Parents are starting to wake up, therefore, society is now awakening to the ruse of adult child parental alienation. After the initial shock, disbelief, and grief, parents are allowing themselves to acknowledge the anger they feel about being treated so callously and unfairly by the people they love most.

Therapists also need to wake up and stop enabling this dysfunction that has spread across our country in epidemic proportions. Stop telling people to cut off parents who you have never met, or even spoken to. Stop enabling dysfunction, immaturity, and cruelty in young adults without even attempting to do your job by having a family therapy session. (I am not referring to cases of abuse).

Parents who once felt isolated in their pain are now joining support groups, therapy, and social media. They are realizing that they are not alone, that this is not just about them. They are reassured that they are not bad parents, bad people, toxic, or even boundary crossers. They are reclaiming their self-esteem, their dignity, their identity, and their lives.

They are waking up to the fact that, even though they have been deeply hurt by the silence and absence of their adult children, they do not have to live as victims. They can choose how much they will allow their adult child to take away from them. Maybe they have had their grandchildren taken away, along with normal family relationships and family holidays. Sleepless nights, tears, and grief may have replaced their sense of peace, rest, and joy for too many months or years.

Yes, they are waking up to the unfairness of this immature, unnatural epidemic that has spread far too wide across our land. They are taking back control of their own lives and choosing to stop the madness of unhealthy emotional cut off. Their adult child will not find them where they left them before their decision to cut them off. They have changed. How could they not? The children they bore, loved, raised, and stood by have broken their trust. And trust has to be rebuilt, just as it does in any relationship.

These parents now realize that this is not about them. It is a deeper issue of a generation of younger adults who haven’t learned how to differentiate themselves from their parents of origin in a healthy, respectful way. It is on them. It is a maturity issue. If they need their cut off in order to develop or maintain their own identity, then so be it. If they can’t tolerate a difference of opinion, life choice, or view of a parent without feeling so uncomfortable that they can’t stay connected, so be it. If they are so emotionally immature that they would rather hurt their parent and pretend they aren’t, then they have some soul searching to do.

If they have to cut off a parent to convince themselves that they are independent, they have missed the point. Cutting off a parent proves just the opposite—they are so enmeshed that they haven’t done the maturational work of developing their own individual identity in a healthy way. If they have to cut off a parent to prove they have healthy boundaries, it also proves just the opposite. A person with healthy boundaries does not have to cut off relationships, but instead, is able to say yes or no respectfully, and make their own choices while at the same time considering the other person’s needs.

Healthy adults are able to stay connected to their parents. They know how to extend grace and not expect perfection. They know who they are and take responsibility for their own self-esteem, rather than blaming someone else for how they feel about themselves or about their own lives. They are mature enough to extend forgiveness and allow for restoration and growth in themselves and in others. They know the difference between real abuse and so called “designer abuse”. Feeling uncomfortable at times with differences is not abuse. But alienating an involved and loving parent or grandparent is.

My advice to parents is to reach out, listen, apologize if there is reason to apologize, and let your estranged adult child know that you love them and miss them, and that your door is open. I also advise specifically requesting to see the grandchildren. (This is for the grandchild’s benefit as well as for theirs.) I believe it is emotionally abusive to a child to remove a loving grandparent from his or her life.

This being said, it is not productive to chase after your estranged adult child. Write your letter or text. Then leave the ball in their court. Keep praying for them and for resolution. Then, choose what part of yourself and your life is yours. Choose what you will not give them power over. They have misused their power and it has hurt you. They have taken away your ability to share in their lives…but they haven’t taken away your power to live your life. Focus on your mate, your friends, and the children or grandchildren you have who want to be a part of your life. Travel, find joy, find peace, take good care of yourself, feel good about yourself. Then release them to God. Sometimes we have to get out of God’s way so he can work!

I know this is easier said than done, but consider the alternative. If you chase, it will only make things worse. You will be at cross purposes because they think they want their space and you will be accused of crossing their boundaries. If you cry yourself to sleep every night, they don’t want to hear about it and you will just be miserable. Telling them you are hurt will fall on deaf ears and you will be accused of trying to manipulate. If you express anger about their behavior they will only push you away more and that will become another “reason” why they say they can’t be around you.

If they are going to come back, they eventually will. It may take months, it may be years. It is a loss for all involved. It is their loss as well and it is a heavy price to pay for something that could be resolved with communication and understanding and personal growth among adults, rather than the overcorrection of cut off. The navigation of family dynamics is one of the best avenues for individual growth and maturation. Adult child parental cut off stymies this important developmental process.

Yes, parents are waking up—and it’s time for adult children to start waking up too.