"Why Won't My Adult Child Talk to Me?" An Unhelpful Question

Episode 204: Why Won’t My Adult Child Talk to Me? An Unhelpful Question

If you’re lying awake asking yourself, “Why won’t my adult child talk to me?” you are not alone.

This question sits at the heart of so much pain for parents navigating emotional distance from adult children. Many parents feel rejected, confused, and exhausted—especially when they’ve tried so hard to be loving, supportive, and present.

In this episode of the Coaching Your Family Relationships Podcast, Tina Gosney—family conflict coach and family life educator—offers a powerful reframe that helps parents move out of helplessness and into influence.

Instead of asking what’s wrong with my adult child, this episode explores what’s happening in the relationship pattern—and where parents actually have the ability to create change.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why a causality mindset (“What did I do wrong?” or “Why are they doing this to me?”) keeps parents stuck and powerless
• How relationship patterns develop quietly over time—and why conflict often reveals issues that were already there
• Why it’s so hard to listen to your adult child without taking everything personally
• How defensiveness, sadness, anger, resentment, and grief can shut down communication without you meaning to
• Why many adult children feel they’ve never had space to express their emotions—and why distance can feel like their only option
• How parents often seek reassurance from people who agree with them, and why validation alone doesn’t lead to relationship repair
• What it means to take being a good parent off the table and focus instead on understanding blind spots
• Why learning to separate your feelings from your adult child’s experience is essential for healing family relationships

This episode is especially helpful if you’re struggling with:

• Emotional distance from adult children
• Feeling like you’re walking on eggshells around your adult child
• Wondering “Why won’t my adult child talk to me?”
• Trying to understand adult children cutting off parents
• Wanting to reco

 If you’re tired of reacting to what’s happening in your family and want more internal calm and confidence, I’d love to support you. Reset to Connection runs live February 2–6 at 9 a.m. Mountain Time, with short daily sessions and replays available.  We'll focus on getting off the emotional roller coaster and creating confidence. The registration link is below. 

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Tina Gosney is the Family Conflict Coach. She works with parents who have families in conflict to help them become the grounded, confident leaders their family needs.
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Connect with us:

Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/tinagosneycoaching/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tinagosneycoaching

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Tina is certified in family relationships and a trauma informed coach.
Visit tinagosney.com for more information on coaching services.

Transcript

Tina Gosney: 0:50

If your adult child has cut you out of their life or distanced themselves from you, and this is keeping you up at night, and your mind is spinning, not allowing you to sleep, and it's spinning on this question, like, what is wrong with them? Well, that's a natural question to ask, but this is an unuseful question. This is where our minds tend to go first, but we're going to reframe this and go somewhere different in this podcast. I'm Tina Gosney, family conflict coach and family life educator before we go anywhere today, I do want to start with some things that feel really painful and really familiar to so many parents, especially as we see this pattern of estrangement and cut off in families increasing in the country right now. So just imagine, you know, it's late at night, you're standing in your kitchen, maybe you're loading your dishwasher or rinsing a mug, and then all of a sudden, you out of the corner of your eye, you see your phone light up, and for a split second, your chest just tightens, and you're just so worried that it might be them, but it's not, it's not your adult child, but your mind will immediately go to things like, why won't they talk to me? What did I do wrong? How can they just shut me out after everything that I've given to them, after all the sacrifices that I've made for them, how can they just do this to me? So maybe earlier in the day, you were replaying a conversation with them that you had in your head. Because you know, we tend to do that. We tend to go to previous conversations, relive them over and over in our mind, you know, the ones where they said something that was really difficult for you to for you to hear, maybe they said something that you didn't like about their experience when they were growing up, or something that's happening now, and you can remember how you reacted to this. You got defensive, you got really sad. You know, it just felt like this punch to the gut, like they don't even know me. They didn't. They have no idea how much I sacrificed for them, and they're so ungrateful. And why can't they see the real me? And then later, of course, the next natural thing is to find someone who's going to be compassionate with you. So maybe you told someone you know, like a friend or a sibling, someone you felt safe with. You told them about this conversation, and they said exactly what you needed to hear in that moment, they said something like, Hey, you did the best that you could, or you're a good parent. Or maybe they even said, Well, you know what? This is more about them than it is about you. And you felt better just for a minute, but it was only for a minute because nothing actually changed. So this is where we're beginning our conversation today, this podcast. Because the question that is keeping you up at night is not really about what's wrong with your adult child. The question we should be asking is what is happening inside the relationship system, and how can I start to see it? Because it's very hard to see when you're standing in it really hard to see things from the inside. So much easier to see things from the outside. Have you ever noticed that it's easier to to point out what somebody else needs to do to fix their life than it is to find that same answer in your own it's because we're standing inside of our own lives. It's very hard, very difficult. I do want to slow down and acknowledge something really important is that you did not stop caring, and you haven't given up, and you did not casually decide to not show up for your child. Most parents that I work with have made so many sacrifices, so many that they can't even name all of them. They put their own needs last. They kept going when they were exhausted. They gave everything to their kids. Their life revolved around their children, and they tried so hard. Were so unsure of themselves at times and often they were afraid of getting it wrong and afraid of making mistakes. And so now that that adult child is pulling away after all of these decades that you've given to them, of course, that hurts. Of course, there's anger and resentment, and probably some grief, confusion and this really deep sense of being misunderstood and unappreciated. Most parents will carry this quiet thought that they're afraid to say out loud, and sometimes they actually do say it out loud to me. They say, after everything I did, how is this happening? I don't understand it. Having that thought does not make you selfish. It makes you human. But let's go back to you know that difficult conversation that you keep replaying through your mind. They said something that was really difficult for you to hear. It was really hard. Maybe they named something painful from the past that you didn't even know about until they started talking about it. Maybe they are describing something that's happening right now and about something that you're doing right now that they are wishing that you would change and wanting for you to make a change, and they're probably saying it in a really emotional, messy, most likely poorly timed way, and before you even realize that you have gone down this rabbit hole of shame and anger and frustration and you are not listening to them, your body probably reacts first, even if you don't notice that. It is because when we are in a situation like this and we're being very reactive, our minds will naturally ask the question, well, this is happening. What does this mean about me? Are they saying that I failed because that's not fair. Do they expect me to be perfect? They don't see how hard that I tried. And so then we start explaining, and we start defending, and we start correcting the details. And they just need to know that that's not the way that it happened, and they need to know why I did that thing, and you push back on their story that they're telling you. Now, this is not because you don't care or because you're trying to be cruel or mean. You're pushing back because that moment you are in fight or flight, and it feels very threatening and you're being reactive. This is what reactivity looks like. What you really want is for them to see you and understand you the way that you see yourself and understand yourself, and the way you understand yourself is I was a loving parent who did the best that I knew at the time. And it's really, really difficult when they don't see you that way. It feels like you can't be okay until they see you that way. So what the easy thing is to is to react. And like I said, reactivity is not pausing and not allowing ourselves to think before we react. So it's very easy then to fall into defensiveness and anger and frustration. Even be entitled to have the type of relationship with our child, because we put in all that work and sacrifice all those years, we feel entitled to the relationship that we want, and then sometimes we fall into really deep sadness and shame. Now these are all reactivity signals, and they happen really fast, because this is your nervous system that is trying to protect you. What it doesn't do is listen without taking things personally, because it's not easy to stay present when your identity as a good parent feels like it's being threatened, especially from the person that matters most, that sees you as a good parent. So this kind of listening requires emotional maturity, and most of us were never taught how to do it, especially, especially in our own families. So we're going to widen this lens to see what is happening in the family system. And this is really where compassion matters. This is not to excuse anything, but just to understand that there is a much larger system that you are both a part of, and we're just going to look at a tiny part of the system today, because there are so many parts to the system that this would have to be a series of podcasts to go through all the different parts to the system. So for many adult children who cut off contact with their parents, this is not a one time event that that made that happen. This was not sudden. They did not wake up one morning and decide to cut you out of their life and decide to disappear, but most likely they have tried to express how they felt, maybe it was indirectly, maybe it was emotionally, probably pretty clumsily and most likely repeatedly. So over time, what they got back when they tried to express how they felt. Felt was this experience of some version of being shut down, being misunderstood themselves, being told to get over it and move on, or being made to feel like their emotions created problems. So very slowly, this belief formed over time, over them having these experiences that they form this belief of there is no space in the relationship here for how I feel. There's no space for me to have a different story than my parent does. So when there is no space for emotions and no room for difference and no way to move through conflict together, because you haven't practiced doing that together, then it just feels like so much to be around you, and distance starts to feel like that's the only option. And this is not because they don't care about you, it's because they don't know how to be around you and to be themselves. They disappear when they're around you, and that feels too painful for them to keep disappearing and keep repeating that pattern, and so they've chosen to cut off or to at least distance. Now this reveals something about the relationship pattern and the system. The relationship system when things go wrong, it does not mean that something suddenly broke it, just for me, it means there was a pressure valve that got released and it just revealed what was already there for a long time. You may have thought that your family relationships were just great and awesome, and everybody gets along, and we have the best family ever, which I hear this all the time, and then something happens, and it's like it flips upside down. But the thing is, is that what the thing that happened is not the one thing that happened. The thing that happened is what finally exposed what was happening underneath the surface, kind of like you only see the tip of an iceberg, and most of that iceberg lives underneath the water. That iceberg started coming up above the surface, and when it was everything was really great, and it was filled, felt really easy. Stress was probably lower, or expectations were different. Maybe you avoided having hard conversations. Maybe on purpose or not on purpose, maybe people were just pretending like things were okay because they didn't want to rock the boat, they didn't want to hurt you. They didn't know how to say things and still belong in your family. But when your adult children become adults, and they have more capability of knowing themselves and knowing how to express themselves and knowing how to move through their own life, and they start to open these things up to you, it can relieve pressure for them, but it feels devastating to you, because that when that pressure rises, it's just been hiding what underneath the surface just has bubbled up and come up. So it's not failure, it's just exposure. These things were there all along. You just didn't know that they were there. And when we think that it was just that one thing that caused this cut off, or this distance, or if they would just be different and fix this thing in themselves, and you're just waiting for them to fix that thing. It's like you are just looking at one single cause and asking yourself about the one single cause, like, what did I do wrong? Why are they doing this to me? Why did that one moment ruin everything? And that way of thinking does make sense, but it leaves you super powerless, because that solution for everything to be fixed depends entirely on them changing. There's also another mindset and a thought that keeps parents trapped, and that is this incredibly difficult part of seeing your own pattern and your own contribution to this family system and to this relationship system. Now this is not because you're unwilling to see your part or because you're being dishonest with yourself or them. It's because you have blind spots. Now think about a car. Every single car has a blind spot. It's called a blind spot for a reason, because, literally, you cannot see out of your mirrors. This one blind spot. You have to turn your head. You have to do something different. You literally can't see your own blind spots. This is why it's so easy, so much easier to tell someone else. To fix their problems and be so stuck in your own problems. So what do most parents do? They turn to someone who's on their side. We call this collecting allies. We go around collecting allies. These are people that reassure you, who agree with you, who reinforce the way that you want to see yourself, and they say you know what, you're such a good person, and all of those things may be true, but when you are only collecting allies and you are only seeking your own reinforcement and your own validation, what you're really doing is protecting your ego. You are not prioritizing the relationship, you are prioritizing your own validated ego. That might be really hard for some people to hear. But what if we just take something completely off the table? What if we take being a good person off the table that is not up for debate. What if it's just a given? What if you are just a good person who cannot see their own blind spots, and you need someone who can see literally what you cannot see? Well, when your main goal is ego validation, you stay stuck. But when your main goal is to understand the pattern that you're a part of, you regain influence. But that kind of help requires someone who doesn't reinforce you and someone who won't shame you. You don't want a collude her. You don't also you don't want a shamer. So let's talk about where real change begins. It does not start with trying to fix the relationship. It starts with learning how to work with your own reactivity, your own defensiveness, your own sadness, anger, resentment and grief. The ways that you react to things without slowing down and making conscious choices, your natural gut reactions. If those reactions are running the show, then nothing shifts. You have to learn how to slow things down. You have to learn how to separate your feelings from their feelings, your thoughts from their thoughts and their experience. And that takes time and practice, and it's also incredibly difficult to do all by yourself. So if your adult child will not talk to you, this does not mean that your relationship is over, that this is the end, but it does mean that the old ways of responding are not working. Your path forward is not about being right, it's about becoming slower and steadier. The relationship repair does start with you, but not because you caused this, but because you are the one who is willing to see your part and to do something different. This week, notice your reactions with everybody. Does not just with your adult child, but notice your reactions to things and other people. And just slow down and notice what you're thinking and how you're reacting to things. So just slow yourself down and ask, What am I thinking right now? What am I feeling right now? Isn't that interesting? Look how I'm reacting to this person. Look how I'm reacting to that situation. If you want support learning how to do this in real time without losing yourself or the relationship. This is exactly the work that I do so you don't have to navigate this alone. Thanks for being here with me today. I will see you next week. You.