Family Therapy for Adults and Their Parents: When the Relationship You Have Isn’t the Relationship You Want.
Family therapy isn't just for parents and their young kids.
We've noticed a growing trend in the therapy world where adults are requesting to bring their parent(s) to therapy. As children become more independent, the relationship between an adult child and their parent can become more strained and complicated. Parents often feel confused about their new role in their adult children's lives. They may struggle between overstepping boundaries and offering advice or support when it's not their place. On the other extreme, they may assume you don't want them close anymore and create unnecessary distance to avoid conflict. Adult children often struggle with boundary setting. They know that the relationship doesn't feel good, but they also don't want to hurt their parent's feelings. Passive resentment can take hold, leading to irritation that bubbles up in small interactions. Conversations that seem small on the surface can quickly turn into the same argument you’ve had for years.
Maybe you keep avoiding certain topics because you know how they will end. Maybe one of you feels like you’re always walking on eggshells. Or maybe there is simply a sense that something has changed, and you want to find your way back to a closer relationship.
Family therapy can help adult children and parents understand what is happening underneath these patterns and build a different way of relating to one another.
Why do adult parent-child relationships become difficult?
As children become adults, the relationship has to change.
The parent is no longer raising a child. The adult child is no longer simply occupying the role of “the kid.” Both people are navigating new identities, boundaries, expectations, and life experiences.
That transition can be surprisingly difficult.
Parents may struggle with:
Feeling less involved in their adult child's life
Feeling rejected or pushed away
Worrying about their child's choices
Wanting to help but feeling like their help is unwanted
Adjusting to new boundaries
Feeling criticized or unappreciated
Adult children may struggle with:
Feeling like their parent doesn't really see them as an adult
Feeling responsible for their parent's emotions
Difficulty setting boundaries without guilt
Feeling criticized, controlled, or misunderstood
Wanting more emotional support or validation
Resentment about past experiences that have never been discussed
Wanting a closer relationship while also needing more independence
Often, both people are trying to protect the relationship, but the ways they are doing it end up creating more distance.
When the same conversation keeps happening
One of the reasons family therapy can be helpful is that family conflict is rarely just about the topic you're arguing about.
A disagreement about money might actually be about trust.
An argument about parenting might be about feeling respected.
A disagreement about how often you see each other might be about feeling loved or valued.
A parent becoming upset may lead an adult child to withdraw. The withdrawal may then leave the parent feeling rejected, so they pursue the conversation even more. The adult child feels increasingly overwhelmed and pulls away further.
Now you're in an emotion focused family therapy cycle.
One person pursues. The other withdraws. One becomes more emotional. The other becomes more defensive. Both feel misunderstood.
Over time, the cycle can become so familiar that it feels like the other person is the problem.
Family therapy helps shift the focus from:
"Why does my mom always react like this?"
or
"Why won't my daughter just talk to me?"
toward:
"What happens between us when we get stuck?"
That shift can create room for something different.
Family therapy isn't about choosing sides.
It can be tempting to think of therapy as a place where someone will finally understand your side.
But family therapy isn't about deciding who is right or wrong.
Instead, the therapist helps each person slow things down, understand their own reactions, hear what the other person is trying to communicate, and recognize the patterns that keep pulling them apart.
This doesn't mean that everyone's experiences are identical or that difficult things from the past should be minimized. It means there is space to understand the relationship from more than one perspective.
You can take responsibility for your own part in a relationship without taking responsibility for everything that has happened in it.
What happens in adult parent-child family therapy?
At Nomii, family therapy is collaborative and relational. We may draw from approaches such as Emotionally Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) and Bowen Family Systems Theory to understand both the emotional connection between family members and the larger patterns within the family.
Sessions may involve:
Understanding the cycle.
We identify what tends to happen when conflict starts. Who pursues? Who withdraws? Who becomes defensive? What happens next?
Looking underneath the reaction.
Anger, criticism, shutting down, or defensiveness often protect something more vulnerable underneath. Therapy can help each person identify and communicate those deeper emotions and needs.
Creating space for each person's experience.
Both the parent and adult child need room to talk about what the relationship has been like for them, without the conversation immediately becoming an argument.
Working with boundaries.
Healthy adult relationships often require new boundaries around communication, advice, privacy, family involvement, money, caregiving, holidays, partners, and other areas of life.
Repairing old hurts.
Sometimes the relationship needs more than better communication. There may be disappointments, misunderstandings, or painful experiences that have never had a safe space to be addressed.
Building a different kind of relationship.
The goal isn't necessarily to become completely conflict-free. It's to develop a relationship where difficult conversations can happen with more honesty, safety, respect, and connection.
Family therapy isn't only for families in crisis. You might come because you are constantly arguing. But you might also come because you don't want to wait until things get worse. Often times, our clients come to us because:
you and your parent love each other but feel emotionally disconnected.
you are entering a new stage of life and want your relationship to change with you.
you're becoming a parent yourself and noticing old family patterns in a new way.
a major life transition has brought old tensions to the surface.
The big B word... Can we be close and still have Boundaries?
One of the most important parts of an adult parent-child relationship is learning that connection and independence can exist at the same time.
Being close doesn't mean agreeing on everything.
Setting a boundary doesn't mean rejecting someone.
Needing space doesn't mean you don't love someone.
And being emotionally connected doesn't mean you have to take responsibility for another person's feelings.
Healthy family relationships can make room for both connection and autonomy.
What if only one person wants therapy?
Ideally, family therapy involves the people who are part of the relationship you're hoping to change. But sometimes one person is more ready than the other.
If your parent or adult child isn't ready to participate, individual therapy can still be a useful place to understand your own patterns, clarify boundaries, and explore how you want to show up differently in the relationship. Because families are an emotional unit, we've noticed that changing one person's way of responding can change the entire dynamic.
A different relationship is possible
You can't go back and have a different childhood. You can't undo every hurt or guarantee that another person will respond exactly how you hope, but relationships can change.
Family therapy isn't about creating a perfect family. It's about creating more room for honesty, understanding, repair, and connection within the family you have.
If you and your parent are caught in the same patterns and want something different, family therapy may be a place to start.
At Nomii Therapy & Wellness, we offer family therapy for adult children and parents in North Vancouver and virtually across British Columbia. Our therapists can help you slow down the cycle, understand what's happening underneath the conflict, and work toward a relationship that feels more connected and sustainable. Family therapists accepting new clients are Chelsea Cameron and Deema Hannoud. Contact us to schedule an initial consultation call.