“MY BIG KID WON'T TALK TO ME ANYMORE”—THOUGHTS MOMS PARENTING TEENS AND ADULT KIDS ARE ASHAMED THEY THINK | EP. 298
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.
I remember years ago, before my husband and I had kids, some of our friends came to visit with their boys. Their kids were probably somewhere between the ages of 7 and 12, and I remember at the time our friends saying, these are the golden years with our kids. At the time, I didn't really understand what he meant.
But then we had kids, and my own boys got to that age, and I completely did. At that stage, they were old enough to be independent, but they still wanted to be with us. We took adventures together as a family all the time.
It was usually nothing fancy, but every weekend we did something. We watched a lot of movies. We also went to hibachi or the diner at least once a weekend.
Overall, we just spent a lot more time together. And at the time, I don't remember ever wondering whether or not my boys wanted to be there. We were just together.
And then at some point, that started to change. They got older, and they started spending more time in their rooms. When I'd ask if they wanted to go to a movie, they'd say they didn't really feel like it.
More often, they were making plans with friends. And eventually, they were spending a lot more time out of the house on the weekends. And what I notice now, looking back, is that over time, I started to have fewer natural points of connection where I could get these regular windows into what my boys were thinking and feeling.
I've always had a very different relationship with each of my boys. My oldest used to tell me everything. He's really analytical and cerebral, and I often find that he likes to process things out loud.
And he used to do that a lot with me. And as a result, I knew what he was thinking about, what was bothering him. But then there came a point where he just stopped opening up to me.
And at the time, that felt very personal, like he was intentionally shutting me out. My younger son, on the other hand, has always played things much closer to the best. As he's gotten older, I've come to appreciate how deep a thinker he actually is.
But when he was younger, he would only give you a glimpse into what was going on inside of his mind, and only if he wanted to. And he really didn't do that very often. So when he was younger and he didn't open up to me, I guess I didn't take that very personally because it felt like more who he was.
He just didn't open up to me. So there I was at a certain point with two kids who really weren't telling me very much. But my brain was actually making those situations mean completely different things.
And I think this is actually so interesting, but also where so many of us get stuck. We'll say things like, my kid is shutting me out, or he doesn't tell me anything, she doesn't want to spend time with us, or they never call home. And look, with everything we have poured into these kids, it is really hard not to take that personally.
Because this isn't some random person who doesn't want to talk to us. This is our child. This is the person who once needed us for everything.
So when they start pulling back, of course our minds want to make that mean something. And what I've noticed is that there are three places our minds tend to go when we start telling ourselves, my big kid doesn't want to talk to me. The first place our brains tend to go is that we make our kid not talking mean something about the relationship.
We tell ourselves, we're just not close anymore. Or maybe he doesn't trust me. Or even more, she doesn't want me in her life.
And what I've noticed in many conversations with moms over the years is that when things are bad for a long period of time, our mind also goes to the worst case. We think, this is bad and it's never going to get better. And what makes this so tricky is that sometimes our kids actually do say things that seem to confirm all of this.
They'll say, mom, you asked too many questions, or I don't want to talk about it, or can you just leave me alone? And so on top of not talking, their actions and words seem to reinforce a message that they don't want to spend time with us. They're actually telling you to back off, to leave them alone. So when we think my kid doesn't want to be with me, it doesn't feel like we're making it up.
It just feels like the truth. The second place our minds tend to go when our kids don't talk to us is that we think something must be wrong with them. And this is especially true when we're already seeing little signs that make us uneasy.
Maybe they seem more withdrawn than usual, or something's going on with their friends. We might notice they're struggling in school, or they're dealing with some painful situation, a breakup, or some disappointment. We know something is off.
And even when we don't know exactly what it is, you can have this sense as a mom that something's different. But the problem is you don't really know what's happening when they don't talk to you. And honestly, I think sometimes this can be even harder than when we actually do know what the problem is.
Because when we don't know what's going on with our kid, our minds just go to work filling in the blanks. We start wondering what we're missing. We think something must be going on.
He's not himself. She's clearly upset. I know there's more to this.
And then because we don't have the full story, our brains, quite honestly, do the work of trying to create one. And very often the story our minds create is a pretty negative one. And I don't know about you, but in those times when I've noticed something is off with my boys, it feels like a knee-jerk reaction that I can't help.
You just start asking a lot of questions. Are you okay? Then they say yes. And then we ask, are you sure? They say yes again.
And then maybe we circle back a little bit later and ask a slightly different question. Because surely if we ask the right question at the right moment, then maybe they'll finally tell us what's going on. I think what's driving all of this is this feeling that if they would just talk to us, we could know what we were dealing with.
And then we could figure out if there was a real problem. And then maybe we could help. We could do something.
Or at the very least, we could have some information so that we could know how serious the situation is. But when they don't talk, we're left with all of this uncertainty. And look, as moms, all we really want is to make sure our kid is okay.
And when we can't get that reassurance, that uncertainty can feel absolutely brutal. The third place our minds tend to go when our kid doesn't talk to us is that we make it mean something about us. We start asking ourselves, what did I do? And we start judging ourselves.
Maybe I've been too controlling. I asked too many questions. Or we blame ourselves for what we think we might have done wrong in the past.
Maybe I wasn't available enough when they were younger. Or I handled something badly and they never really got over it. Ultimately, we start thinking the distance we're feeling with our kid is somehow our fault.
And again, our kids will often reinforce this. They might actually tell us that they're upset about something that we did. They might bring up a decision we made years ago or bring up something we said or a time when they felt misunderstood or unsupported.
And even if we've apologized, even if we would handle it differently now, we get this real sense that they're still holding on to it and they won't let it go. And that can make it really easy for our brains to hold on to the belief that we're to blame. We think, this is why he doesn't talk to me.
Or this is why she doesn't trust me. I really messed this up. And if our kid is already pulling away, every little interaction can start to feel like more proof that this is true.
I think a lot of us moms can carry this fear that if our kid doesn't want to talk to us, it means that we somehow failed at the relationship. Because we have spent so many years trying to be there, trying to do the right thing with our kids. And the connection we have with them is so important to us.
So when our kid pushes us away and keeps us at arm's length, it can feel like evidence that we have, in fact, failed. And that is a really heavy place to go. Because now, we're not just dealing with the fact that our kid isn't talking to us.
We're also dealing with the story that maybe this says something about who we are as a mom. So to recap, when our kid stops talking to us, our minds tend to go to one of three places. We make it mean something about the relationship, that we're not close anymore.
Or we make it mean something's wrong with our kid, that something's going on and they're not telling us. Or finally, we make it mean something about us, that I did something wrong. I messed this up.
Now, those are three totally different interpretations of the situation. But they all tend to create the same feeling in us, which really boils down to, if my kid would just talk to me, then I could feel better. In other words, if they would talk to me, I would know that we're still close.
Or if they would tell me what's going on, I would know they're okay. Or if they could reassure me that they're not angry with me, I could stop blaming myself. And this is where one of the mindset traps I've been talking about recently can show up in a way that's maybe a little less obvious.
Because usually when I talk about emotional outsourcing, I'm talking about the way we make our emotional well-being dependent on how our kids are doing. If they're happy, we can be happy. Or if they're struggling, we struggle too.
But I think there's another version of this. We start making our sense of connection, security, and even our confidence as a mom dependent on how much access our kids give us to what's happening inside of them. We think, I need you to talk to me so I can know we're okay.
And honestly, it makes so much sense that our brains go there. Because for years, we had access to almost everything. And then as they get older, that access starts to disappear.
They have conversations that we know nothing about. They can have whole relationships online with people that we've never met. They make plans without us.
They work through things with friends or just on their own. Sometimes we can tell that there's something going on with them. But what's clear is that we're just not the person they're choosing to tell about it.
And that can feel like such a loss of connection. But I think in these moments, what we're actually losing is access. And I want to invite you to notice that those are two different things, losing connection and losing access.
Think of it this way. When our kids were younger, access was built into the relationship. We knew who they were spending time with because we were driving them there.
And actually, for a long time, we were the ones making plans with any friends they had. We also knew when something went wrong because they came home upset and they told us or the teacher emailed or we were close enough to the situation or the people involved that we saw things happening or we heard about them. When our kids were younger, we had so many natural windows into our kids' lives that access and connection almost felt like the same thing.
But as they get older, those windows start closing just because their lives are becoming more of their own. And as a result of that, they get to decide what they share and who they share it with. They also have so many experiences and relationships, even thoughts and feelings that we are not automatically privy to.
And that can feel really hard for us moms. Because if we have spent years experiencing closeness through knowing what's going on with our kid, then not knowing can feel like disconnection. We think, if I don't know what's happening, maybe we're not close.
Or if he doesn't tell me, maybe he doesn't trust me. Or if she goes to someone else first, maybe I'm not that important to her anymore. But here's the problem with this.
The more we need our kid to talk to us in order for us to feel close to them or reassured about them, the more pressure we can start bringing into the relationship without meaning to. Because now when we ask, are you okay? We're not always just asking a neutral question. Sometimes what we're really asking is, please tell me you're okay so I can stop worrying.
Or when I ask, what happened? Sometimes what we really mean is, please give me enough information so I can understand this and feel like I have some control again. We might even feel the urge to pressure our kids to open up. We might say, why don't you talk to me anymore? But what we're really saying is, please give me enough access back so that I can know that we're still close.
And of course, we're not actually saying those things to our kids. But I do think that through our actions and the emotional weight we put on those interactions, our kids can feel the weight and the pressure behind the questions we're asking. But I think there's actually something even deeper going on here.
The truth is, uncertainty is hard for us because uncertainty takes away our sense of control. For so many years as moms, our job was to know. We needed to know if our kid was sick.
And if they were, we took them to the doctor. If they were struggling in school, we got them help. If they were hungry, we made sure they got something to eat.
If they were scared, we reassured them. And somehow all of that worked. For decades, having access and information gave us everything we needed to do our absolute best to make sure our kids were safe, happy, and successful.
Can we just sit with the realization that all of that control made us feel so much safer? We might not have always known exactly what to do or how to fix it. But we were in control of making all of the decisions about what to try. We called doctors, talked to teachers, other parents and friends.
There was always something that we could do. So we learned the way to create safety is by knowing. Because if I know what's happening, then I can help.
And if I can help, I can make this better. That makes not knowing feel incredibly vulnerable. And when our kid won't talk to us, we lose both parts of that.
We don't know what's happening and we don't know how to make it better. Clearly, we never stop caring about our kids. But this stage of motherhood seems to ask that we continue to care so much about our kids despite not having any access into their life or their problems and not being able to solve any of them.
I think that is a big part of why our kids' silence can feel so threatening. It's not just my kid isn't telling me something. It's there might be something happening here and I don't know what it is and I can't do anything about it.
That is a really heavy weight. But what I've noticed in hundreds of conversations with moms, and I'll admit this happens in my own head too, is that our brains take this uncertainty and try to create certainty as quickly as possible. And more often than not, our minds do this by imagining the most painful certainty possible.
Somehow even holding on to the worst case scenario feels easier than not knowing. I watched my own brain do this with my oldest son years ago. When he stopped talking to me, there were things that happened that genuinely concerned me.
He was shutting me out and also saying things that made it very easy for me to believe that I was part of a problem. And because I could see other red flags, my mind started imagining a terrible future. I was almost certain that there was a high possibility that he wasn't going to graduate from high school, that he was going to end up with a baby at 18, and I had him living somewhere else, not talking to me, cutting off all contact.
I kid you not, some version of this story went on repeat in my head almost every single day during that time. And what is so fascinating to me now is that none of those things actually happened. My brain was taking the few things I did know and using them to fill in everything I didn't know.
And of course my mind didn't fill in those blanks with maybe he's going to figure this out, maybe he just needs to work through this on his own. No, instead my mind filled in the blanks with the most painful version of the future it could imagine. And as strange as it sounds, I noticed at the time that the certainty about that terrible future gave me something to hold on to.
Because if I could decide what was wrong, then maybe I could figure out what to do about it. Maybe I could prevent it. Even a terrible story gave my brain the illusion that I understood what was happening.
I don't know gave me nothing. And I think that's why uncertainty can be so incredibly hard for us as moms. But we confuse uncertainty with danger.
We think that because we don't know what's happening, something terrible might be happening. Honestly, even thinking this could happen feels like it turns very quickly into, this is probably going to happen, this terrible thing. Just think about how certain we can be about this terrible worst-case scenario when all that's really happening is that we just don't know what our kid is thinking.
We just imagine that the worst version of what they're thinking is true. We see our kid pulling away and we're certain we caused it. We don't actually know whether something is wrong, but we're sure something must be wrong.
When in all reality in these situations, the only thing that is certain is that you truly don't know. It is so hard, my friend. The powerlessness of that statement.
Our minds just want an answer. We want to know what's going on so we can decide what to do. And sometimes we just don't have enough information.
And look, I'm not saying that you do nothing. Just because you don't know doesn't mean you just say, oh well, I'm not sure what's going on here, so I'm just going to sit back and hope it all works out. Look, I'm not capable of doing that, and I'm guessing you probably have no interest in that either.
We're moms. We are not going to give up. But I do think there is a difference between responding to what we actually know and letting our fear fill in everything we don't.
Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is hold the uncertainty without immediately holding on to the worst case scenario. There is actually so much power in being able to say, I don't know what's going on yet, and I can handle not knowing. My friend, I am not saying it's easy.
But when we can learn how to do this, we stop needing our kid to give us information or access just so that we can feel okay. We stop making every short answer or unanswered text mean something terrible, and we give ourselves a little bit of room to decide how we actually want to show up. And my friend, this is the work we do inside of my Mom 2.0 coaching programs.
I wish that I could give you the exact words to say that would make your kid suddenly open up to you. But the truth is, there is no magic formula that will guarantee that your kid will talk to you, or that they'll call more often, or that they'll let go of something they're still holding on to. But what I can teach you is how to stop making your own well-being dependent on whether or not they do.
Because when you stop needing your kid to reassure you so that you can feel okay, you show up differently. You put less pressure on the relationship, and you give your big kid a little more room to come to you when they are ready. You also communicate through your actions, if not your words, that I trust you.
I trust that you can work through hard things, and that you can make mistakes and recover. In essence, I trust that you, my dear child, are learning how to handle your own life, and I am here if and when you need me. What I have seen time and time again is that when our kids feel less pressure from us, it can actually become easier for them to come back to us.
Not because we've finally figured out how to get them to open up, but because there's more space in the relationship for them to do it in their own time. This is the work we do inside of Mom 2.0. I help empower you to separate what's actually happening from everything your mind is making it mean. I help you learn how to let go of the anxiety and the guilt and the urge to fix all of the ways the stage of motherhood can make you feel powerless.
Because you may not always know what's going on with your kid, but you can learn how to be okay in that uncertainty. I'll be honest, I never learned the full truth of what was going on with my son during those years when I lost him. It was probably the hardest thing I have ever experienced in my life.
And even in the middle of that pain, I realized that the hardest part was sitting with the uncertainty of not knowing. But you know what? I did decide. And I'll never forget this moment.
I was taking these long walks every day, and I was crying and working through all the grief around what was happening. I was already living in those worst-case scenarios, even though they hadn't happened yet. But I remember the day that I made a decision that I was going to trust my son to figure it out.
And I was going to keep the light on. I was going to keep the door open to our relationship until he did. And that was something that I knew I could be certain about, because it was in my power to do.
And wouldn't you know it? That decision changed everything. My friend, maybe your kid isn't talking to you right now, and maybe you don't know why. Your mind could be filling in all kinds of terrifying blanks.
You may not get to know yet how this story ends, but you do get to decide who you want to be while it unfolds. Keep the light on. You have so much more power than you think.
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.
