Estrangement between parents and their adult children is quietly sweeping through families, churches, and communities today. It is a difficult, confusing, and emotionally charged reality, one that clinical psychologist Dr. Joshua Coleman has spent decades researching and living through himself. His book, “Rules of Estrangement: Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict,” offers hard-won wisdom to parents and families as they wrestle with the heartbreak of separation. From a Christian perspective, navigating estrangement demands humility, empathy, and grace—virtues that reflect God’s heart for reconciliation and healing.

Core Principles of Estrangement

At its root, estrangement is usually initiated by adult children, who walk away as a reaction to deep emotional wounds, changing values, or a need for psychological safety. Sometimes the catalyst is a personal crisis, trauma that hasn’t healed, or repeated conflicts that wear down the hope of repair. What makes estrangement so unique—and painful—is that its impact ripples out, touching not only parent and child, but siblings, grandparents, and even marriages within the extended family.

Modern culture shapes how estrangement unfolds. Traditional values like “honor thy father and mother” have lost ground to the prevailing norm of individual autonomy and wellbeing. In today’s culture, it’s increasingly acceptable for adult children to cut ties with parents if relationships feel toxic, harmful, or simply unfulfilling. This is a stark shift from prior generations, where maintaining family connection—even when it was hard—was considered a virtue and, often, a duty.

Key Mistakes Parents Make

Dr. Coleman’s insights can spare families months or years of pain. He identifies five key mistakes parents sometimes make when estrangement occurs, each of which has the potential to deepen the divide:

  • Believing reconciliation should be based on fairness: Parents may assume that making things “equal” or justifying past actions will resolve old wounds. But adult children often experience estrangement through the lens of unaddressed pain, for which fairness may feel irrelevant.

  • Attempting to motivate through guilt: Parental guilt-trips rarely heal relationships. In fact, they tend to push estranged children further away, adding shame and defensiveness to what is already a complex situation.

  • Becoming defensive or escalating conflict: When parents meet complaints with justification, argument, or their own hurt, they risk “returning fire with fire.” This compounds alienation and can make the prospect of reconnection seem impossible.

  • Assuming reconciliation is quick: Many parents hope for rapid healing, but the truth is, reconciliation—when possible—takes time, patience, and persistence. It’s often years in the making.

  • Blaming oneself for all the distance: While it’s important to reflect on any possible contributions to the rift, assuming the entire burden of estrangement can swallow a parent in despair and lead to ineffective or misplaced attempts at reconnection. Healing almost never flows from self-condemnation alone.

Rules for Communication and Reconciliation

Navigating estrangement is not a checklist to be completed, but a posture to live out. Christian love and wisdom shine brightly here. The Rules of Estrangement for communication and hope include:

  • Avoid judgment, criticism, and defensiveness: In every conversation—whether by letter, email, or phone—parents are urged to guard against defensiveness and criticism, even when feeling hurt or misunderstood. Empathy opens doors; judgment shuts them.

  • Begin with empathy: Affirming the adult child’s right to choose what’s healthiest for them is the foundation of respectful communication. Phrases like, “I know you wouldn’t do this unless you felt it was the right decision” open dialogue instead of shutting it down.

  • Be curious, not defensive: It’s easy to become defensive when facing complaints or accusations. But Coleman urges parents to search hard for “the kernel of truth” in their child’s feelings, even if they struggle to understand or agree. Humility here is a Christian virtue that models Christ’s heart.

  • Apologize for pain, not just for acts: An apology isn’t about listing the parent’s good intentions or previous sacrifices. It’s about acknowledging the pain the adult child feels, even if the parent thinks it’s exaggerated or misremembered. Healing is impossible without this level of empathy.

  • Express unconditional love and forgiveness: Regardless of what has happened, parents should communicate a posture of unconditional love, concern, and forgiveness, while making clear they respect the adult child’s needs and boundaries. This practice mirrors God’s heart for wayward children—the gospel lived out.

  • Write amends letters humbly: Coleman recommends writing amends letters focused not on persuading or defending, but on validating, expressing empathy, and inviting—but never demanding—a relationship. These letters should never include justification or accusations. Their goal is to speak to the child’s heart, in humility, leaving the door open for response.

Modern Challenges

Estrangement today is often complicated by factors outside the original parent-child relationship:

  • Divorce and remarriage: Family transitions can lead to alliances that leave some members feeling alienated or unwanted. New spouses or partners sometimes influence contact, consciously or unconsciously.

  • Mental illness or substance abuse: These struggles may increase conflict and add layers of misunderstanding or instability to family interactions.

  • Influence from therapists, peers, and partners: Sometimes adult children are encouraged by outside voices to disconnect from relationships that are judged to be toxic or harmful.

  • Changing definitions of harm: What one generation identifies as normal parental behavior (discipline, expectations, religious teaching), the next may call abusive or controlling.

  • Generational shifts in authority: Relationships with adult children now demand more equality, mutual respect, and flexibility than in times past. Parental authority alone is no longer enough to sustain or repair the connection.

These challenges mean parents must adapt, learning new relational skills and emotional awareness for their adult children’s reality.

Radical Acceptance and the Christian Response

Dr. Coleman’s book teaches that sometimes, despite the best efforts, reconciliation will not happen. In these instances, Christian faith offers resources that are uniquely powerful: radical acceptance, persistent prayer, and hope rooted not in outcomes, but in God’s faithfulness.

Acceptance is not resignation—it’s an honest recognition of limits. It’s trusting God with an estranged child, believing He’s working in both hearts, even when communication ceases. Christian hope is patient, gentle, and strong. When parents build their own happy, grounded lives—not waiting in misery for their children to call—they reflect the peace that comes from God, not just from human relationships.

Coleman and Christian counselors agree: the more a parent moves from control to compassion, from despair to hope, and from isolation to purposeful living, the more likely reconciliation becomes possible. And even if it never does, the journey remains worthwhile.

Living Out the Rules of Estrangement: Wisdom and Grace

Living with estrangement is one of the greatest sources of grief in family life. Yet, as Dr. Coleman uniquely articulates, empathy, humility, and forgiveness can transform even the hardest relationship struggles. From a Christian worldview, these rules echo the core of Jesus’ teaching: “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:28).

Estrangement calls for deep humility—letting go of the need to be right. It asks for radical empathy—listening with the heart for pain behind the words. It requires patience—accepting that change takes time and sometimes doesn’t come at all. And, above all, it offers a chance to practice unconditional love—not the kind that controls or manipulates, but the kind that endlessly hopes and believes.

Conclusion

The Rules of Estrangement, as laid out by Joshua Coleman, provide a path for families who are heartbroken and searching for hope. They are guides, not guarantees. Adult child-parent estrangement is always complex, always painful, and rarely resolved quickly. But compassion, humility, and forgiveness—anchored in the love of Christ—can create possibilities for healing in this generation and beyond.

Even when relationships do not heal, Christian faith holds out hope that lives can be rebuilt, joy reclaimed, and hearts made whole. As we practice empathy and radical acceptance, pray for reconciliation, and trust in God’s persistent love, we embody the best of what it means to follow Jesus: loving those who are far off, and never giving up hope for homecoming.