1. Successfully separating from one's parents is considered a prerequisite for a healthy relationship with them. How do I know where I stand in this regard?
A good indicator of this are the imaginary arguments that take place in our heads – we all know them. They differ from real conversations in that we are always right. This shows how unrealistic our thoughts sometimes are; in reality, conflicts do not always turn out in our favour.
However, these imaginary conversations have a real cause: they result from hurt feelings that we have not processed. These feelings create internal pressure that fuels spiralling thoughts in which we are rhetorically superior. The more often and the more intensely we argue with our parents in our fantasies or try to convince them of something, the stronger the dynamics that bind us to them in an unhealthy way.
Michael Bordt, philosopher, managing director of the Institute for Philosophy and Leadership, Munich (Germany)
2. How can we make it easier for our own children to leave home?
I don't want to downplay the fact that parents pay a price for their children growing up. The more they make their life satisfaction dependent on their offspring, the higher that price is. Growing up involves criticising what your father and mother have modelled for you. This is how children who admired their parents become withdrawn adolescents who know better.
How constructive the role of parents remains depends on whether they can bear the loss of no longer shaping their child's life.
Wolfgang Schmidbauer, psychologist
Parents play an important role in this process of detachment. How constructive this role remains depends on whether they are able to bear the loss of their life-shaping significance for their children without becoming cold and distant, sad and withdrawn, or angry and disparaging as a result of this hurt. Parents often worry that they are not doing enough to promote their children's development – but it is almost more important not to hinder it.
Wolfgang Schmidbauer, psychologist, psychoanalyst and author, Munich
3. How can you prevent passing on negative influences to your own children?
The difficult thing is to become aware of these influences in the first place. This can be achieved by reading relevant literature, as well as through self-observation and attempting to recognise patterns. When do we tend to experience certain emotions, thoughts or behaviours? An outside perspective can help us to identify these often unconscious patterns.
Next, we need to look at our own past to understand how this came about. Behaviours that we now consider unhelpful may have been useful to us as children: withdrawing as soon as conflicts arose because they often escalated at home; assertively demanding our own needs so as not to miss out.
By better understanding our conditioning, we do not overcome it – instead, we must consider how we would prefer to react, which beliefs we should question and reformulate. Experimentation, practice and patience with ourselves help us to do this.
Felizitas Ambauen, psychotherapist, co-founder of the podcast "Beziehungskosmos» (Relationship Cosmos), Fürigen NW
4. I don't want to see my parents, but I want my children to be able to have contact with them. Can that work out?
There is no blanket answer to this question, but in principle: yes. This assumes that parents and grandparents do not use the children as pawns or leverage. If their conflict does not spill over onto the children, it can work. It makes sense to establish clear rules: when, where, how long – perhaps a few dos and don'ts would be helpful. For example, that certain topics should not be discussed in front of the children, that they should not be made to feel guilty, for example by displaying your suffering: «Mummy doesn't want us to see each other more often, which makes Grandma sad.»
Grandparents have no right to their grandchildren.
Felititas Ambauen, psychotherapist
Finally, there remains the exciting ethical and moral question: do grandparents have a right to see their grandchildren? Do we owe them that? The short answer is no, we don't. Grandparents have no claim to their grandchildren. But – to hint at the long answer – each situation must be considered individually and on a case-by-case basis.
Felizitas Ambauen
5. How do I explain to my children that I have turned away from my parents?
That depends on the age of the children and their background. I recommend telling children aged ten or older a version that is close to the truth. If you leave too many gaps, they will fill them in themselves – because children understand that something is missing. What they then interpret into it often burdens them more than the reality.
They may agonise over whether they are to blame for the rift, or get the impression that their parents are hiding something from them because they don't trust them. So it is often a false sense of protection when parents remain silent or beat about the bush. Especially if they are trying to avoid being confronted with unpleasant feelings – that is unfair to the children.
Felizitas Ambauen
6. Is it true that mother-daughter relationships are particularly prone to conflict?
Generally speaking, yes. Being of the same sex and having similar experiences often leads to greater closeness between mothers and their daughters: they are more closely connected and share more intimate topics. This makes a breach of trust particularly serious. Although fathers and sons are also of the same sex, this pronounced closeness is less evident: their relationship is usually somewhat more distant and therefore less emotional.
These general findings do not necessarily apply to everyone. Studies show that contextual factors such as parenting style, family atmosphere and individual characteristics of those involved also influence the course of conflicts. Furthermore, more frequent conflicts do not necessarily lead to a worse relationship – a foundation of trust can cushion many things and even allow the relationship to emerge stronger from the conflict.
Moritz Daum, Professor of Developmental Psychology at the University of Zurich
7. Can I be friends with my teenager?
Children need their parents as a safe haven, as role models and pillars of guidance – not as friends. The central developmental task of young people is to break away from their parents' home and develop their own identity. Parents who want to be friends with their children stand in the way of this.
It leads to role confusion when parents suggest that they are friends on equal footing.
Moritz Daum, developmental psychologist
If, for example, a mother refers to her teenage daughter as her best friend, this can be interpreted as meaning that Mummy has no other friends. Out of loyalty, this gap is then filled, to the point of role reversal. This responsibility conflicts with the desire for autonomy and identity development. It also leads to role confusion when parents suggest that they are friends on equal terms, but at the same time perform parenting tasks – these two things do not go well together.
Moritz Daum
8. What can we do to ensure that our children will look back fondly on their childhood home?
Unfortunately, there is no guaranteed guide to this. But parents can do a lot right by trying to meet their child's basic needs. This starts with being a secure attachment figure for children from an early age. A trusting relationship with parents has a positive effect on a child's self-esteem, social relationships, school performance and development of autonomy. This leads us to another basic need: it is important to support the child's natural desire for autonomy.
This means letting go step by step and accepting the associated loss of control. This is easier for parents if they too continue to develop alongside their child, curiously and openly observing the personality their child is growing into, rather than worrying because they are distancing themselves. Children also learn a lot for future relationships and conflicts – including those they will have with their parents as adults – when they learn early on that arguments and tensions are part of life and can be resolved in a constructive way.
Moritz Daum
9. Why do parents often cling to outdated images of us instead of seeing us as the people we have become?
It is not usually because parents want to keep their child small – they simply view them from the perspective of the years they have spent in close proximity to them. Research shows that we all tend to do this: once we have formed a certain impression of other people, we fixate on this assessment. If we are not careful enough, the other person may get the impression that we are not really interested in them as a person. That we do not appreciate them for who they are, but rather for the image we have of them.
Michael Bordt
Parents do not need to erase possible mistakes from the past, but rather take responsibility for them.
Sascha Schmidt, family counsellor
10. Can parents and adult children be friends?
To be honest, in the many years that I have been working with people of different ages, I have met some parents who proudly described themselves as their children's best friends, but I have never met a man or woman who actually felt comfortable in the role of their parents' best friend. This is because this role attribution has to do solely with the parents' need for closeness or even control and security. Even a good relationship with one's parents cannot be like the one with a best friend whom one has chosen for oneself. Parents are not friends. They are and remain parents.
Michael Bordt
11. How can parents re-establish communication with their adult children when positions have become entrenched?
The willingness of mothers and fathers to reflect on and change their own behaviour gives children the opportunity to rethink their own social behaviour. Often, all it takes is a different attitude to start a conversation. It is not about erasing possible mistakes of the past, but about taking responsibility for them. Not «How can I make it up to you?», but «That's how it was. That's what I did. That's how I behaved. I can see that it's holding you back and still bothering you today. I'm sorry.»
Sascha Schmidt, author, mediator, couples and family counsellor, Bordesholm (Germany)
12. What can you do if contact with your parents is based on joyless habits such as obligatory phone calls or visits?
Change the rules of the game! One of my clients used to call his single mother every Sunday. He dreaded the conversation every time, finding it nerve-wracking and one-sided. He would ask his mother how she was doing, and she would talk endlessly about impersonal things, complaining about the weather, the neighbours, and him, who didn't have enough time. I asked him what input he contributed. He looked at me: Input? He just let it all wash over him!
The man had never considered changing rules that seemed set in stone to him. But who had said that the phone call had to last half an hour? Not his mother, he admitted; he had decided that for himself. I tried to show him how easily we hand over responsibility for our well-being to others.
A family is like a mobile – when one person changes the dynamic, the entire system is set in motion.
Sandra Konrad, psychologist
The client practised limiting the phone call to fifteen minutes in future. Instead of continuing to be annoyed by his mother's weekly report, he thought in advance about what he wanted to talk about in his life. After a few weeks, he reported that the conversations had changed: it wasn't exactly like talking to a friend, but it was no longer so paralysingly boring. Family is like a mobile – when one person changes the dynamic, the whole system starts to move.
Sandra Konrad, psychologist and author, Hamburg (Germany)
