«Radio silence is worse than the worst argument»

Mrs Haarmann, why does a child break off contact with its parents?

There can be many different reasons for this. Basically, it can be said that a person who breaks off contact with their parents feels deep distress. He feels that his person, his core, is not being recognised. They have tried for a long time to make it clear to their parents what moves them, but have never met with understanding. When a child realises that they will no longer be able to be with their parents, they may take this step.

You are familiar with such cases from your therapeutic practice. What do you experience in your day-to-day work?

Let me give you an example: The parents of a young woman had a career abroad. Nannies looked after the children when they were small. When the parents came home tired, they often perceived the children, who made a lot of fuss, as a disturbance. Both parents grew up in a very emotionally cold family. They had never experienced what closeness felt like and how to create it. They had only learnt to function ...

... and when they became parents themselves, were they emotionally absent for their children?

Yes, a lot of suffering had built up over the years. The young woman asked herself: did mum and dad even want me? She confronted her mother with many accusations. For example, there were nannies who didn't treat the children well, which the mother obviously hadn't noticed. The confrontation with these experiences led to a major conflict between the two women.

How did the mother react to her daughter's accusations?

Totally stunned. That's the crazy thing about it. Subjectively, the mother thought she had done everything for the child: She had worked to make everything possible for the children, bought the most amazing toys, made expensive holidays possible and financed their studies. The parents didn't understand the accusations because they honestly felt that they had done everything right. They were also shocked by the fact that they hadn't realised how their daughter had really fared.

Did you break off contact after this confrontation?

Yes, by the way, breaking off contact is the most massive thing a child can do. But this requires a certain maturity.

What do you mean?

What parents do is fundamentally right, especially for young children. At this age, you have a very strong emotional bond with your parents - because you need them to exist. It's not until puberty that a boy or girl asks themselves: Who am I? If the child realises during this time through friends or classmates how other families treat each other, it begins to reflect. The child realises: I am maturing into an independent personality who has questions for parents.

What are these questions?

Why is it always about you? Why can't you see that I had problems at school or that I was bullied? Or: Why does everything feel so cold between us? Why don't you cuddle with me? Another important question is: Why don't you accept me for who I am?

If the strong connection to the mother is disturbed, the father remains as a positive figure.

What are the triggers that cause a child to break off contact?

First of all, a break in contact has been brewing for much longer than it appears to the parents. The conflicts have a history. It has been simmering for a long time, but has never been discussed in the family. It is often triggered by life changes: when young people start working or move away from home. Or when they become parents themselves and realise how abusive their mother and father are behaving and how much influence they want to exert.

There is the mother who cannot let go of her son and interferes massively in his marriage. It escalates when the first grandchild is born. In this case, the son had to cut off contact with his mother to protect his family. He could never really be a child himself. The single mother had abused him - in an emotional sense - as a substitute for a partner. A clear case of too much closeness.

What is striking is that children often only break off contact with their mother, but not with their father. Why is this?

Pregnancy creates a symbiotic relationship between mother and child. There are also hormonal reasons for this. When I come into the world as a child, it is existential for me that my mother is happy that I am there, that she is able to respond to my needs. If the mother is unable to do this, be it because of depression, unemployment, a difficult relationship with the father or for other reasons, the child feels this. Although these mothers are physically present, they are actually emotionally absent for the child. The child feels unnoticed and therefore unloved.

A family works like clockwork: each family member is a cogwheel.

What about fathers? If you talk to people you know about family conflicts, you get the impression that mothers are often judged more harshly than fathers.

That is also my perception. Daughters in particular are often milder and much more benevolent with their father. I know many cases where they still talk to their father but no longer talk to their mother. If the strong connection with the mother is disturbed, the father remains as a positive figure who you don't want to dethrone.

There are also parents who break off contact with their child.

In my experience, these are parents who can't stand it when the child doesn't «work» the way they think it should. Then there are parents who say: "If you're like that, then I don't want any contact with you. These mums and dads have built an internal framework of concepts and ideas that gives them security and defines what is right and wrong. There is little flexibility. Ultimately, these parents want the child to bow to their ideas. Behind this is a great fear of not being recognised socially.

Doesn't breaking off contact shake up these inflexible ideas?

Some parents remain firm. But breaking off contact usually sets something in motion. Figuratively speaking, a family works like clockwork: each family member is a cogwheel. If the family freezes in its patterns, this clockwork stops. It is usually the child who starts to think about unhealthy patterns. If they can, they say: Mum, Dad, I'm missing something here.

The children have to find out for themselves: What is good for me in my life?

What does the radio silence do to the parents?

The parents are, if they are not totally rejecting, really desperate. The child was their life's happiness. They have done a lot for their child. They have brought up and loved their little boy or girl ... and then the child suddenly leaves. For the parents concerned, their life plan collapses. In my practice, I see very desperate parents who no longer understand the world.

What do you think has gone wrong with «abandoned» parents?

I always ask affected parents what their relationship with their own parents was like. They often tell me that, as in the example I mentioned at the beginning, they themselves did not have good experiences with their fathers or mothers. Many abandoned parents have not learnt from their own parents how to express love and create emotional closeness. And that's the difficult thing: parents don't do this on purpose, it just happens. Parents always want what they think is best for their child. But it doesn't necessarily have to be the best for the child.

Contact breakdowns between parents and children are no longer a rarity. There are no official figures, but it is estimated that they are increasing. Is that your experience too?

That's how it is. Breaking off contact with parents is part of the daily routine in my therapeutic work. In the past, people didn't dare to do that. Today, we present our children with a multitude of options: Relationships break up, jobs are cancelled. Separations and divorces are now socially accepted. The subjective idea of happiness in life plays a decisive role: if a relationship doesn't fit in, it is now legitimate to leave. The children also experience this. Nevertheless, breaking off contact with parents is a taboo subject that is only now slowly breaking out.

What role does the Internet play?

Social media and digitalisation have undoubtedly changed communication between children and parents. The internet has opened up a space in which people can exchange ideas easily and at any time. In chats or forums, you can hear: «Aha, others know what I feel too. And it's important or even right that I feel this way.» Those affected also experience a kind of listening or communication that they don't experience in their family.

The adult child realises that they are not so wrong in their self-perception.

It's like this. The big problem in families with a dysfunctional relationship is that the «little» child believes that the blame for the stress lies with them. This is because they are dependent on their parents, love them and are totally dependent on them. They develop a feeling of «there's something wrong with me» and move on with their lives, hopefully realising later that this is not the case.

I advise parents to put themselves in their child's shoes.

What advice would you give to parents whose children have broken off contact with you?

Do nothing. Accept. You can't do anything because the child will see any contact as disrespecting their decision. I advise parents to put themselves in their child's shoes and ask themselves: What was it like when my child was still with me? Did I even have the capacity to realise what was going on? Were there events that made me overlook the child? Many parents then begin to seriously question themselves.

Simply doing nothing sounds unbearable for many mums and dads.

Radio silence is worse than the worst argument. And yes, it is very painful. But when contact is broken off, this unfortunately becomes the new reality in the family that parents have to learn to accept. The term «radio silence» comes from shipping. When a ship is in distress, the others have to stop radio communication in order to be able to localise the distressed vessel. Applied to the family, cutting off contact sends the parents the message: Can you hear my distress in my silence?

The opportunity to reconnect is there when the children feel well and secure in their lives.

What can a mum or dad do instead?

Self-help groups or professional support are certainly good ways for parents to deal with this. You can also support each other as a couple. In any case, breaking off contact should also be seen as an opportunity to analyse the past from a new perspective. As difficult as certain realisations may be, ideally they help parents to understand their child's decision.

What is going on in the minds of children who break off contact?

I'll quote a sentence from my book that I got from a young woman who came to my practice: «I can no longer stand the contact because they have no idea about me. But the fact that I broke off contact hurts me to the core.» The children first have to find themselves during this silence. They have to see where they can get the support, security and love they need and find out for themselves: What is good for me in my life? Something new can emerge from this stability.

So there is a way back, even after years of silence?

With the exception of cases of abuse, which I would like to exclude here: yes, definitely. There is often contact again. But both sides have to make a move. The opportunity to re-establish contact is there when the children feel well and safely settled in their lives. And the parents, in turn, realise that their bossiness, for example, is not good for the child and they manage to move away from it. Parents and children can then meet again, sometimes only after many years, on an adult level, i.e. at eye level.