What To Do With Grown Children Who Ignore Their Parents?

What To Do With Grown Children Who Ignore Their Parents? The dynamics between parents and children can get complicated at times. As a child grows, they may feel distant from their parents. After all, adulthood comes with a sense of independence.

However, serious issues, such as generational gaps, poor mental health, or abuse, may complicate adult family relationships and cause the child to grow apart from the parent. This article explains the signs that your child is ignoring you and how to cope with it. Keep scrolling for more information.

Why Do Grown Children Ignore Their Parents?

1. Abuse And Neglect: Children who have experienced abuse from their family or relatives tend to grow apart from them. The abuse can be verbal, psychological, sexual, or physical. Research says that even neglect is a kind of child abuse. If both parents are working or busy with their lives, neglecting the children’s needs, a rift may form between them and their children. Emotional unavailability is another form of neglect, which can make the children feel estranged from their parents. If you have abused or neglected your child, they might feel angry, resentful, and bitter towards you. Child abuse and neglect can lead to psychological issues, such as depression, low self-esteem, and difficulty in maintaining relationships. The abused child often feels isolated, fearful, and distrustful. Children can also develop attachment disorders due to abuse and neglect, which hinders their ability to form healthy peer and social and romantic relationships. They are also more likely to develop antisocial traits as they grow up.

2. Difference In Opinions: A consistent difference in opinions and values due to the generational gap may lead the children to grow apart from their parents. Political opinions, gender rights, career expectations, and age-old values are common grounds of differences in opinions between the children and their parents. The values taught to the parents differ from the values held by the children, which causes a rift. Also, if your child feels they cannot openly discuss their opinions with you, it might fracture the relationship.

3. Controlling Parents: Being controlling or coercive towards your children is another type of abuse. If the child feels too constrained by their parents, they may grow distant from family and relatives. Parents who control their children’s freedom and overall life hinder the child’s personal growth and experience. Forcing your child to stay home or do things they are not interested in will take them away from you. You need to give them enough space to hang out with their friends, participate in extracurricular activities, and do the things that they love.

4. Lack Of Support: If parents do not support something their child loves, it may cause a tear in the relationship. This resentment may grow over the years if not dealt with soon. It is important for parents to support their children’s hobbies, likes, dreams, and interests. Even if the parent does not agree with their children’s passion or opinion, showing support goes a long way in building a strong relationship.

5. Unsafe Environment: Placing your child in an unsafe environment may cause cracks in your relationship with them. This could be a one-time instance, or the kind of people you let into your house may be unsafe for your child. An example of an unsafe environment is residential instability – you constantly change houses. If you move around a lot, your child might feel less connected to the house and parents. The same goes for the environment inside the house. If one of the parents is an alcoholic or abusive, the children are less likely to bond with them. Other unsafe environments include constantly changing your children’s caregivers, keeping your children with physically, verbally, or sexually abusive relatives or friends, or forcing your children to visit schools or parks where they are constantly bullied.

6. Family Expectations:

Some families hold their children to unrealistic expectations, which often makes the kids depleted and resentful. Forcing your children to take up a particular course of life or job that they don’t like may lead them away from you. The parents may expect the child to follow their political, gender, religious, and cultural views, which the child may not agree with. This burden of expectations can create a gap between the child and their parents. Instead of discussing the difference of opinions and showing support and love, if the parents brush them away, it will make the child resentful towards them. Your child may think your opinions are outdated, so forcing them to submit will lead to estrangement.

7. Mental Health Issues: Mental health issues can often lead children away from their parents. If parents don’t understand or accept mental issues, it becomes difficult for the children to communicate with them. Some parents take the ‘tough love’ route, forcing the child to deal with their mental struggles incorrectly instead of seeking professional help. If a child is bullied at school, some parents may think they need to go through that bullying to ‘be a man. This may impact the child’s mental state even more and negatively affect the parent-child relationship.

8. Traumatic Events: Witnessing traumatic events, such as sexual assault, abuse, or alcoholic parents, may lead children to separate from the family. If the child tries to share their traumatic experience with the parents and they invalidate their emotions or refuse to accept, it causes a rift between them.

9. Divorce: When parents get divorced, the children may fall apart from one or both of the parents. If the child views one of the parents as the reason for the divorce, they might find that parent the “bad-one” who disrupted their family. Also, if a parent remarries after divorce, it may cause an estranged relationship with the child if they do not like the new partner.

10. Favoritism Towards One Child: Sometimes, a child may feel unfairly treated by their parents if they show favoritism towards another child. This may lead the child to think that the parent prefers the other child over them. If the parents always side with one child during an argument, the other may resent their sibling and the parents. While this might not be a conscious thing that parents do purposely, it still affects the child.

Here are a few signs that indicate your child is growing apart from you.

Signs That Your Child Is Ignoring You:

• Break Of Contact: If your child doesn’t communicate with you either in person or over-call, it can be a sign of estrangement. No matter how much you try to connect with your child if they do not respond, it indicates they do not feel connected with you. Also, if your child contacts you once a month with barely anything to say or share, maybe they are ignoring you politely.
• No Interest In Family Events: If your child refuses to participate in family functions, they may be trying to stay away from you. This will cause a rift between your child and your relatives in the long run.
• Communicate More With Relatives Than You: If you are getting more information about your child from a relative rather than the child telling you, it is clear they may be ignoring you. If your child is not telling you about their achievements, new accomplishments, or big events in their life, they don’t feel connected with you.
• No Meetings: Your child may outrightly refuse to meet you, or they may constantly come up with excuses to not meet you. This is a clear sign that they are ignoring you. They might make time to meet other relatives, siblings, or friends, but they don’t make it a point to meet you. Even if they come to meet you, it’s only for a very short period.

Are you wondering if your child is ignoring you or they are just busy? Read the next section to understand how often adult children usually talk to their parents.

How Often Do Adult Children Speak To Their Parents?

Some adult children may speak to their parents at least daily or every alternate day. But this is mostly true for college kids rather than working adults. The frequency with which adult children contact their parents depends on their needs, schedules, and leisure.

Adult children with jobs, responsibilities, and families (spouse and children) may not call often. However, if your child keeps in touch with you and shares information about their lives, it implies they are not ignoring you.

Now that you know the clear signs your child is ignoring you, here are a few ways to help you cope with it.

What Can You Do To Improve The Relationship?

• Apologize: Most of the time, parents refuse to apologize to their children. But an apology can go a long way in rebuilding your relationship with your kid. It is important to back your apology with actions. If your child thinks you are just all words but no action, it might worsen the situation.
• Listen: Instead of getting your child to listen to your opinion, listen to theirs. Don’t interrupt them when they speak. Hear them out with an open mind. Talk to them about the things you don’t understand and listen to their answers.
• Accept: It is important for a child to know that their parents accept them for who they are. So, be more accepting and supportive towards your children. Try to accept people your child loves and things they are interested in.
• Respect: Respect is earned; it is not given. You have to respect your child’s opinions to earn respect for yourself. Just because they are younger than you does not mean they have to listen to you and follow your beliefs.
• Do Not Exert Pressure: Stop pressurizing your child to do things they don’t want to. This includes education, career, and marriage. Don’t force them to talk to you as well. Just because you are their parent, it doesn’t entitle you to their respect and conversation. It has to be earned, and you need to be there for them.
• Seek Professional Help: If you have mental health issues causing the tear with your child, you need to seek help. If your child is experiencing mental health issues, try to find a specialist who can explain your child’s situation to you. If your child is comfortable, get them to speak to a family therapist.
• Let Go: Sometimes, you have to realize that the bridge is burned. Your child has their own life now, and you have to let go of them. Forcing your way into your child’s life may work temporarily, but it often increases the rift. However, let them know that you are there if they ever want to talk or need anything, and just let them be.

The next section will answer how soon you can expect to reconcile with your estranged child and what factors decide how long you will be kept cut off from their lives.

How Long Does The Estrangement Last?

Some estrangements may last for a few weeks to months. Some may be more serious, lasting for several years, depending on the cause of the estrangement. It also depends on what you do to make your child believe you want to repair the relationship. If you aren’t doing anything, it may never get repaired.

Parents need to take the first step and show support to rebuild the relationship. Don’t expect your child to make the first move; you do it. This will make your child realize that you are serious about them and go a long way in developing a strong and secured bond.

Conclusion:

Rifts in the parent-child relationship can get difficult to manage for both parties. Children never want to let go of their parents, and no parent wants to push away their child. However, unfavorable situations and misunderstandings often cause estrangement. Go for it if you can do something to mend the relationship tear between you and your child. Try to listen to what your child has to share, provide emotional support, and respect their opinions.