75. What Caused Your Adult Child's Estrangement?

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.