Navigating the Landslide
When an Adult Child Needs Distance to Grow
Dear Kathy,
My daughter and I were very close. When she went away to school, we texted and talked a lot. It made me feel a little less sad, and I think it helped her, too. I could tell she was struggling with her loneliness. Then, she began to reach out less and less. Eventually, I was the only one initiating. In estrangement terms, we have become “low contact.” She says she feels better and does better when we aren’t in touch very much. This is very painful for me, so I am writing to you! I loved our closeness and was glad that we were remaining close after she had left home. My heart hurts, and I am struggling with loss and loneliness.
Thank you, Missing my child
Embracing the “Landslide”
Dear Missing,
Painfully, your child has felt the need to minimize contact with you in order to feel more adjusted in her own life. While you are trying to give her space, you feel understandably bereft. Deep sadness, frustration, confusion, and disorientation seem to cycle through your emotional experience. You are in the Rough Waters phase of Oceanic Loss. (See column published on September 6, 2025.)
You wonder: How did we get here?
In describing dropping her daughter off at college, author and thought leader Glennon Doyle tells us she heard the Stevie Nicks song “Landslide” playing over again in her mind. Glennon was on a landslide, being “afraid of changes because I have built my life around you.” The song goes on, “Time makes you bolder, children get older and I’m getting older, too.”
You are getting older and transitioning to a new phase of life, one not singularly devoted to your child. Can you find the “self” you may have lost or minimized when you became a parent? Or, as the song asks, “Can I handle the seasons of my life?”
You describe a profound and complex emotional experience. The feelings you express: sadness, loss, and loneliness—are painfully common for parents navigating this difficult transition. It could be helpful to separate your sense of personal loss from your child’s need for less contact. Understanding the psychological dynamic that compels your child to create distance for the sake of her own development should help.
(A Note to my Readers: Today, we’re diving into the painful moment many parents face: when an adult child needs distance—going “low contact”—in order to fully grow into their own independent self. Estrangements vary wildly in their depth, length, and complexity. If you’re navigating a unique family situation you’d like me to address, please email me.”)
How Do We Separate, Individuate, and Grow?
Understanding Why Distance Can Help
In all developmental models, there are predictable stages of growth. For adolescence, Erik Erikson gave us the stage, “Identity vs. Role Confusion,” which involves developing a sense of who you are as an individual.
To that, I will add a critical concept from family systems theory: separation-individuation. In order to know who you are, you need to feel psychically separate from the parent who raised you. This can be very difficult in modern times, where you likely know each other’s locations on your phone, have a family text thread, and are tied together in a myriad of ways.
Your frustration at the current result of your devoted parenting is understandable. You thought you were enhancing your child’s life, which you likely were. You may be among the group of parents who raised their children with “highly engaged parenting”. Unwittingly, due to that level of engagement, you may have given your daughter the message of “I’ve got you” when what turns out to be more helpful for transitioning to adulthood is “You’ve got you.” Your daughter is finding that her best route to feeling independent is to have less contact with you in order to find herself. The goal of this current developmental phase is for your child to look inside for her own strength, and no longer depend on yours.
For some adult children, the only way to achieve more autonomy is to forcefully push the parent—upon whom they feel dependent—away. The low contact you are experiencing may be your daughter’s difficult, and painful, way of attempting to individuate.
We can apply the concept of resilience to both of you here. As Dr. Becky Kennedy says:
“Building resilience is about developing the capacity to tolerate distress, to stay in and with a tough, challenging moment, to find our footing and our goodness even when we don’t have confirmation of achievement or pending success.”
Parents and adult children both need to rely on their resilience in the face of this developmental challenge. You both face the “landslide” of these changes in your lives, and both need to find your footing.
The Path Forward
For the Parent
As you hold your pain and grief, you have already begun the difficult journey toward healing by seeking advice. You are developing an understanding of yourself and your adult child. You are hurting, and so is she. You are both needing to grow, and she feels she will do this better on her own than in frequent contact with you.
The structure and purpose you received from so actively having your daughter in your life is now removed, and you are working on catching yourself so that your landslide can slow down. It’s time to seek new areas of growth and self-definition. You are now in a chapter where you will be re-finding yourself.
Acknowledge and Grieve the Relationship You Thought You Would Have: This is a crucial first step. You are grieving the loss of the companionable, close, high-contact relationship you imagined would continue. That imagined relationship is not helping your daughter at this time. You need to let her go in order for her to find herself. Don’t minimize that pain.
Shift Your Focus from Her Growth to Yours: Your daughter is actively working on her own autonomy; your work is to actively cultivate yours. What deferred dreams, interests, or friendships can you pursue now that your primary role has shifted?
Know that You May be in a Landslide: This means accepting the reality of the situation as it is (low-contact), not as you wish it were. And this may be disorienting. This is not approval of her decision, but a clear-eyed acknowledgment of her need and your current circumstance. By accepting the current reality, you free up energy to focus on yourself rather than on attempting to change her.
For the Adult Child
You are in an important stage of growth where you are establishing your independence in your adult life. To do this, you feel you need space from your parent. That may not be an easy choice, but you feel you need to take that space. As I have been describing, you both are being pushed to grow at this important juncture in your lives. Here are some thoughts for ways to set yourself up for success:
Set up the Space You Need for Your Own Growth: If low contact works best as a framework for your autonomy, then establish your need for that level of contact. Figure out what you can comfortably manage. This helps you maintain the space you need to succeed in this new phase of your life.
Prioritize Independence While Continuing to Give Yourself the Contact You Need: True independence isn’t isolation; it’s the freedom to build a robust support system of your own—friends, partners, mentors, sometimes parents—that sustains you. You can decide how your parent fits into that wider web of support.
See Your Parent as a Potential Resource, By Choice: As you build your separate life, you may face challenges where your parent’s unique wisdom or experience could be genuinely helpful. Allow yourself the option to use your parent as a chosen resource—not a dependency. Using a parent’s skills (like asking for help with a specific career contact or a simple task) when you choose to, demonstrates mature independence.
Check in with Yourself to See if the Low Contact is Working
: When you reach the point that you are more fully inhabiting your independence, check in with yourself to see if you might want to increase your contact with your parent.
For Parents and Adult Children: Separation isn’t the end of love. It’s a form of tending to it from a distance—watering your own roots so that future connection can be more balanced, mutual, and real.
So, Dear Missing,
Loving your daughter and loving yourself are the next challenges. She needs to be loved in her path towards independence. She hopes to be understood as loving you, but needing space. I receive many messages from estranged adult children who tell me they love their parents, but need to be low or no contact at this time. Yes, situations are more complicated than the one we are looking at here, but the love and missing are always palpable.
So, gear up for your landslide, bring your hiking poles, know that this is a really challenging time and it makes sense you are hurting. Rally your caring skills that you directed to your daughter and apply them to yourself as you begin a new season in your life.
Kathy
Please send your questions to ksinsheimermft@gmail.com
This column #6
"Separation isn't the end of love."