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

Posted on by

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.

Helping Your Kids Discern the Big Decisions

Posted on by

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.