The Epidemic of Family Estrangement
Time: Sat 3:00PM
Venue: Oasis
Style: Presentation
Content Type: From Hurting to Healing to Helping
Description: Family estrangement has become a heartbreak for over a quarter of Americans, and nearly one in eight parent/adult child relationships is estranged. The cutoff is almost always initiated by the adult child. While many adult children feel relief by severing the relationship, most estranged parents exhibit trauma symptoms characteristic of persons returning from combat zones, including mental, emotional, behavioral, relational, and medical impacts. Most estranged parents find little help from the traditional sources of support they turn to, and many live silently with the shame and stigma. This workshop adopts a no-fault perspective on parental estrangement and focuses on how participants can offer hope and healing to the estimated five million older adults who have been estranged from one or more of their adult children. Building on the experience of work with hundreds of estranged parents in both their agony and recovery process, the leader will help participants better understand the estrangement experience, adopt a spiritual perspective on the issue, learn some conversational skills that help move parents from isolation into connection and hope, and provide resources they can make available for estranged parents in their recovery process even when reconciliation is delayed.
Co-Creators in This Experience