“MY KID DOESN'T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH ME”—THOUGHTS MOMS PARENTING TEENS AND ADULT KIDS ARE ASHAMED THEY THINK | EP. 262
Welcome to the Almost Empty Nest Podcast, where we moms of teens and college kids reframe what letting go really means to feel more connected, confident, and at peace. I'm your host, Master Coach Jennifer Collins.
Have you ever had a thought as a mom and then immediately felt terrible for thinking it? Believe me, you're not alone, and you're truly not a bad mom for thinking it. In this series on the thoughts us moms are ashamed we think, I'm exploring these thoughts and where they're coming from. Because when you shift from judgment to understanding, that's when everything changes. Let's dive in.
Hello, my friend.
Do you ever look at your kid and think, they don't want anything to do with me? Maybe your teen comes home and goes straight to their room without a word. Maybe you say hi and you get a grunt. Maybe you try to ask about their day and they look at you like you've said the most annoying thing in the world.
And so you stop asking. You learn to hold yourself back so there's less friction. Maybe also a little less rejection.
Or maybe your college kid only calls when they need something, and it's usually money or some document or favor they need you to do. And you pick up the phone every single time, grateful, honestly, just to hear their voice. But when you hang up, you sit with this hollow feeling, almost like you've just been used.
But you don't really want to admit it. Or maybe you're watching your kid light up around their friends, laughing and open when they're with other people. But when they come home, it's like a switch flips.
They stop being warm. And you get the version of your kid who acts like they're just tolerating you. Often, it's not even that dramatic.
Maybe there's no big falling out, no yelling or door slamming. It's just quiet, like they're fading away from you. You look up one day and you realize you can't remember the last time you had a real conversation with them or the last time they seemed genuinely happy to be around you.
It's confusing and frustrating and hurtful. There's this feeling of grief because this is your kid. This is the person you stayed up with at 2 a.m. when they had a fever, the one you've driven to every practice and every appointment, every sleepover, the one you've built your whole world around.
And now it feels like they can barely spare you 10 minutes. I've worked with so many moms who are in this place. Some describe it as a gradual shift, something that's happened slowly over time.
And now they look at their kid and feel so far away. Others say it feels like it happened overnight. Maybe there was some event or some blow up.
And suddenly the relationship they thought they had just feels like it's disappeared. When we think my big kid doesn't want anything to do with me, it doesn't feel like just a thought. It honestly feels like the simple truth.
But it also feels impossible to accept that truth. And so we try to pull our kids a little bit closer. We try to get them to talk.
We might ask them to set aside time for the family. We drop hints about visits. We find reasons to call.
We try really hard to be fun and easy to be around. Whatever version of ourselves might make them want to be around us more. We try to earn our way back into their good graces.
And when none of that works, when they still pull away, it becomes even more clear that they don't want anything to do with me. And my friend, I know how much that hurts. A few years ago, there was a period of time where I felt invisible to my son.
He'd come home and go straight upstairs. The door to his room was always closed. He'd barely make eye contact with me when we were in the same room.
And if I asked him a question, I got the bare minimum back. Just enough to technically count as an answer. He wasn't mean exactly.
He just seemed to be doing everything in his power to distance himself from me. And I remember thinking, is this it? Is this just what we are right now? Because here's what nobody tells you about this feeling. It doesn't just hurt.
It messes with your head. I'd find myself replaying conversations, picking them apart. Did I say something wrong? I'd try to think of different ways to get him to open up.
I'd lie awake at night running through everything that had happened between us, trying to figure out where I'd lost him. When I was around him, I'd go fishing. I'd try to talk about things I knew he was interested in, hoping to spark a conversation.
I'd try to subtly hint that I was there if he wanted to talk. Then I'd suggest therapy. Maybe he wanted to talk to somebody else.
I was constantly watching him, waiting for some sign that we were okay. And every once in a while, he'd let me in. He'd smile at something.
Or he'd actually engage me in conversation and I'd feel this wave of relief. Like, okay, we're okay. I still matter to him.
But then a few hours later, he'd walk out of the room mid-conversation or answer me in that flat, distant voice, and I'd feel like we were right back to square one. What took me some time to realize was that without meaning to, I'd handed my son the keys to my emotional well-being. Really, the keys to the trust I had in my value as a mom and the strength of our relationship.
If he was warm, I'd think, I haven't lost him. But if he was cold or distant, or just somewhere else, I'd think, see, something's broken. He doesn't care.
Or I've done something wrong. I was essentially letting a teenager, a kid who was struggling with something I didn't fully understand yet, I was letting him determine how I felt about myself as his mother. And not just how I felt about myself, but how I felt about us.
About whether all those years of showing up for him actually meant anything. And that's a heavy weight to put on a kid who is struggling under the weight of their own experience. Here's what I've come to understand, both from my own experience and from the work I do with moms in my coaching program.
When our big kids pull away, most of the time, they're not pulling away from us as much as they're pulling toward themselves. Toward whatever they're trying to figure out or manage in their lives. And look, the honest truth is that sometimes they are pulling away in reaction to something we did.
Or in response to a pattern in the relationship that's been built up over time. If I'm being honest, there was definitely truth to that with me and my son. And even at the time, he would tell me how my anxiety had felt like pressure to him.
But I think it's incredibly valuable to recognize that even when they are reacting to us, they're responding to their experience of us. They're responding to the story they're telling themselves about us through the lens of where they are right now in their lives. And that lens is being filtered through a brain that is literally still developing.
And it's influenced by emotions that they don't yet have the tools to fully process. And they're also experiencing us in a stage of life where they're desperately trying to figure out who they are. And part of figuring that out means figuring out who they are separate from us.
We know intellectually that our kids are supposed to become independent. We just never imagined that it would hurt so much or feel so personal. So let's talk about what happens inside of us when our kids seem to want nothing to do with us.
One of the things I talk a lot about is mindset traps, those mental shortcuts our brains take when they sense something emotionally threatening. And the thing about these traps is that they happen so fast and they feel so logical that we don't even recognize we've fallen into one. In fact, it often doesn't even feel like a trap.
It feels like you're just being honest with yourself about what's happening. And here's why our brains do this. When you feel rejected or shut out by your child, your brain registers it as a threat.
And this is exactly what your brain is designed to do. It tries to make sense of any danger you're facing as quickly as possible. And so it senses this threat, and it looks for an explanation about what's happening so it can figure out what to do next.
But here's the thing. The explanation our minds land on isn't necessarily the most accurate one. It's just the most convenient one or the one that seems to make the most sense based on the pattern of what we've already experienced.
So your kid walks past you without saying hello, or your college kid doesn't text back, or your big kid blows off dinner with you again to hang out with friends. And your brain starts compiling this evidence and building a case. It happens once.
Maybe your mind can explain it away. But when it keeps happening, your brain draws a conclusion that your big kid doesn't want anything to do with you. And once your brain has drawn that conclusion, it starts interpreting every interaction through that lens.
And this is what's called confirmation bias. And what happens then is that your mind only looks for proof that the story it's already decided is true. And my friend, I don't think we even realize how powerful this is.
Our brains become so focused on our belief about what's true, we stop seeing evidence that doesn't support that belief. In other words, we stop seeing or trusting those moments when our kids do open up to us. The occasional text we get, or the smile they give us, the time they came and sat near you without you asking them to.
Your brain just glosses right over those moments. They don't even register in the same way. But every closed door, every one-word answer, every unanswered text, those are what stick.
And here's what makes it even harder. This story changes how you show up in the relationship. When you believe your kid doesn't want anything to do with you, you start pulling back.
You second-guess every text before you send it. You hesitate to start conversations. You might not even check in with them unless you have to, because those interactions feel so painful, you naturally pull away from them.
Or on the other hand, you might over-correct and try harder. You might even come off as needy or pushy. Or you get so frustrated, you tell them they're being hurtful.
You tell them all the things that they're doing wrong. And every single one of those responses, the pulling back, the overreaching, the correcting, they all create more of exactly what you're afraid of. More distance.
And more evidence for the story your brain is already telling you. This thought that your kid doesn't want anything to do with you isn't just painful, it's costing you something real. The first thing it costs you is your confidence.
Because when you're measuring how you're doing by whether your kid wants to be around you, you're handing over your sense of self, your peace and your confidence, your sense of whether you matter. You make all of that dependent on another person's behavior. And not just any person, but someone whose brain is still developing.
Someone who's desperately trying to figure out whether they're enough. How could they possibly bear the weight of proving your worth as well? The second thing this costs you is the present moment. Because when you're living inside this belief, you're not really here in this moment.
Instead, you're in the relationship you wish you had. Or thinking about the version of your kid that you wish you had. Or that you used to have.
You might also be living in the future you're afraid of, where this distance becomes permanent. And in the meantime, the relationship you actually have, as imperfect and frustrating as it is, that's the relationship happening right now. The small moments that are actually right here.
The ones that don't feel like connection, but maybe are. You're missing them because you're grieving what you wish you had. The third thing this thought costs you is that it starts to convince you that this is the whole story.
That who you and your kid right now are, in this hard season, is who you're going to be. And when you believe that, you start grieving a relationship that hasn't actually ended. Mourning someone who's still right in front of you.
And at the same time, you start protecting yourself. Pulling back. Because wanting the connection this much and not having it feels too much.
And taken together, this grief and the self-protection, they make all of this feel even more heavy and lonely. So what do we do with all of this? Because I'm not going to tell you to just think positively. Or remind yourself it's just a phase.
Or try to convince yourself that everything's fine when it doesn't feel fine. Because I'm willing to bet you've already tried all of this. And it hasn't helped.
Instead, I'm going to give you three places to start to help you rebuild connection with your big kid. And I want to be honest with you up front. None of these are easy.
If they were easy, you'd already be doing them. This is genuinely hard work. But they are the work.
The first place to start in rebuilding your relationship with your big kid is to get curious about what's going on inside of them. What might they be struggling with right now? What are they trying to figure out? Here's the thing. Most of us actually have some idea.
We know our kids. We know there's that friend situation that's been hard for them. Or the pressure they're feeling at school.
Maybe we sense that they're struggling to figure out who they are or where they fit in. We often have more information than we think. And if some of the way they're acting is about us, they've probably told us.
Not always in the kindest way, but they've definitely said things. Maybe they've told us we're always on them about something. Or that we never listen.
That we make everything about us. That they just need us to back off. And in the moment, we don't hear it as information.
We hear it as an attack. Because the way it comes out doesn't feel good. Sometimes it's delivered with an eye roll.
Or a slam door. Or that tone that just makes your defenses go up. And so instead of getting curious about what they might actually be trying to tell us, we get hurt.
And defensive. We explain ourselves. Or we shut down.
Or we fight back. And whatever they were actually trying to communicate gets lost. I'm not saying they're always right.
I'm not saying you have to just absorb whatever they throw at you without any boundaries. But I think it's worth asking, have they been trying to tell me something in their imperfect, not fully developed way, that I haven't quite been able to hear yet? What I want to invite you to do is take what you already know about your kid and let it sink in. Not to fix it or even to find the right angle to get them to open up about it.
Just so you can remember who you're dealing with. This is a young person trying to figure out who they are. And sometimes that means they pull away or push back.
And when you can see it from their perspective, even without all the facts, you stop taking the distance so personally. And you create just enough room to allow your kid to be who they are right now. The second shift that allows you to rebuild connection with your big kid is redefining what connection looks like.
What's likely true is there's a version of connection that you want. And then there's the version of connection that you're getting. And the gap between those two things is where so much of our pain lives.
Because when you're measuring what you have against what you wish you had, what you have will always come up short. Maybe the version you want looks like it used to. The conversations that you used to have at bedtime, the way they'd come find you just to be near you, the easy, uncomplicated closeness of when they were younger and you were their whole world.
Or maybe it's simpler than that. Maybe you just want them to seem happy to see you, to answer your call, to sit at the dinner table without looking like they're counting the minutes until they can leave. And what you're getting feels like scraps in comparison.
But here's what I want to invite you to consider. When you decide that what your kid is offering isn't enough, when you hold it up against the version you want and find it lacking, you become so focused on what's missing that what's actually there becomes invisible. And then you feel even more disconnected.
Here's the truth. Feeling connected starts inside of you. It's not actually found in your kid's behavior.
It's not in how long they stay at the dinner table or whether they initiate conversation or how warm their tone is when they answer the phone. Connection starts in how you're choosing to interpret the moments of connection you do have. That text that just says, K, that's them staying in contact.
That brief appearance in the kitchen, that's them still coming home, still in your life, even if it's not in the way that you want. The fact that they called it all, even if it was quick, even if it was about money or logistics, that's a thread of connection. What if that thread still matters? Just imagine being your big kid and sensing that whatever they're doing, whatever way they're connecting, that it's not good enough.
Even if you don't say it out loud, they feel it. They feel your disappointment. They feel the weight of your hurt.
They feel on some level that they are the problem. And that feeling doesn't make them want to come closer. But what if you were willing to keep the light on, to love them without conditions, without needing them to show up in a certain way in order for you to feel okay about where you stand with them? I know it can feel like I'm asking you to just accept whatever scraps they're willing to throw your way, and I'm not asking you to do that.
But as long as you want a connection with this person, the feeling of connection has to start inside of you first. Not as a condition of how they show up, but simply as a function of what's happening inside of you. Because here's the thing about connection.
It isn't something that happens to you when your kid finally decides to let you back in. It's something that you generate. It's a feeling that comes from how you are choosing to show up, from the love you're deciding to give regardless of what comes back.
And when you can find that feeling inside of yourself, something remarkable happens. The energy between you and your kid shifts because they sense that the pressure is gone, that you're not keeping score, you're not waiting for them to be different so you can feel better. And that is what actually creates the opening for connection.
Not you chasing it or demanding it, but you becoming someone they want to connect back with. The third shift I want to invite you to consider in rebuilding connection with your big kid is learning to separate your sense of worth as a mom from how they're treating you right now. Because here's the thing, it's very hard to be open to their experience and to generate that feeling of connection from inside of yourself when you're also using their behavior to decide whether you matter, whether all of those years of loving them actually meant anything.
And many of us are doing this without realizing it. We're trying to connect while also keeping score. We're waiting for signs that things are going to get better, for evidence that we haven't lost them.
And that waiting, it not only makes you feel terrible, but it impacts how you show up with your kid. And as a result, it can also impact how your kid shows up with you. My friend, your worth as a mom is absolute.
It doesn't change with your kid's behavior or choices. It doesn't rely on their acknowledgement or appreciation. And it's not measured by how often they call or whether they want to spend time with you or how warmly they treat you on any given day.
My friend, your worth as a mom, it is simply within you. But you need to be the one to acknowledge it. And my friend, truly owning this, believing in yourself and your worth as a mom, not just knowing it intellectually, but feeling it in the moments when the door is closed and your kids just said something hurtful, that is the work.
And it's the kind of work that is very hard to do alone. And that is exactly why I created Mom 2.0. Because what I just laid out for you, getting curious, redefining connection, learning to source your worth from inside of yourself instead of from your kid's behavior, none of that is a quick fix. None of it is something you figure out once and then you're done.
It's a practice. It's a shift that happens layer by layer. And it becomes so much more possible with support, with someone helping you see what your own brain can't always see when you're in the middle of the pain.
In Mom 2.0, this is the work we do together. We look at what's actually happening in your mind when your kid pulls away. We untangle the beliefs that are keeping you stuck.
And we build the kind of steadiness that doesn't depend on your big kid having a good day or finally deciding to let you back in. Instead, you learn how to show up from a place of love and intention rather than fear and longing. And that shift changes not just how you feel, but how your kid experiences you.
And that changes everything. So if you're ready to stop waiting for your big kid to change so you can feel okay, and to start building that peace from the inside out, I'd love to have you join me. I now offer my coaching programs both in a group and a one-on-one format.
You can find a link with more information in the show notes. My friend, if you've been sitting with this thought, my kid doesn't want anything to do with me, I want you to hear this. What you're feeling is real.
The distance might be real. And the grief feels so real. I'm not going to tell you it isn't.
But I am going to tell you that this moment, as painful as it is, is not the whole story. It's also not a verdict on you or your relationship with your child. Your kid pulling away does not mean you've lost them.
It also doesn't mean you failed. Simply means you are in the middle of one of the hardest, most humbling seasons of motherhood. The one where you have to keep loving without having a guarantee that that love will be reciprocated in the way you want it to.
Where you have to be the one to believe that what you've given matters. All of it, all of those years. Even when you have almost nothing to show for it right now.
My friend, this is one of the bravest things a mother can do. Your child may not be able to see you clearly right now. They may not be able to feel everything you mean to them or to show it or to say it.
But you are in them. You have always been in them. In the way they move through the world, in the values they're forming, in the person they're becoming.
You are their mom. There is no one else on this earth who holds that place. And nothing can take that away from you.
Hold on, my friend. Keep the light on. Because when you do that, they will find their way back to you.
Until next time.
If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to check out my next free masterclass. There's a link in the show notes. You have more power than you think, my friend.
