The Reconnection Club Podcast

The journey through unwanted estrangement from adult children can remain challenging even after extensive personal work and therapy, as hidden barriers continue to surface. In this pivotal episode, Reconnection Club Podcast host Tina Gilbertson explores how parents who have built fulfilling lives and invested in their own growth may still have blind spots that hinder their healing

TRANSCRIPT: These are uncertain times for those of us who create and freely share content via the Internet. I mentioned on the podcast earlier this year that I needed some time to assess the impact of all the changes happening in the world of digital information, including the widespread, unregulated use of AI. At that time, I removed the show from a couple of the larger platforms,

There are many more episodes to come! To find ALL episodes of the Reconnection Club Podcast, go to Reconnectionclub.com/podcast.

These things are true about estrangement support on the internet: 1. Many estranged adult children’s forums contain mean-spirited remarks about rejected parents. 2. Many rejected parents’ forums contain mean-spirited remarks about estranged adult children. 3. Mean-spirited remarks don’t heal the pain of estrangement on either side. True support, in the form of validation of e

When your own adult child cuts you off, it can be deeply hurtful. And part of the reason for that pain is what it feels like their estrangement means. Many rejected parents believe it’s their personal flaws that prompted their adult children to create distance. They think that because they’ll never be perfect, there’s nothing they can do to repair the relationship. But estran

It’s common for parents to believe that the “punishment” of estrangement is supposed to fit the “crime” – whatever it may be – to which their adult child is holding them accountable by keeping their distance. This idea that the length or perceived severity of estrangement correlates exclusively to an injury or injuries suffered by the adult child in childhood is, in m

What are parents supposed to do when estranged adult children leave their belongings at home? That’s a tricky question. There isn’t just one right answer that will fit for every family. When you’re storing the belongings of someone who’s not talking to you, you’re in a difficult position – both logistically and emotionally. How do you decide what to do that won’t harm

Estrangement from family is a kind of ambiguous loss. But some of the losses that are often associated with estrangement are definitive. They can be grieved. For parents who are unwillingly estranged from their adult children, there are at least five potential, definitive losses they might sustain during estrangement. Tina walks listeners through them in this important episode, and

Some parents of estranged adult children beat themselves up for parenting “mistakes” they couldn’t possibly have avoided. Others blame their children for being difficult, ungrateful or too sensitive. What’s missing from these simplistic assignments of blame for estrangement? Context. According to Tina, context is very often overlooked to the detriment of both parents and ch

Some parents experiencing estrangement from their adult children have known estrangement before. Not necessarily from other people, but within themselves. Self-alienation is a kind of internal estrangement that has become almost normal in our culture. With so much information available and so much to do, we're not always fully present. We lose touch with ourselves over time, often