prayerful, open spirit plus the “compass” of meaningfulness, intimacy, and virtue will keep you and your child headed in the right general direction, which is seeking God’s loving will. As long as we desire to follow God’s will, God in his mercy will help us refine the course we’ve charted.

Dr. Popcak said that as he settles on a direction in his own life, he prays something like this: Lord, I brought this to you and I’ve investigated the things that are truly possible. This direction seems not only possible, but it also seems like it will lead me to greater meaningfulness, intimacy, and virtue, so this is what I’m going to do. But if that’s not what you want me to do, please hit me upside the head and let me know.

Teach Your Kids to Fly

Lisa used a vivid image for the role that parents ought to play in helping their kids learn to discern big decisions. Don’t engage in helicopter parenting, she said, hovering over your kids to direct their every move. Instead, teach them to fly the helicopter. That means sitting alongside them as a mentor and guide…until they are ready to fly on their own.

For more on raising children who can hear God’s voice for themselves, see Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak’s book Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids. And for personalized support with a big family decision, reach out to the pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.

 

Feeling Stuck? Choose Curiosity over Caution

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Three years after his retirement, Michael still found himself at loose ends; most days he found himself on the couch, listening to the radio or praying a rosary, wondering whether this was all there was now.

That’s when he called into the More2Life radio show hosted by Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak.

Michael’s situation is one that the Popcaks see on a regular basis: A job ends, a diagnosis arrives, a relationship changes, and suddenly we are facing a future we can’t picture, so we stop picturing it. We stay on the couch—not out of laziness, but because moving seems to require knowing where you’re headed.

Rachael Isaac, a pastoral counselor and mental performance specialist who directs the Success and Performance Coaching program at CatholicCounselors.com, told the Popcaks that the thing keeping most of us stuck isn’t the problem itself.

“When we’re dealing with stress, one of the biggest things that can cause that stress is the uncertainty that we have about the situation,” Isaac says. “That uncertainty just causes us to close in on ourselves, and we stop asking questions or exploring possibilities, and sometimes we even stop taking action altogether.”

Why Withdrawing Feels So Reasonable

There is nothing irrational about pulling back. Isaac points out that the reactive part of the brain is doing its job when it steers us away from anything uncertain. That self-protecting part of the brain interprets the unknown as a threat and nudges us toward caution.

The trouble is what it costs us: “While withdrawing often feels safe in the moment, it also leaves us feeling really trapped,” Isaac says. “The more we close ourselves off, the smaller our world becomes, and the less we can use the gifts and strengths that God’s given us.”

Curiosity Is the Opposite of Shutting Down

Surprisingly, Isaac says the alternative to fear and caution isn’t courage, but curiosity.

“One of the most effective ways that we can interrupt that cycle [of fear] is to become curious, because curiosity is the opposite of fear’s instinct to shut down,” she says. “When we’re curious, we naturally lean in instead of pulling away. We begin looking for information instead of just assuming the worst-case scenario.”

Curiosity moves the brain out of a threat-focused state and into a learning state. And when that shift happens, our questions change, too. Fear asks: What if this goes wrong? Curiosity asks: What can I learn here, and what am I not seeing yet? Those questions don’t make the uncertainty disappear; they just change our relationship with it.

Isaac points out that Scripture is full of people who stepped out boldly even though they didn’t have the full picture of what might happen. Peter had no idea what would happen when he stepped out of the boat, for example; Abraham didn’t know what would happen when he left his homeland; and the disciples certainly had no idea what to expect after the Resurrection.

Sometimes, God calls us to lean into curiosity in smaller ways. Lisa Popcak points to Jesus telling the disciples to cast their nets on the other side of the boat.

“That seems ridiculous,” she said, “even when we know what’s going to happen.” A few feet of water, and the nets came up full. Even “switching sides of the boat,” Lisa said, can open us up to new possibilities.

Three Questions to Ask When You Can’t See Ahead

If you’re facing uncertainty, don’t let fear shut you down. Isaac offers three questions to ask instead.

1. What is God trying to teach me through this?

This one reframes the whole situation. Uncertainty stops being evidence that something has gone wrong and starts being a place you are being invited into. “Sometimes uncertainty is simply just that place where God’s inviting us to grow,” Isaac says.

2. What strength has God already given me that I haven’t recognized yet?

Fear has a way of erasing our own history. Ask what you have already survived, what you are already good at, what people come to you for. The answer is almost always more than you would have guessed on your own.

3. What is one faithful step I can take today?

Remember, you don’t need to know the whole plan, just the next step.

When Michael asked what he should do with himself, the Popcaks didn’t tell him to carefully inventory his passions or create a spreadsheet of possibilities. Instead, they counseled him to call his parish, say he was available, and start saying yes to whatever came up.

Trusting in God’s Grace Allows Us to be Curious Rather Than Cautious

As Isaac points out, peace and that confidence doesn’t come from having every single answer — in other words, from trying to control things that we simply can’t control.

“It’s about trusting that with God’s grace we can take that next step, even before we know where that whole path leads yet,” she says. Like Abraham, like Peter, like Mary Magdalene outside the tomb, we can take the next step because we trust God to handle the details.

For Michael, that next step might be a simple one: calling the parish to see where he might plug in, then letting things unfold from there. What will it be for you?

For more help with fear, worry, and the anxiety that keeps you stuck, check out Dr. Popcak’s book Unworried: A Life Without Anxiety, or reach out to Rachael Isaac and the team of pastoral counselors at CatholicCounselors.com.