'I Was An Estranged Child. Here's What I Wish Parents Knew About Going No-Contact'

"Some parents may feel blindsided by their grown-up child going no-contact. But "going no-contact is never the first choice," Pruter said. "It's the last resort of a child who didn't feel safe, seen, or sovereign in the relationship." She added that there is often no single moment that leads to a break. Instead, "it begins with small moments of emotional misattunement. Dismissed feelings. Subtle control. A child becomes the parents' emotional regulator.""

""It can look like 'loving too much' or 'doing everything for them,' when in reality, the parent may have unknowingly made their child responsible for their self-worth. For the parent, she said, they might really feel they gave their child everything. "So when a parent finds themselves mystified by estrangement, the most powerful question they can ask is not 'What went wrong?' but: 'What truth did my child not feel safe enough to tell me?'""

Adult children typically choose no-contact as a last resort after feeling unsafe, unseen, or lacking sovereignty in their relationship. Estrangement often accumulates from small emotional misattunements, dismissed feelings, subtle control, and children becoming emotional regulators. Parental behaviors that seem like overprotection or provision can turn into making a child responsible for parental self-worth. Parents may sincerely believe they gave everything while the child experienced harm. Reflection can be useful for parents, but such reflection must be rooted in genuine curiosity rather than defensiveness to understand what truths the child felt unsafe to reveal.

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