Estrangement From Parents: How Families Can Reconnect

Friends, estrangement is an incredibly emotional topic. We keep getting messages from you saying that staying in touch with your own parents or your in-laws just wasn't possible anymore. The reasons vary a lot, and we're convinced that no one cuts off contact lightly.

Anja Sernau counsels parents whose adult children have cut them off. She helps them reflect on their own actions and tries to get estranged family members talking again. We sat down with her to go deeper on the subject.

Ms. Sernau, we last spoke in July 2025. What kind of response did you get to our interview?

The response was very good. Many of the parents I've counseled had read the interview. The parents affected saw a lot of things the way I do. Most of the adult children did too, but sometimes I got the feeling that they assumed I was on the parents' side. I try to stay neutral, to understand both sides and to build mutual tolerance. In many cases it works, though it often takes a long time. Sometimes it isn't really desirable to restore contact at all. But that's the exception.

You try to get adult children who've cut off contact back to the table with their parents. In most cases, what's the first step to make that happen?

I'd say the first step is understanding the reasons for the estrangement. Children often describe the situation at home like this: they talked to their parents about the problems again and again, and nobody listened.

Sometimes cutting off contact was the only step left for them when nothing changed and their problems weren't taken seriously. I hear over and over that walking away comes with a hope: that the parents will face the issue and that something will change as a result.

Is it true that the longer there's been no contact, the harder reconciliation is?

You probably can't say that across the board. Many children who cut off contact have been considering it for a long time. When they finally take that step, it's probably because they've reached a point of desperation where they can't go on like this anymore.

One reason that comes up again and again is that children feel unseen, or even devalued and unimportant. If another moment like that comes, they may “pack their things.” Once they've reached that point, they truly need distance. Before the two sides can find their way back to each other, the parents have to be clear about the reasons, and both sides should work on it together.

If the estrangement has lasted for years, the question is why. I've often seen that both sides wanted contact again for a long time, but neither wanted to take the first step. If that's the reason, it's relatively easy to come back together.

But if there are unspoken difficulties on both sides, you need one or more conversations to clear the air. Sometimes a specific event permanently destroyed a relationship that had been working. That could be, for example, gifts of money to a sibling that felt unfair, or something similar. In a case like that, it helps if you can think beforehand about whether it really was unfair, and if it was, solve the problem in a logical way.

What are your experiences with “children” and “parents” in your work? Is one camp more willing to work on itself?

I work with more parents than children, because I offer self-help groups for parents who've been cut off. I think the parents who didn't have a good relationship with their kids to begin with, and who aren't bothered much by the estrangement, don't contact me.

I almost exclusively work with parents who are really suffering because of it. Some fall into depression, can't live their lives lightly anymore, carry a lot of guilt and just don't understand the world anymore. I believe these parents are ready to do anything.

Most of them “fight” to see their children again. And often it's not just the children but also the grandchildren they'd love to see again. But some parents have been through so much pain that they just can't anymore.

They haven't exactly given up, but they're disillusioned and simply out of strength. And there are also parents who have their pride. They're willing to meet their children part of the way, but not to walk the whole way alone.

With the children, I mostly get the sense that they miss their parents very much but are still so hurt (which can have many causes) that they can't (yet) make the journey back. What they often wish for is that their parents recognize the problem and work on it.

Another important reason children leave is a high-conflict separation between the parents during their childhood. It's not uncommon for the child to be kept away from one parent, or for the ex to be badmouthed. The child loses trust in one parent or even both. That feeling of having no security and no safe place, nobody you can rely on, can also contribute to isolating yourself as an adult.

Is there one topic that keeps coming up when children explain their reasons for cutting off contact?

Time is a very big one. Children who grew up with only one parent especially talk about it. As a child, all you see is that, say, your dad never came to a single one of your soccer games and you never went on vacation. But a child can't understand that, on top of earning money, Dad had three kids to take care of, a household to run alone, and a sick mother to look after. What the child hears is: “Dad doesn't have time for me. He doesn't care about me.”

Other themes, as I mentioned above, are a high-conflict separation, narcissism in a parent, neglect and so on. One that you wouldn't expect to come up so often is parentification. Especially when a parent dies or parents separate, children sense that they're needed. They take care of their mom or dad, of younger siblings, of the household and so on. Up to a certain point, that's perfectly fine.

But often the children are overwhelmed and can't really be kids anymore. That overload sometimes ends in estrangement. At some point the grown child wants to break free and discovers that when they're on their own, the work and the responsibility get lighter.

Can it really work out to fully rebuild a good relationship?

Absolutely. I've accompanied many parents who were able to reconnect with their children. In almost all cases the relationship is normal again, sometimes downright euphoric. Sometimes the first meetings are hard and marked by criticism and blame (which is best avoided). But after a while, once things have calmed down, most of the people affected are happy to be a family again.

Is there anything else about this topic that's especially important to you?

I'd like to give the adult children a piece of advice: If you possibly can, don't cut off contact completely. Of course there are situations where you can't stand it anymore, and everyone has the right to create distance. But maybe you can tell your parents that you don't want contact right now, but that you'd be willing to stop by on their birthday, for example.

If even that is too much, you could choose what I call the one-way street principle. You agree with your parents that you'll write to them once a month, say, but they won't write back. That way you can't be hurt, but your parents know how you're doing, or at least hear something from you. It's just one idea for keeping the thread from snapping entirely and giving your parents something small to hold on to. Maybe it will grow into more someday.

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Anja Sernau offers free self-help groups with coaching and free talks. Both parents and adult children can also book counseling sessions, and full-day seminars take place three times a year. For more information: [email protected] or www.verlassene-Eltern.net