It's official: Grandparents are good for children

Stillawipp, why not write/email your son the above?
You've reflected and have a clear picture of what went wrong now.
Worth a try?

Thank you stillawipp.

Oh, he did I suppose, I just didn’t hear them. I guess in my previous post I meant that we just didn’t ever have the explicit conversation of “why have you estranged me?”… and then ”this is why”…
So I suppose I really can’t say that he didn’t try to tell me, he did. I just didn’t listen!

Had your son communicated and told you in the run up to your estrangement what the issues were, rather than expecting or hoping that you'd see the clues, could that have avoided the estrangement stillawipp?

I'm thinking about how on this forum in particular we often refer to the importance of communication especially when it comes to avoiding estrangement.

In our case, my son did not specifically say why he had taken the decision he did, but there were plenty of clues in the run up to it that I could have seen, had I been open to looking at the time.

Thank you for that DogWhisperer. I haven't opened the link but it's useful to know that a survey of EAC showed that more than half of those who took part, hadn't told their parents why.

As you say, stating that those estranging always tell the ones they've estranged is a common estranged children's myth which is more often than not believed resulting in the EP's here on GN not being believed when they say they don't know why.

IMO it is always best to walk away from a toxic situation MarieElla but as the survey linked too by DogWhisperer shows, there are a lot of cases where no explanation has been given and where there's coercive control for example, estrangement can be the easier option.

Sometimes it's best walk away from a toxic situation.
In a lot of these estrangement cases the person has tried to explain how they feel to their parents and it has not changed anything.
I don't think it's an easy option to take and in a lot of cases the children missing out of having grandparents in their lives is better than the parents tolerating unacceptable behaviour from their parents.
Each case is different.

Those answers were interesting and at least explain why they didn't explain. I suppose looking back at my own family the clues were there, the arguments and the distance leading up to it but no idea with others.

I agree it is beneficial to children to have a loving supportive family. That doesn't exist in all cases, not just due to estrangement but for many reasons. I think those children would do just as well in life though and shouldn't be seen as lacking in some way.

No Omellette, you can't "promise me that the reasons for estrangement are always stated" because unless you have personally been present at every conversation between every estranged child and parent, you simply don't know. This is a common estranged children's myth. However, I would draw your attention to this informal survey carried out by estranged children on their own forum (Reddit EstrangedAdultChild):

www.reddit.com/r/EstrangedAdultChild/comments/1rb3jh2/have_you_told_your_parents_why_youre_no_longer/

In answer to the question "Have you told your parents why you're no longer speaking", 55% of estranged children said they had not.

No excuse made for real abusers, but, surely, not having the courage/verbal capacity to tell someone why you are estranging them, makes the estranger the immature one, not the estranged.

Being ‘ghosted’ for an unknown reason, by someone you love, is also a drain on their mental health with their limited time in this earth.

There are numerous reasons for estrangement - and not all of them down to the one that’s been estranged.

Some are just problems that the estranger has.

Mental health issues, addiction, coercive partners, personality disorders - to name but a few.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

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Yes Grandmabatty there's a thread on the Grandparent forum but I think it's a good idea to have one on this forum as GP's estranged by their AC and as a result their GC, obviously have a different perspective.

It has been said here on GN that children don't need GP's in their lives and what they've never had they'll never miss, so it's interesting to see this report DogWhisperer.

Of course the aforementioned will be true but not in all cases. There have been posters who've expressed their regret at having been denied a relationship with GP's, and we do see posters who despite being estranged from their parent(s) have enabled the GC/GP relationship to continue.

I agree that the reason(s) for estrangement should be stated DogWhisperer and as you say, that doesn't have to be done face to face but leaving the EP's guessing makes the estrangement in our experience, even harder to come to terms with.

I think if there is a good reason for the estrangement, then the child doing the estranging should state it. I can't think of any reasonable exception to this principle. It doesn't have to be done F2F, and it doesn't have to lead to any dialogue or argument about it. For example, a simple one-line text message saying "You sexually abused me and I never want any further contact with you" would suffice. At least the parent then knows where they stand.

In our case, we had no warning or explanation prior to the estrangement, so we were left to guess what the reason(s) might be. Our best guess is that our government at the time was offering a magic money tree to estranged children in which they paid the full cost of university education, no questions asked, and our children took the offer because they thought they would get more money from the government than from us (they were wrong). If so, that was not a good reason, by anyone's standards.

That particular magic money tree has since dried up, but that doesn't help us now.

"For no good reason" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. That is entirely subjective. I think you'll find vast differences in opinion on why the estrangement happened. Most people who estrange their parents would not say it was for no good reason, even if the estranged parents think that.

Does the study also say that the estranged parents are the ones who determine if there was a good reason (I know it doesn't)?

I think it's obvious that a healthy supportive extended family is good for the children. We already know how valuable a good support system is.

A blanket statement can't be made about the value of grandparents in general. There is evidence of a correlation between grandparent involvement and positive outcomes but that could be a function of a healthier family dynamic in general. Correlation is not causation, which is one of the first things you learn when you study statistics.

It's a shame research has lost so much rigor and researchers are making claims that they can't make (with integrity) based on the research.

Theres currently a thread about this