Your adult child stopped talking to you.
Maybe the calls just tapered off. Maybe there was one fight and then nothing. Maybe they do still talk to you — and everything wrong in their life is your fault.
You’ve read that you should give them space. You’ve also read that space is abandonment. So you write the text and delete it. You leave a voicemail and hate how it sounded. And at three in the morning you go through it all again and come up with nothing.
- 20 minutes
- Free
- Camera optional
- Your child is never contacted
If you decide to go on from there, it’s six weeks, one to one, $995. This is coaching, not psychotherapy — I’m not your therapist, this isn’t treatment or diagnosis, and it isn’t a substitute for clinical care.
Not ready to talk to anyone? Read this instead — what to say when someone tells you you’re the problem.
Which one is yours?
Parents arrive here from different directions. Most recognize themselves in one of these — sometimes more than one, at different times of the year.
None of this means you were a bad parent. It also doesn’t mean you did nothing wrong. Both things are usually true at once, and neither one tells you what to say on Thursday.
Why the usual advice doesn’t work
Most of what you’ll find tells you to give them space, respect their boundaries, and work on yourself. It isn’t wrong. It’s just not an instruction. It doesn’t tell you what to put in the message. It doesn’t tell you what to do when they answer with an accusation. It doesn’t tell you how long to wait.
Knowing what helps is not the same as doing it when the phone is in your hand.
So that’s what we work on: the actual words, for your actual situation, rehearsed before you need them — not another article about estrangement.
What we’d do, week by week
Six sessions, fifty minutes each, by video, just you and me. We work on what actually happened in your family — the message you sent last Tuesday, not a scenario from a workbook.
What actually happened
We lay out the timeline: when it changed, what you’ve tried, what happened each time you tried it. Most parents have never said the whole thing out loud to anyone.
The message you send next
If they aren’t answering, the next thing you send matters more than the ten before it. We write it together, decide what it must not contain, and decide when it goes.
When they say it’s your fault
How to hear the accusation without collapsing into apology and without defending yourself. Those are the two moves that end the conversation, and almost everyone does one of them.
What you’ll do, and what you won’t
Money, holidays, grandchildren, showing up uninvited. We turn a vague limit into something you can actually hold when the guilt arrives — without going cold.
After it goes badly again
It will. We prepare the day after: how to reopen contact, how to own your part without grovelling, and how to avoid restarting the same fight from the top.
The next six months
Contact may still be thin. We build what you do with that — so waiting by the phone isn’t the whole plan.
Both parents can attend the same sessions; that’s common, and it stops the two of you responding in two different directions. Your adult child does not attend, is never contacted, and does not need to know any of this is happening. The work is for you.
Brief message support between sessions is included, so you’re not sitting on a question until next week when something happens on a Thursday.
What actually changes
Here is what I can’t promise: that your child calls. Nobody can promise you that, and you should be wary of anyone who does. What changes is your side — which is the only side you were ever able to move.
By the end you should have:
- Words for the next attempt at contact, written in language that sounds like you and not like a script off the internet.
- A way through the blame conversation that doesn’t end in you apologizing for things you didn’t do or arguing about what really happened in 1998.
- A limit you can hold in the exact places where guilt, fear, or sheer exhaustion usually make it collapse.
- A plan for the quiet months, so that nothing changing doesn’t mean you’re doing nothing.
- A clearer read on what’s yours to carry and what belongs to something bigger than you.
The first call is twenty minutes and costs nothing. You tell me what’s going on, in whatever order it comes out, and I tell you plainly whether this would help. If it wouldn’t, I’ll say so and point you somewhere better.
What this is — and isn’t
This is coaching, not psychotherapy. Therapy treats — it works on healing: your symptoms, your pain, making sense of your history. Coaching trains — it builds what you say and do in the moments that keep repeating. We don’t process your past; we prepare your Thursday. I am not your therapist, and nothing here is treatment, diagnosis, or clinical care.
I don’t diagnose your child, and neither should anyone else who hasn’t met them. You may have read things online that seemed to explain everything. Some parents eventually find a name for what’s going on; many never do. Either way, the moves we work on don’t depend on it.
If therapy is what’s needed, I’ll say so. Sometimes this work surfaces something that deserves a therapist’s care. If that happens I’ll tell you directly and help you find the right person. Coaching clients don’t become my therapy clients.
If someone in your family may be about to get hurt, you need clinical or crisis help first, not coaching. In Canada and the United States you can call or text 988 at any hour. I’m glad to help you find the right service instead — that conversation is still free.
Questions parents actually ask
They won’t speak to me. How can this possibly help?
Because the work is on your side of it. What you send, when you send it, how you answer what comes back. That’s the part still in your hands, and most parents are improvising it under enormous pressure.
I don’t know what’s wrong with them.
You don’t need to. No label is required to start, and I won’t assign one. What we need is the pattern — what sets it off, what you try, what happens next.
I’m in the United States. Does that matter?
No. Coaching isn’t regulated clinical care, so it isn’t tied to a particular province or state. We meet by video wherever you are. Times are set to suit your time zone.
It’s been years. Is it too late?
Honestly: I don’t know, and neither does anyone else. What I can tell you is that a long silence changes what the next message should say — and most parents send the one they’d have sent in year one.
Can my husband or wife come too?
Yes. One or two members of the same family can attend. Many couples use it to stop pulling in opposite directions — one chasing, one withdrawing.
What does message support mean?
Brief written support between sessions about the thing you’re practising. It isn’t crisis support, therapy, or open-ended counselling.
Can I claim this on insurance?
Probably not. This is coaching, not psychotherapy, so it generally isn’t eligible for psychotherapy benefits. Ask me on the call and I’ll tell you exactly what receipt you’d get.
What if I’m frightened for them?
Then start with crisis or clinical support, not with me. Coaching can wait; safety can’t. Call or text 988 in Canada or the United States.
The details
Formally, this is Family Skills Coaching — a coaching service, not psychotherapy, currently running as a small pilot limited to five families a season. The twenty-minute call comes first, costs nothing, and carries no obligation.
Just tell me what’s happening
No polished version needed. Start wherever it starts. Twenty minutes, no cost, and I’ll tell you honestly whether six weeks of this would change anything.
Or read something first: what to say when someone tells you you’re the problem.