Family relationships can be difficult to navigate; sometimes people’s personalities are so different that no matter how much you love someone, family or not, you just can’t seem to get along. Here are some reasons why your grown children keep their distance from you.
You don’t have respect for their boundaries
When your children are grown, they’re not children anymore, and they need to be allowed their privacy. If you’re in the habit of prying into their personal lives or walking into their homes unannounced, no matter whether this is done out of love, it’s disrespectful and crosses a line.
Constant criticism
Everyone deserves respect, even your kids. If they have chosen a life you don’t agree with, criticizing and judging their choices will only push them away. Business Insider notes that some parents are so critical that an adult child has no option but to choose between their own mental health and the parent.
Unsolicited advice
Children will always need their parents’ advice. But you need to wait until they ask for it. If you constantly give advice that is not needed or asked for, your child will feel like you don’t trust them to make their own decisions, and they’ll resent you. Just be there when they need you.
A lack of emotional support
Children will find support and comfort somewhere else if they don’t get it from their parents. A lack of emotional support builds mistrust and leads children to put up barriers, so when the child is a grownup, they won’t turn to parents for emotional support, as they know they won’t get it.
Inflexible attitude to changes
An open-minded child will pull away from a parent who does not accept changes in society or new ideas. When a person accepts and embraces the progress in society and sees that their parents are intolerant of these changes, it can lead to alienation and mistrust.
Financial expectations
Constant expectations for financial help, from either side of the relationship, can strain bonds between parents and children, especially if it’s one-sided. When a parent is the person putting pressure on their grown child for money, the child may feel like they can’t say no, and like they are being taken advantage of.
Different life values
Significant differences in values can create a divide between parents and their adult children. When people have completely different values, it is hard to have respect for one another. According to a BBC article, clashes in values are increasingly thought to play a role in family estrangement.
Showing favoritism
Demonstrating equal care and attention to all of your children is important. If you plainly have a favorite child, this can lead to resentment and feelings of inadequacy among siblings. Some parents purposely do this, notes Psych Central, because they want their children to fight for their approval and attention.
Not acknowledging their achievements
We all need to be acknowledged, especially by those we love. We want to know that they’re proud of us. And it hurts if we think they are not. If you don’t celebrate or even acknowledge the achievements of your adult children, they’ll feel undervalued and ignored and not want to be around you.
They can’t trust you
Sometimes parents can take their children for granted, break promises, or let others in on personal information about their child. Broken trust has a long-term impact on relationships, especially if the parent repeatedly lets the child down. Those bonds are hard to build back up once they’re broken.
You haven’t been listening
When you don’t listen to your adult children and dismiss their opinions, this will make them feel disregarded and unimportant. Treating your grown children as though they’re still kids and not listening to or valuing their opinions can hurt them and cause them to pull away from you.
Maybe you’re a narcissist
If you make everything about yourself, dominating every conversation with your problems, your children are not going to feel like they are important to you. Relationships are all about balance and mutual respect. According to Newsweek, parental narcissism greatly impacts a child’s self-esteem and personal development, leading to self-doubt or feeling unworthy of love as an adult.
Comparing them to others
Appreciating each of your grown children’s unique personalities is important, as is acknowledging that they’re their own people on their own path. Comparing an adult child, favorably or unfavorably, to their friends or siblings can diminish their sense of worth and individuality.
Emotional manipulation
There is nothing that will push a grown child away faster than a parent using manipulation tactics to try and keep them close. Guilt-tripping your child, playing the victim, or pretending that you’re ill or in trouble can make them resent you for the stress that this puts them under.
Pushing tradition on them
Pressure to observe family traditions or cultural norms can be suffocating for an adult child trying to find their own identity. A child needs their parents to support their individual choices and identities, no matter how grown up they are. Forcing unwanted family traditions on them will push them away.
Disapproval of how they live
If you can’t accept your adult child’s style, their tattoos, piercings, or choice of life partner, they aren’t going to be comfortable around you. If you want to have a proper, healthy relationship, acceptance is key. Embracing and respecting diverse life choices, even if they’re not choices that you agree with, is important.
S-mothering (or s-fathering)
Helicopter parenting is not good for a child; they need to be able to find their own way and become independent. When children grow up and their parents are still hovering over them and worrying about every little thing, it can be suffocating, causing the child to want to distance themselves.
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