Saturday, June 16, 2007

When Parents Hurt

I get a lot of books in the mail from publishers--some are worth reading and others aren't. When I first picked up psychologist Joshua Coleman's book, When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don't Get Along, I thought it was another self-help book with silly strategies about how to mend a parent's relationship with his or her grown kids and teens. I deduced it not worth my time when the first thing I read was that he originally helped adult children in therapy sessions craft letters to their parents telling them essentially to kiss off. Coleman states that he thought the kids were often right and the parents were to blame in most of these cases where family members did not get along. However, he admits that he was wrong and that as often as not, the grown kids had contributed equally to the poor relationship and parents were not necessarily to blame. Parents hurt too when their teens and adult children want nothing to do with them or treat them in dismissive or cruel ways. This book teaches you how to heal.

And just as the author admits he was wrong about parental and child conflict, I will admit that I was wrong to initially dismiss the book without giving it a chance. It is chockfull of information for those parents who do not get along with their grown children and offers concrete advice on how to cope and change the destructive child-parent interaction to a postive one. There is a chapter on the "Brave New Parent of the Twenty-First Century" where the author describes the burdens parents are facing today. One of these burdens is that parents have now become more responsible for entertaining their children because of the decline of extended families, the scarcity of places for kids to play and the blaring media news on the dangers of outside play. "..the claim 'I'm bored,' rather than being a statement about subjective experience, ends up being a statement about the parent's adequacy and worth. Children can now judge parents by how well they provide opportunities and therefore, how deserving they are of the child's love and respect." And even if you are a parent who ignores this type of behavior and doesn't play the game, the society, schools, and even churches etc. often reinforce the notion that parents are responsible for their kid's happiness. Kids take it to heart and blame parents for any shortcomings.

My favorite chapter in the book is one entitled, "Where Did This Kid Come From? Mismatches Between Parent and Child." Coleman lays out the different types of parents and kids and gives guidelines on how to deal with each type. For example, if you are a high-achieving parent raising or interacting with a low-achieving child, he says to avoid making all or most of your interactions about grades, college, or career, avoid expressing a lot of worry or "concern" especially if your child is clearly turned off by it, avoid micromanaging and tells you how to become a consultant rather than a manager as your child gets older.

Although, I do not agree with all of the advice given, if you are a parent who has an older teen or adult child who has dismissed you, dissed you, or just plain written you off, this book gives some good ideas on how to cope, for even if you can't get your relationship back on track, the book gives some good strategies on how to help yourself move on from the pain of being shut out of your grown child's life.

At the risk of sounding like Jerry Springer here, or worse, Oprah, if you are going through problems with your grown adult child and have any words of wisdom for other readers, drop a line in the comments.

42 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can only consider myself lucky or blessed. While (of course) there have been differing opinions at times between me and each of my children, we have been able to work through them. Nothing so serious we could not reach an amicable agreement. Luckily, our understanding of each other has only improved as all of us aged.

Nothing has filled me with such joy, as watching them grow and learn. Watching them become.

Nothing has hurt me as much as any of them hurting, physically or emotionally.

I don't understand many things in this life. Why others are as they are, what people do with their lives. I know this is gonna come across as mushy, but I love my kids with all I'm worth. I'm a dad, and nothing else would do.

The majority of men feel the very same way. I've seen it a million times. But that will never make the 6 o'clock news. So here's to us, gentlemen.

9:41 AM, June 16, 2007  
Blogger tomcal said...

Hmmmmm, I'm not quite sure what to say. My relationship with my kids (ages 16 and 20) is very good, and as br549 says, they are a source of joy to us every day.

But problems always start when I try to offer advice or guidance. Even if they ask for it, more times than not my attempts to give advice end up with "never mind, just shut up and I'll figure it out myself".

I'm sure that my kids see me as a "high achiever", although I tend to see myself as a lazy bum (I was a horrible under-achiever in school) who got a few lucky breaks and took advantage of them. At best, I am a spider who weaves a web and just sits there waiting for an opportunity to drop in.

I think I'll take a nap and ponder this a little more as I drift off to sleep...

1:17 PM, June 16, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I hope our library gets this book because I will definitely read it.
I'm pretty discouraged about my relationship with my 17 year old daughter. She's always been willful, crabby, and cool/distant. We are high-achieving and she is a moderate achiever with unrealistically high expectations of what goodies will come her way once she is launched into "real life." We are intellectuals; she is bored by most deep thinking. I really don't see us being able to connect well when she's older, either, and it won't be for lack of trying on our part.
It's amazing how important the personality match between parent and child is. We have a younger son and he is so much more affectionate and fun to be with than she is. We love them equally, and would literally die for them, but I can't say that we LIKE them equally.

3:25 PM, June 16, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

For parents concerned about being "shut-out", how about taking responsibility for your actions? Maybe that's the only chance you have.

As far as parents fearing the pain of their child the most - no, some are so controlling they fear losing control over their kids more. They'd rather see their kids in severe pain than not be in control. It's the "pain" of the tyrant contemplating losing power they shouldn't have in the first place. Sort of like obsessive stalkers or former romantic partners.

3:51 PM, June 16, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As someone who walked away from my parents at the age of nineteen, I can safely say that I was part of the problem. With that being said though, I was not the entire problem. Yes, I was willful and down right rebellious. I was not ready for college at 18 (BTW, Nineteen years later, I have graduated with my masters degree in anthropology with a 4.0 and have been accepted into a doctoral program) but I was pushed into it. I was kept on a short string at home so when I went away from that I lost it because A) I didn't know what to do with out their input and B) I was finally free--sort of damned if I did and damned if I didn't situation. I do not regret my decision to walk away and not look back. I figured out who I was and not what was expected of me.

Yes, I was a huge part of the problems I had with my parents. Yes, I could have done things differently. When I walked out of that house for the last time, I was told that as long as I was the disappointment, I was not welcome back. To them, not going to college at that time was a disappointment (along with majoring in something that was "going to pay the bills" instead of what I wanted to major in. They wanted an accountant, I wanted to be a police officer).

I guess what I am saying is that sometimes, it is a necessary thing to walk away from a dysfunctional situation. The parent-child relationship is much like a marriage. It takes two to make it work and it takes two parties to break it up. Neither the parent nor the child is completely to blame when things go horribly wrong.

4:01 PM, June 16, 2007  
Blogger Joe said...

Why do you need a book to learn that the solution is to move on? One of my great failings as a human beings is the complete failure to understand why people obssess about shit like this. So you don't get along with your parents? Boo hoo. Good God, whatever happened to GET A LIFE?

(I'm serious. I'm sick and tired of this Kumbaya society that insists we all emote at each other get along and hold hands. Sometimes, we just don't get along with each other. That's life. Nothing to see here. Move along.)

4:51 PM, June 16, 2007  
Blogger tomcal said...

Joe:

I think you are right. Everyone has issues with their parents, in fact I think almost everyone has issues with anyone they have spent a lot of time with.

At some point you have to boot kids out of the nest. If you don't, they'll show up on your doorstep at 30 (or as my sister, a professor at Yale, did to my parents at age 45 - she felt humiliated because she was expected to teach 2 freshman classes)expecting you to take care of them.

5:22 PM, June 16, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This was a very opportune post, Helen.

Last weekend, my parents cut short their cross-region visit to my sister's newborn after my brother-in-law -- a surly, controlling loner who has turned my sister into a muddled adolescent -- brought to bear every perceived wrong in a curse-filled excoriation.

My folks aren't perfect, but are gentle people who have spent the last seven years trying to conciliate with that impossible, hell-raising pair.

I will forward the information. Thank you.

7:13 PM, June 16, 2007  
Blogger TMink said...

Amyra wrote a great post in which she said: "Neither the parent nor the child is completely to blame when things go horribly wrong."

Most of the time, in general circumstances, I think you are correct. In extraordinary circumstances, it can be the parent totally. I am thinking of situations in which the parents perpetrated horrid abuse upon the children. Aside from that, there is usually blame to share.

I think, again in general, that the parents shoulder the burden till the children get to be 25 or so, then it is a more mutual situation.

But children can be turned, and some make bad choices a lifestyle and later, a personality, and addictions turn people into complete jerks.

But too man mental health "professionals" project their parent issues onto their patients. This kind of thing is always to the patient's detriment, and I am glad it is being discussed and written about.

Trey

8:10 PM, June 16, 2007  
Blogger ricpic said...

Don't press. That's the main thing. And maybe the kid will come around.

9:02 PM, June 16, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

joe-

Why do you need a book to learn that the solution is to move on? One of my great failings as a human beings is the complete failure to understand why people obssess about shit like this. So you don't get along with your parents? Boo hoo. Good God, whatever happened to GET A LIFE?

A lot of these pathologically controlling types try to make that impossible. It is hard to describe how pathological some of these types can be. Think of the one female Kennedy that they had locked up and butchered by psychiatrists. In some cases too you have to fight to get your freedom, fight for the truth, and fight to get what is rightfully yours.

3:49 AM, June 17, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

cover me...-

...turned my sister into a muddled adolescent...

How did he do that? How do you seperate that from native muddledness?

4:08 AM, June 17, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm a 61-year-old daughter. My relationship with my mom was rocky from the time I was about 14 until about 7 years ago. I was sure she was still trying to control me--and I was not without strong evidence of that--and my resentment knew almost no bounds.

Over a period of years, I reached a point of acceptance, as well as clear recognition of the many ways and times that I had hurt her. One of God's greatest gifts to us both is that we have finally achieved the kind of relationship both of us had wanted--adult to adult, accepting and loving and appreciating each other. Mom will be 90 years old, in a couple of weeks, and I thank God often for giving us these last years. And, yes, even in her late years, she's also proved that it's never too late to grow.

10:32 AM, June 17, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And, yes, even in her late years, she's also proved that it's never too late to grow.

For some people. Also some people have done things that are unforgiveable, especially when they try to avoid responsibility for it.

12:52 PM, June 17, 2007  
Blogger Chris said...

I have a 21 y/o daughter who I adopted when she was 8, from my wife's prior marriage. She left home early, refused my offer of college, and has been living with a man for three years, who has attacked her 3 times and who's only employment is selling drugs on the street.

I tried raising her the same as Brett and Trevor, although admittedly, she was my first so I made mistakes, no doubt.

We hardly speak because the only time she would call me would be for money and I quit giving that when she would do nothing to help herself.

I don't have much guilt or ill feelings over it for one reason. I was a big fan of Nathanial Branden and one of the lessons I learned from his books was that when planning a goal, focus only on the factors you can control, not the ideal result. For example, I had a goal of being the best parent I could for her. If my goal had been to produce a perfect child, I would have been disappointed in myself because I did not do so. But I can look myself in the mirror and know that I did the best possible parenting that I could for her. So therein lies the peace that I have despite the strained relationship.

1:15 PM, June 17, 2007  
Blogger Joe said...

I think, again in general, that the parents shoulder the burden till the children get to be 25 or so, then it is a more mutual situation.

Are you serious? Parents shoulder the burden until a child turns 16. Then, because society forces us to, you feed and house them for two more years then KICK THEM OUT OF THE HOUSE.

If you want adults, treat your kids like adults, not children. Kids are not blank slates, they are born with personalities. Sometimes they jive with yours, sometimes not. But they are still sovereign beings.

(And please, stop using bullshit arguments about retarded children of rich people and some such crap. The discussion here is about alleged adults who are wringing their hands over not emoting properly with other adults. "Oh, by my parents are so controlling." THEN TELL THEM TO FUCK OFF! Or are you a total pansy?)

As parents you have MUCH MUCH less control over your kids than you think you do, so get over it. As kids, you have MUCH MUCH more control over your own life than you think you do, so get over it.

3:13 PM, June 17, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So many worthwhile comments, peppered by such anger, hostility, rage, even...not to mention the language. Please--I have been there, so I know whereof I speak--if you are angry, hostile, full of rage because of a lousy relationship with your parents and/or children, please get some help for yourself. You're the only one you can do anything about, so get out of the blame game and find some peace.

4:19 PM, June 17, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm one of those mental health professionals that had that view that parents were usually to blame. I'd moved on from that view more and more as time went on, but then really had to confront my prejudices when my mother died.

It was only when others talked lovingly of the kind of woman that she was that I realized that I had not understood her. In retrospect, it probably is more the parent's responsibility than the child's, but my mother didn't really know how to deal with someone like me, someone both like her and very different from her, and I can't fault her for that. She as never malicious or angry, and she loved me more than I realized, and so many of my disappointments would have been avoided if I'd known her for who she was. That I didn't is due largely for me reacting to her rather than responding in a way that was forgiving and tried to understand her the best I could.

There are few days when I don't miss her, but I will use this lesson in my work and in my personal life to encourage others to listen more and be less prejudicial and assuming.

5:18 PM, June 17, 2007  
Blogger TMink said...

Joe asked: "Are you serious?"

Yep. You may have missed it beacuse I was not ranting like a jerk.

Treu

6:57 PM, June 17, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As we see here, whether you allow anonymous comments or not, you still get plenty of people just totally convinced that their opinions are the only right [sic] ones.

Yawn. Good, bad, or indifferent, an opinion is just an opinion. Not holy writ.

8:33 PM, June 17, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

chris-

I was a big fan of Nathanial Branden and one of the lessons I learned from his books was that when planning a goal, focus only on the factors you can control, not the ideal result.

In some extreme situations the only acceptable focus is on bringing things outside your control under your control. There are certain kinds of acts and conduct that can't be tolerated or accepted.

But I can look myself in the mirror and know that I did the best possible parenting that I could for her. So therein lies the peace that I have despite the strained relationship.

Possibly. No one here knows your situation but you. Be careful though, some people try to rationalize away atrocities.

11:36 PM, June 17, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

joe-

And please, stop using bullshit arguments about retarded children of rich people and some such crap. The discussion here is about alleged adults who are wringing their hands over not emoting properly with other adults. "Oh, by my parents are so controlling." THEN TELL THEM TO FUCK OFF! Or are you a total pansy?

It's not a bullshit argument - people can and do use legal and medical fraud and other vehicles to get control of people and abuse them.

And it has nothing to do with a lack of guts or being a "pansy" - if you go too far in a situation where someone is claiming you are "crazy" or "dangerous" it will just give them more material for their fraud and con game. You don't want to play into the hands of dishonest, criminal trash.

PS - You should see some of the people they tried to classify as "retarded" or "feebleminded" and the like back then. Translation: Anyone the good old boys and their cronies wanted to destroy.

11:47 PM, June 17, 2007  
Blogger Joe said...

Anonymous,

It's a bullshit argument because you are attempting to use a relatively rare exception to prove a broader point. Rosemary Kennedy was seriously abused by her parents and a grotesque system, but it proves nothing about the people being talked about here--normal parents and adult children who don't get along.

Everybody has some issue with their parents, whether it be a wacky religion (in my case) or just being a manipulative nut job (my mother-in-law) but neither my wife nor I are going to live our lives wringing our hands about what our relationship with our parents should be according to some bizarro standard out there. It is what it is--a big part of being an adult is accepting that. If you can change it, and want to, great, if not (as in the case of my mother-in-law) then oh well.

2:48 AM, June 18, 2007  
Blogger Unknown said...

I could never hope to change my parents. They were never bad-evil, they were just never there. HMPH! They had bad childhoods and did the best they could. end of story

I could say a similar thing about my relationship to my own children. I wish it were better: Yet, all three of us are such loners! How could we get closer? I do not know.

I think advice in the form of a book is a good thing for those who want to create closeness and can create closeness. Some will not be able to fix the rift, some will be able to and some will not want to try. That's OK, as we are all different.

It's the anger here in this thread which raises my eyebrows. Why the anger? That's what I do not understand. If the rift with parent or child is too big to fix, then why not accept that the rift is too big to fix?

If the rift is fixable and you want to do the work of fixing the rift, then the book sounds like good advice.

I keep coming back in my mind to the anger and asking "Why does it exist?" Anger always means something and I do not know what, in this case.

5:23 AM, June 18, 2007  
Blogger Chris said...

Anon 11:36

Both good points;)

11:49 AM, June 18, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

vicki small, you and I have a lot in common. Now my 89-yr-old mother is 1200 miles away in a nursing home and I wish so much to make up for my own little cruelties to her.

She lost a lot of stature in my eyes when I was a teen, which I could go on about...and we were stuck together a long time when my brothers were in the navy. We knew how to push each other's buttons, for sure.

But I think maybe the best advice anyone could have given me was to Honor thy father and mother. Period, end of story.

12:21 PM, June 18, 2007  
Blogger TMink said...

Anon wrote: "Translation: Anyone the good old boys and their cronies wanted to destroy."

Most of the good old boys down here had more direct ways of depriving people of their civil rights I am sorry to say. Asylum, we don't need no stinking asylums. Maybe you are referring to yankees, but good old boys refers to southerners to me.

Trey

9:43 PM, June 18, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

joe-

It's a bullshit argument because you are attempting to use a relatively rare exception to prove a broader point. Rosemary Kennedy was seriously abused by her parents and a grotesque system, but it proves nothing about the people being talked about here--normal parents and adult children who don't get along.

Not quite. The practice of using the government or the "system" to abuse people is only picking up nowadays. You must have missed a lot of the threads here on women making false abuse and rape claims up.

It is what it is--a big part of being an adult is accepting that.

That doesn't necessarily follow. A big part of being an adult is also fighting injustice and evil when that needs to be done.

3:09 AM, June 19, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

carol-

Honor thy father and mother. Period, end of story.

That just isn't applicable to criminal parents.

3:13 AM, June 19, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

tmink-

Most of the good old boys down here had more direct ways of depriving people of their civil rights I am sorry to say. Asylum, we don't need no stinking asylums. Maybe you are referring to yankees, but good old boys refers to southerners to me.

I was generally referring to the so-called "elites" around the country. What you're saying is accurate, however I'm sure there were and are situations where they have to be more subtle about it.

3:17 AM, June 19, 2007  
Blogger TMink said...

Anon wrote: ""Honor thy father and mother. Period, end of story."

That just isn't applicable to criminal parents."

I have thought a lot about how to honor dangerous parents. I think that children can honor them with the truth. The truth sets people free, and by honoring criminal parents, by telling the truth about them, the children give the parents an opportunity to get their souls right before God. Word has it God is not fond of child abusers, much less parents who abuse the children He gave them.

In this circumstance, honoring their parents with the truth could save the parents. In more ways than one.

Trey

10:03 AM, June 19, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You probably already know, but j.i.c. - The Washington Post has an article about Cho's psych profile here...

10:36 AM, June 19, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

One of the best things that happened to me was getting enough distance from my parents to begin thinking of them as people rather than as Mom & Dad. A lot of guilt goes away when you are able to consider your family as a bunch of idiosyncratic individuals forced to live together for better or worse. You may even appreciate your family more when you look at them this way.

We need the "Mom-Dad-Kids" template in order to have families at all. But at some point, we have to understand that the roles are not the reality.

6:26 PM, June 19, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good point, tmink. (9:43 PM)

A long standing prejudice is the north's view of the south.

10:00 AM, June 24, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

br - I'm surprised at you! "South" should always be capitalized when it refers to the Sacred Soil!

2:47 PM, June 25, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Carol - I'm really sorry there's so much geography between you and your mom. 500 miles are more easily travelled for frequent visits. I learned the commandment early, but found it increasingly difficult to honor a mentally ill dad and a dysfunctional mom...especially when I was, of course, dysfunctional, myself. In short, the commandment wasn't sufficient, when I needed it the most. Once I was able to heed it, change began to occur.

Trey - I like your take on honoring dangerous parents. That would be far healthier than I could have handled, for most of my life, because it would have required me not to write the script for my parents. I spent a lot of years trying to do that.

7:15 PM, June 25, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Forgive me!

And up there is spelled nawth.

6:13 AM, June 26, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just read through the posts on this thread again. It absolutely did not occur to me until now that I may harbor unresolved feelings with my own parents. But they are long gone, and so high up on a pedestal. I have no desire to put a nick in any of that marble.

I always go straight to my kids in my mind. It might be time to ask myself "what about me" on some things. Well, now I've got something to think about today during lulls at work.

6:24 AM, June 26, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi, I am a 30 year old who still lives with her parents. I have grown up as an only child with extended relatives in places 1,000 to 3,000 miles away. I would say that I have lived a pretty much lonely life. As a child I moved in three separate locations, making it hard to sustain childhood friendships. My mother is very controlling and she has been very verbally abusive as far as I can remember. It hasn't always been bad, but there have been times and there are still times when it gets excrutiatingly difficult. My father feels the need to support her no matter what she says or does. At the moment I am very much in debt due to college and grad school loans. My Dad always thought that it would be good for me to stay a while until I can get my own place. I work two jobs and my parents are still together. My mother does not want me in her house any longer and she is very selfish, narcissistic, materialistic, and has a dismissive attitude towards me. If my father were not around she may even call the police, make up a story just to get rid of me. I am a hard-working professional. I am a teacher by day and I do retail at night. I often cook for my parents and I listen to them and even ask for advice. However, when something goes wrong--anything. If I disagree with my mother or if something bad has happened to me (where I am the victim) my mother will then say very regrettable things just as she did when I was a child. Now because I have decided that I do not want to fight with them, I am not speaking to them (particularly after my mother threatened me.) Because she has not apologized for her behavior which no one deserves, she gave me an ultimatum. She told me that I will leave if I do not speak to her and that she will change all the doors and locks. She wanted me to talk to her and when I tried to explain why I haven't been, she interrupts by saying, "You have 30 days to get out of my house for good!" I would love to be able to have my own place and when I say that the feeling is mutual, she goes on to tell me how I will fall on my face and that I will wish I were back here and that I better get ready for some hard times. But, she forgets that I have had opportunities where I have lived on my own inside and outside of the country. It wasn't easy, but I felt free and independent. I didn't hear my mother bullying or badgering me. I haven't forgotten many of the things that she has said to me growing up. I have never been what is considered to be a very problematic child. I never caused or got into trouble. I was a good kid. Unfortunately to my mother, it's never been good enough. I would to like to live in peace. I feel like I have no support.

4:31 PM, July 20, 2007  
Blogger Joe said...

Late to the party as always. I'm estranged from my mother and sister, and have been for nearly a decade. I attempted reconciliation, but a lot of unpleasantness lingered. I feel I have changed. I know I have. Finding common ground was not hard, but depth wasn't there.

I am to blame for my part. But I can do nothing about their part. And if their part continues to hurt, how can I reasonably subject myself to what I regard as disrespect? How does one honor one's father and mother and in my case, sister, when they are unwilling to meet one half way. I recognize that one must give it over to God. I also recognize that is easier said than done.

2:14 PM, August 13, 2007  
Blogger Serket said...

The author's website is: http://www.whenparentshurt.com/

6:10 PM, January 18, 2008  
Blogger gamingkrib said...

"change the destructive child-parent interaction to a positive one."... Join our build...http://www.gamingkrib.com Kribtopia will help...

12:29 AM, June 30, 2008  

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