Rules of Estrangement

Why Adult Children Cut Ties and How to Heal the Conflict

By: Joshua Coleman

Narrated by: Fred Sanders

Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

A guide for parents whose adult children have cut off contact that reveals the hidden logic of estrangement, explores its cultural causes, and offers practical advice for parents trying to reestablish contact with their adult children.

“Finally, here’s a hopeful, comprehensive, and compassionate guide to navigating one of the most painful experiences for parents and their adult children alike.” (Lori Gottlieb, psychotherapist and New York Times best-selling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone)

Labeled a silent epidemic by a growing number of therapists and researchers, estrangement is one of the most disorienting and painful experiences of a parent's life. Popular opinion typically tells a one-sided story of parents who got what they deserved or overly entitled adult children who wrongly blame their parents. However, the reasons for estrangement are far more complex and varied. As a result of rising rates of individualism, an increasing cultural emphasis on happiness, growing economic insecurity, and a historically recent perception that parents are obstacles to personal growth, many parents find themselves forever shut out of the lives of their adult children and grandchildren.

As a trusted psychologist whose own daughter cut off contact for several years and eventually reconciled, Dr. Joshua Coleman is uniquely qualified to guide parents in navigating these fraught interactions. He helps to alleviate the ongoing feelings of shame, hurt, guilt, and sorrow that commonly attend these dynamics. By placing estrangement into a cultural context, Dr. Coleman helps parents better understand the mindset of their adult children and teaches them how to implement the strategies for reconciliation and healing that he has seen work in his 40 years of practice. Rules of Estrangement gives parents the language and the emotional tools to engage in meaningful conversation with their child, the framework to cultivate a healthy relationship moving forward, and the ability to move on if reconciliation is no longer possible.

While estrangement is a complex and tender topic, Dr. Coleman's insightful approach is based on empathy and understanding for both the parent and the adult child.

©2020 Joshua Coleman (P)2020 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Finally, here’s a hopeful, comprehensive, and compassionate guide to navigating one of the most painful experiences for parents and their adult children alike. Rules of Estrangement candidly addresses parental estrangement from every conceivable angle, steering readers away from shame and blame to a place of newfound understanding and empowerment. I’ve seen many parents and adult children grappling with these issues, and this is exactly the book they have all been waiting for. I will be recommending it widely.” (Lori Gottlieb, psychotherapist and New York Times best-selling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone)

“A very thoughtful book filled with great wisdom and care. Over Dr. Coleman’s years of practice, as well as his own personal journey, he has developed a deep appreciation for how to help parents see their relationship with their children through the child’s eyes. It is through that process of compassionate perspective taking [WJ1] that a healing conversation can begin.” (Amy J. L. Baker, PhD, author of Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome)

“Coleman addresses what historians see as a strange paradox: Even as more adult children view their parents as friends rather than mere obligations, psychologists report seeing a wave of parents who have been rejected by their adult children. Coleman explores the socioeconomic and cultural changes that inflate both our expectations and our disappointments in family life, offering calming advice on ways that estranged families can recover or move on.” (Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap)

Excellent book for the parent's perspective

The book gives great insight into the phenomenon of parental estrangement, and is an excellent guide for parents whose adult children have estranged them. The author empathizes deeply with such parents.

That being said, the book misses out on showing the adult child's perspective and how parental choices or other incidents can affect them far into adulthood. The book could also have used a chapter on things you can do while your kids are still young to have a better relationship with them in adulthood.

Best book on this topic

This is a thorough and thoughtful book on the painful topic of estrangement. I sometimes agreed and sometimes rejected the info here, but always found the subject thought provoking and insightful. The author does well to describe what I’m feeling as well as giving insight into what my daughter feels and couldn’t exactly vocalize. I end this with more knowledge before, and while maybe not a plan for reconciliation, but a hint of where that would take me if I’m willing to go.

Perspective of both sides

This book is very helpful as an estranged parent . It gave helpful examples of how my daughter may be feeling and eased my pain just a little. We all deserve love, faults and all. And for me the most important thing is that my adult child is happy, even though we are estranged for now, she may need this separated time to find her independence from me in her own way, and that can also be okay.

life-saving or at least relationship saving

This is an exceptionally well-considered and well-presented book. Coleman, as he says in the afterward, speaks with two voices, one in each of his ears. He can hear the perspective of a parent or grandparent, longing to be reconnected with their child. And in the other ear he can hear with such clarity and empathy the voice of the child who feels a need to be separate.
Anybody who's going to look at this book probably does so because they've suffered the pain of estrangement. And I suspect, from my own experience and hearing Dr Coleman speak of others' experiences, that you've spent hours anguishing, wondering, reading, etc. This book brought me more clarity than hundreds of hours of that thinking, including useful conversations with really well meaning and thoughtful people.
The only thing better than reading the book, I imagine, would be spending time in family therapy with Joshua Coleman.

Must read for all parents!

Well written and at times brutally honest about the pain experienced by all parties involved. Provides step by step guide towards reconciliation and notes pitfalls to avoid. Excellent insights that are valuable to all parents... estranged or not.

Desperate parents will find this helpful

Recognizing that the power in the relationship has shifted to the children is important but I am left feeling that too many parents only see themselves in relationship to their narcissistic children. It is a sad comment on life after children leave the nest. But it is a clear reality for many. Raising children to be independent is important but we should also have taught them to be empathetic

Very helpful, must read

Halfway through listening, I bought 2 copies to reread. I see this book as a guide to help navigate an estranged family member. Thank you to the author for understanding making the topic of estrangement not so foreign.

Informative and helpful

Straight talk about estrangement, thank you. Never “clipped” so many sections while listening to books before.

Helpful, informed, compassionate

An excellent overview of how shifting parenting norms and expectations have caused a surge in parent-child estrangement. The author, who was estranged from his daughter for a time, gives specific instructions for writing an abjectly apologetic amends letter. But mostly he counsels radical acceptance since many children will never reconcile. He wants parents to know they deserve to be happy with or without their child.

Good Interpretations and Direction

I enjoyed the topics and learning other ways we can accept and handle the separation of our adult children and grand children. I incorporated some of the ideas and hope they assist in our healing process moving forward.
This book was easy to listen to. It remained interesting with good story lines to tie into the actions or suggestions we could try. If you think the title of the chapter doesn’t match where you’re at, listen to it anyway, you never know what you will learn.