6 Emotional Red Flags Your Child Is About To Go No-Contact With You
If you're seeing these behaviors, the emotional distance didn't happen overnight.
Strelciuc Dumitru | Canva No one ever wants to be the parent whose children don’t speak to them. It’s a situation that is generally seen as one of the worst-case scenarios a family can go through. People who are estranged from their children have a major stigma attached to them. Though there are exceptions to the case, you generally have to hurt your kid for them to go no contact with you.
As someone who is watching a very close friend go through their final preparations before they ghost their parent, I do not doubt in my mind that this will be a total shock to the soon-to-be-estranged parent.
Right now, I’m watching my friend Pat* as she makes preparations to go no-contact with her mother. I should explain the scene I’m seeing play out. Pat lives with her mom, Janet*, a woman who is exceptionally narcissistic and has been living single since her husband divorced her and fled the country.
Pat has no choice in the matter. She’s trying to earn money so she can buy a house as soon as possible. When she leaves, that’s it. She’s getting a protective order against her.
Everyone who knows Pat and Janet feels sorry for Pat. Over the years, Janet did everything to undermine Pat’s confidence. When called out, Janet guilt-trips Pat and threatens to hurt herself.
She’s a nightmare to deal with, at least to Pat. Janet is totally fine with her friends, though. As long as she gets to keep up appearances, Janet seems fine and dandy. Man, she’s gonna have a hard time explaining things when Pat leaves. Want to avoid Pat’s fate?
Here are six emotional red flags your child is about to go no-contact with you:
1. They've repeatedly told you that you’ve hurt them or that you don’t respect their boundaries
The vast majority of estranged adult children do not choose to cut ties out of nowhere. They will often try to talk to you, repeatedly, about issues they've had.
Estrangement is quite literally the last choice for most adult children. It’s the last resort after years of trying to improve the relationship, years of trying to make things tolerable, or years of trying (and failing) to have healthy boundaries with you.
There’s only one exception to this rule. The only time children don’t even try to raise the topic of your behavior with you is when they are absolutely, positively terrified of you. And let’s be honest: you probably already know if that’s the case.
2. They no longer seem to want to give in to your demands
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Janet always wants to make things about her, even when it came to Pat’s engagement party. Janet made an effort to break Pat’s relationship up with her girlfriend. Pat and Sheila* are still together.
For about 15 years, Janet had a stranglehold on Pat’s relationships, friendships, and personality. Pat is starting to say no. And Pat is finally growing the backbone she needs to be ticked.
Janet is telling her friends that Pat is “just being difficult,” and that she’s sure things will mellow out. Pat is showing no interest in backing down.
3. They've started to talk about you unkindly
Most of the time, adult children who are about to leave their parents will start to make it known. While they may simply try to tell you that they won’t accept certain behaviors, some might also make specific digs about you to others.
They may say stuff like…
- “My family doesn’t care about me.”
- “And finally, after every other priority is taken care of, my family might treat me to something nice. Or not.”
- “What does she want?”
- “When I have kids, I won’t be like her.”
- “Oh. Great. Another family dinner."
While this may seem like snark, it’s often a sign of deep-seated resentment. If you overhear your adult child say this, it’s a sign things aren’t going well with your relationship.
4. They've started to avoid you
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When you call your child, do they always pick up? Are invitations going increasingly unanswered? Does it feel like you’re getting locked out of your child’s life, or that you have to seemingly force your way into your child’s major life events?
This is a moment when you should take a moment to think about your child’s current age. This is a sign that your child is either a) a teenager and trying to show some basic independence that you should respect, or b) an adult who may be sick of your stuff.
It’s very rare (though still possible) to see a child who slowly freezes out their parents for reasons that don’t have anything to do with their parents. More often than not, it’s due to an abusive romantic relationship, being overwhelmed with life tasks, or due to issues like drug problems that just spin out of control.
When adult children start to back away from their parents, they don’t always say they’re going to do it. It often starts as a slow trend that builds up over time.
5. They've asked you to be more empathetic or less judgmental
A lot of very well-meaning parents end up estranged from their kids because of the way they react when their kids do something they don’t like. Rather than say it’s okay, these parents go, “Ugh, why did you do that? You should have known better!”
After years and years of parents wheedling, critiquing, and showing little acceptance for their kids, adult children often decide it’s better not to tell their parents the truth. I mean, why make a situation worse?
If you just tear down your kids for not being perfect, kids in crisis will learn to hide their perceived flaws in front of you because they know you’ll make them suffer more if they talk to you. The same can be said of parents who lash out at kids who express themselves.
This kind of behavior tends to build up resentment in kids fairly quickly. I’ve seen more than my fair share of adult children cut ties over that type of treatment. After all, no one wants to be treated like an extension of another person.
6. They say you showed clear favoritism for one child over the other
This tends to make the Black Sheep of the Family go no-contact with their parents. I mean, why wouldn’t they? You’ve already shown that you don’t value the Black Sheep.
That kind of rejection and resentment tend to be pretty hard to overcome, even if you are apologetic in adulthood. So what can you do if you feel like your kid’s about to cut ties with you?
First of all, don’t try to control the situation or the narrative. If it got to this point, there’s a lot of resentment and toxicity already there, even if you don’t necessarily see it.
The worst thing you can do is lash out at your kid, try to do power plays with gifts, harass them, or try to continue the dynamic. If you want a chance at reconciliation, the best thing to do is:
- Ask them what’s going on and if they are upset with you. Listen. Be ready to hear an entire litany of things you may not want to hear, as well as genuine examples of the worst side you’ve shown them.
- Don’t argue, don’t accuse, and don’t minimize. Even if their issues seem small to you, they’re big to them, and you need to acknowledge their upset. For example, you might think something like skipping a vaccine is no big deal, but if they want the vaccine, you need to listen to them.
- Understand you can’t always have things your way. You can’t control what others want to do with their lives, and you can’t make others behave like perfect little dolls. You have to agree to disagree with some points, though not everything can be handled in that manner.
- Don’t hate them for leaving or trying to live their own lives. Not everything your kid does is going to be something you like. People have their own needs and desires.
- Apologize to them and ask what they would like you to do. More often than not, they know what they would want to see in a parent-child relationship. If they say that it’s too late, don’t argue. Simply acknowledge their hurt and give them space.
- Consider getting therapy. I will be the first one to say that therapy doesn’t work for everyone, but it will work for most people. Therapists can help you figure out issues in communication, issues that may be causing others to avoid you, and issues with generational trauma.
- Do not repeat the same behaviors that upset them in the first place. Here’s the thing: your behavior got you here in the first place. You need to change that to get out of this mess.
You need to understand that kids don’t cut ties with their parents for no reason. If you want to keep in contact with your children, you have to abide by the boundaries they set and the requests for respect they have.
This is a time that you need to prioritize your relationship with your children — and not on your terms, either. You have to work on yourself to keep your kids around. Who knows? You might like who you become.
Ossiana Tepfenhart is a writer whose work has been featured in Yahoo, BRIDES, Your Daily Dish, Newtheory Magazine, and others.
