The 11 Parenting Habits That Almost Always Make Adult Kids Move Far Away And Stop Calling
Rocketclips, Inc. / Shutterstock Parents are supposed to be the most loving, supportive people in their kids’ lives. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way. Although a parent may seem like a superhero to a young kid, they’re just flawed human beings like the rest of us. Any relationship can fall apart, including the one between a parent and their child.
Parental estrangement has taken center stage in recent years, but that doesn’t mean it’s a new phenomenon. Estrangement coach Fern Schumer Chapman argued that the topic was “grossly unacknowledged and underinvestigated” until more recently. According to her, it’s possible that one in four people is estranged from a family member. Most parents don’t actively push their children away, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have habits that make their kids feel like they need to keep their distance.
These are the 11 parenting habits that almost always make adult kids move far away and stop calling
1. Violating boundaries
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Everyone has their own boundaries, even if they don’t really think of it that way. Some people might consider which boundaries they need to enforce and think of them in a more official capacity, but others may just have lines that feel wrong for someone to cross. In either case, it can be incredibly harmful to have someone violate their boundaries.
Licensed marriage and family therapist Angela Sitka, MA, explained what it feels like to have your boundaries violated. “You find yourself having to constantly defend, explain, and justify the reasons for the boundary,” she said. “If you are facing a person who does not respect your boundary, they will likely not accept the boundary at first expression.”
It can hurt a person when anyone violates their boundaries, but if the violator is very close to them, like a parent, it can feel even worse. Parents are supposed to protect their kids, so when they do the exact opposite, it’s painful. This is one of the biggest reasons an adult child might feel the need to move far away and stop calling.
2. Unsolicited advice
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Offering unsolicited advice may be par for the course for some parents. Parents are used to advising their kids, and it can be hard to stop that just because a child has reached adulthood. But when parents repeatedly turn every conversation into a chance to point out what their kids could be doing better, that’s bound to push them away.
Author Elizabeth Scott, PhD, stated, “When someone offers their opinion on what you could be doing differently, it can sometimes feel like criticism. In some situations, the advice-givers aren’t judging you, but feeling defensive can make the advice feel like criticism.”
It’s entirely possible that a parent offering up unsolicited advice isn’t actually trying to criticize or judge their child, and they’re really trying to help in some way. The child on the receiving end of that advice isn’t going to see it that way, though. To them, it just feels like the person who should be their biggest cheerleader is pointing out everything they’re doing wrong, causing them to pull away.
3. Guilt trips
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One of the worst things parents can do to their children is constantly guilt-trip them. For example, consider a parent who always reminds their kid of all they’ve done for them as a way to control them. Their job as a parent is to take care of their kids, and they can’t really expect anything in return for that. They’re the ones who chose to have kids, after all.
Psychosocial rehabilitation specialist Kendra Cherry, MSEd, shared how guilt trips are really a form of manipulation. “A guilt trip is essentially causing another person to feel guilt or a sense of responsibility to change their behavior or take specific action,” she said. “Because guilt can be such a powerful motivator of human behavior, people can wield it as a tool to change how others think, feel, and behave.”
If you think back to a time when you felt really guilty about something, chances are it felt like it was eating you up, and you would have done anything to change that. By employing guilt trips, parents can try to get their kids to act differently or do something they want. Eventually, the child will pick up on this behavior and realize that the only solution is to go no contact with their parents.
4. Refusing to apologize
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When you’re a little kid, it’s easy to think that your parents are pretty much perfect. It would be nice if that were true, but over time we come to realize that our parents are imperfect and have their own struggles. Because of that, they’re bound to make mistakes and maybe hurt their kids’ feelings, even if they don’t mean to.
This is, of course, a time when an apology would go a long way. It may feel strange for a parent to apologize to their child, but if they bring up past pain in adulthood, it is really time to offer a sincere apology. It’s not meant to be humiliating; it’s just the nice, human thing to do.
Psychology professor Karina Schumann, PhD, said, “Apologies really can be thought of as the super glue of life in a way. I’ve heard that quote before. They really go a long way to show concern, to show that you care about the relationship, about the person, that you want to make things right.” Without an apology, you can’t move forward with a healthy relationship.
5. Not validating emotions
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Emotions are obviously a universal experience, but when you’re a kid, they can feel particularly difficult to navigate. You’re just finding out who you are in the world, and you’re feeling some things for the first time. Whether a parent invalidates their kid’s emotions when they’re young, or even when they’re older, it feels incredibly hurtful for the person who is supposed to always have their back, not acknowledge what they’re feeling, or even try to use it against them.
Clinical psychologist Kristalyn Salters-Pedneault, PhD, said that validating someone else’s emotions doesn’t mean you agree with how they’re feeling. Instead, it’s showing that you’re there for them. She added, “Validating emotions also plays a crucial role in building strong relationships, fostering good self-confidence, and boosting overall well-being.”
Some forms of emotional invalidation may feel more minor than others, but it can be so serious that it even qualifies as gaslighting. No child wants to experience that at the hands of their parents. For their own emotional safety and well-being, they’ll be forced to distance themselves from the relationship, because, really, there’s not much of a relationship there in the first place.
6. Making everything about them
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There’s this idea some people have that parents need to essentially be martyrs and give up everything for their children. This isn’t true. Parents are still people, and they deserve to lead lives they’re happy with. However, that doesn’t give them the right to be self-centered or even selfish.
Kids need support from their parents to flourish and thrive, so if their parents constantly turn every situation around so it’s about them, it can feel confusing and hurtful. Imagine a child opening up to their parents about how much something affected them, and instead of sympathizing, their parent says, “That really hurt me.”
Counselor Hannah Alderete, MA, LMHC, said that this is a common behavior for narcissists, and it can do some serious damage to their kids. “A major concern for adult children of narcissists (ACONs) is becoming a narcissist themselves,” she explained. “They tend to equate taking care of their needs, securing healthy boundaries, and increasing self-worth with stepping into narcissistic territory.”
It’s hard for children whose parents made everything about themselves to set healthy boundaries and focus on their own needs because they think it’s a bad thing. This will leave them with no choice other than to move and cut off contact.
7. Disrespecting partners
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A parent choosing to treat their child’s partner with disrespect is a major red flag. Obviously, when kids are just starting to date as teens, they may require some guidance from their parents to make good decisions. But if an adult child has chosen someone as their life partner and their parents are always trying to undermine that relationship or not treat their partner with dignity, it’s a problem.
According to health and wellness writer Jenna Fletcher, “You’re not going to like everyone. Some people don’t click well together, and it could make you wonder what anyone sees in them. In these cases, it’s probably best to let it be. Your child may also feel you’re overstepping the boundaries of a parent-adult child relationship.”
It’s very possible that parents won’t like the person their kid is in a relationship with, but that doesn’t give them the right to treat them badly. That person is a part of their family now, too, and they’ve become the most important person in the world to their child. Parents who don’t respect that will likely find that their kids don’t keep in touch.
8. Not supporting growth
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Kids are going to grow and change as they get older; it’s just a part of life. One of the best things their parents can do for them as they go through this evolution is to support them and whatever changes they’re making in their lives. Unfortunately, some parents see their kids growing and developing new beliefs or attributes as a betrayal and get hurt by it.
Clinical psychologist Stacey R. Pinatelli, PsyD, said that offering emotional support for their adult children is one of the most important things parents can do. “One aspect of my parenting style that I’m confident in is consistently offering encouragement, empathy, and understanding, as I believe it plays a crucial role in fostering my adult children’s sense of security and well-being,” she shared.
A parent who isn't there for their child will quickly alienate them. It’s not only perfectly acceptable, but also expected, for kids to change as they get older. They’re not going to be the same people as adults that they were as teens, and that’s OK. It’s their parents’ job to understand that and be there for them through all the stages of their lives.
9. Parentification of their children
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Parentification can be really hard for a child to experience. Psychologist Kate Eshleman, PsyD, defined it this way: “Parentification is when a child is assigned tasks that are really more appropriate and more reasonable for adults. Think of it as a role reversal — a child is having to do tasks that aren’t developmentally appropriate.”
When a child is parentified, it means they have to take on adult responsibilities that their parents should handle, such as caring for siblings or cooking and cleaning. This will naturally create a lot of resentment. Even at a young age, a kid knows they aren’t supposed to be doing those things, and they’ll hold the fact that they have to do so against their parents.
This won’t exactly foster feelings of warmth and closeness. It wouldn’t be surprising for a child who is parentified to dream of the day when they are no longer responsible for these things that never should have been theirs to begin with. It would be unsurprising for them to cut off contact with their parents as adults.
10. Not treating the child like an adult
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On the other hand, instead of forcing their child to take on responsibilities that aren’t age-appropriate, some parents refuse to acknowledge that their child has grown up. Relationships must grow and change through all phases of life if they’re going to be successful, and that means parents must treat their adult children as the mature adults they are.
Psychologist Jeffrey Bernstein, PhD, explained that overthinking can be especially detrimental to a parent’s relationship with their adult child. “The way to emotionally reconnect with your adult child is not to choose the safest words, but to express, with self-respect and respect for your child, that you know your own value,” he said.
As Bernstein said, parents don’t have to completely change themselves to get along with their adult children. In fact, they have to show confidence in those relationships. But acting like their kids never actually grew up and are still subject to whatever they say isn’t the way to handle this situation.
11. Conditional love
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The general idea is that parents should love their kids unconditionally. Of course, that’s not always the reality, and it can be hard to pull off for even the best of parents. Parents who make it clear their love is conditional seriously harm their relationship with their children, though. By showing that they will only love their kid if they do what they say or live a life they approve of, parents send the message that their love has to be earned.
Psychotherapist Kaytee Gillis, LCSW, noted, “Conditional love teaches children that they are only worthy and deserving of love if they behave in ways that please the parents, not just for being themselves. They learn that their true self is wrong, bad, and undeserving of love. This affects their self-worth, their self-esteem, and their ability to create and maintain social connections.”
If a child feels their parents’ love is conditional, it teaches them it’s okay to accept that kind of treatment in every relationship. They’ll come to believe they aren’t worthy of unconditional love. Eventually, they’ll see how distorted this belief is, and they’ll disengage from their relationship with their parents to protect themselves.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
