Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:37 — 53.0MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS | More
Parent-Child Estrangement (and how to heal)
(Season 2 | Episode 58)
If Estrangement is In Your Life…
[Tessa] You will find a lot of value in this episode. We have two guest voices on this episode. Jonathan Pillot and Dr. Joshua Coleman. You may remember Jonathan from Episode 45 Labeling And Unlabeling With Jonathan Pillot. Jonathan shares a painful episode of estrangement from his daughter and Dr. Coleman provides incredible insights.
There may be a kind of “epidemic of estrangement” occurring in our society now, that Dr. Coleman speaks to in this episode. He speaks from personal experience and from the work he does with so many adults trying to understand their estranged children. A tough show to hear… but one of incredible value for those in this situation.
An Excerpt from Our Show
[Dr. Coleman] I made all the mistakes that I see parents commonly make, which was to defend, to explain, to deny. But eventually, I learned to just listen and empathize and more importantly, to take responsibility and really care about [my child’s] experience and make that what was prioritized, not my experience or how wronged I felt. [I focused on] how hurt or neglected or unloved she felt, which is the worst thing any parent can hear.
Dr. Joshua Coleman
Dr. Coleman is a psychologist in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area and a Senior Fellow with the Council on Contemporary Families, a non-partisan organization of leading sociologists, historians, psychologists and demographers dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and bestpractice findings about American families.
He has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, NBC THINK, The Behavioral Scientist, CNN, MarketWatch, the San Francisco Chronicle, Greater Good Magazine, AEON, Huffington Post, Psychology Today, Variety, and more. He has given talks to the faculties at Harvard, the Weill Cornell Department of Psychiatry and other academic institutions. A frequent guest on the Today Show and NPR he has also been featured on Sesame Street, 20/20, Good Morning America, PBS, America Online Coaches, and numerous news programs for FOX, ABC, CNN, and NBC television.
He is the author of numerous articles and chapters and has written four books: The Rules of Estrangement (Random House); The Marriage Makeover: Finding Happiness in Imperfect Harmony (St. Martin’s Press); The Lazy Husband: How to Get Men to Do More Parenting and Housework (St. Martin’s Press); When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don’t Get Along (HarperCollins)
Dr. Coleman is the co-editor, along with historian Stephanie Coontz of seven online volumes of Unconventional Wisdom: News You Can Use, a compendium of noteworthy research on the contemporary family, gender, sexuality, poverty, and work-family issues.
His books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Russian, Polish, and Croatian.
He is co-founder with researcher Dr. Becca Bland of Standing Together, a center for advancing awareness of family estrangement.
Dr. Coleman is the father of three adult children, has a teenage grandson and lives with his wife in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also writes music for television which has appeared on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, Lethal Weapon, Chicago Fire, Chicago PD, Pretty Little Liars, Longmire, Shameless, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and many other shows.
Resources for You
We want to provide you with support and many many resources for your own Open Nesting Journey. Our resource page has so much to offer as does our private discussion group on Facebook about queerness and other topics of interest:
The Open Nesters Private Facebook Group
-
- ask to join and we’ll let you in
My daughter stopped talking to me because she said I embarrassed her and disrespected her during a conversation she started on Facebook. She said the grandbabies couldn’t spend the night because of the dogs here and I asked if she meant the dog’s her and her husband left behind. I apologized after a month even though I feel I have nothing to apologize for. The grand children have spent the night here with the dogs before. A week before she quit talking to me I watched them here at the house with the dog’s for hours.
I was watching them 4 days a week 5 hours a day and being told how grateful they were for me and how they didn’t trust anyone else. Then after this post I was cut off from my grandchildren and became suicidal. My daughter wrote me an 11 page letter that was lost in the mail. I got an empty envelope with an apology from the post office. She had previously blocked me on everything, phone, text, social media but must have unblocked me hoping for a better apology. When I sent her a picture of what I got from the post office and asked if we could talk she was so rude and said she’d send another one. Like I said, I was suicidal and I believe it was divine intervention that I didn’t get the first one.
When I raised my children I didn’t swear at them or call them names or hit them or throw things. I always gave them the benefit of doubt. I wasn’t perfect but I raised them alone and I was a good mother. I don’t get it. I will not be writing a letter asking her. I have not seen my grandchildren fir 11 months. I have a six month old grandson I haven’t met. I took all of their pictures down because it hurts to look at them and it puts a strain on my sons and my relationship because he lives with me.
I have sent two cards with apologies in them saying I t wasn’t my intention to hurt her and if she needs me I’m here. I made a baby blanket for the one I haven’t met and sent flowers to the hospital offering my help again if she needs me. I’ve tried approaching her vehicle twice yo talk to her and she drives away. The ball is in her court. I don’t want a letter. I want an invitation to the park yo see my grandkids. I was sending cards to the granddaughters telling them I’m doing grandma things and to give mama a hug and tell her I love her. For my 60th birthday I got a “cease and desist “ letter. I had sent a picture of me to my five year old grand daughter , who spent more time with me than anyone besides her parents , and my daughter didn’t give it to her because she doesn’t want her to miss me. ( per my son). Believe me when I tell you, I don’t deserve this and as much as I love my daughter I will not let her think this is ok by not defending myself against whatever she thinks I’ve done to deserve this. I have been there for her at every turn, from paying there rent when they couldn’t to paying their car note for three months of missed payments, to taking care of the grandbabies while they worked and anytime they needed me. They lived in my house for the first year and a half of my granddaughters life with the two dogs and three cats they left behind when they moved.