When Our Adult Children Walk Away

By Dr. Janet Steinkamp, EdD

My story. Reflecting my experiences, observations and perspective - in my words.

In the early spring of 2019, under the influence of her gatekeeper-partner, in the heart of the global p

... more

4.7

2020 ratings

FAQs about When Our Adult Children Walk Away:

How many episodes does When Our Adult Children Walk Away have?

The podcast currently has 81 episodes available.

Best of When Our Adult Children Walk Away

The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

Number 1: The Science and Art of Communication: Humility vs Humiliation
Episode summary Humility and humiliation sit so close together that we often feel them in the same breath. In this conversation, Dr. Janet Steinkamp and her daughter Brianna gently pull the two apart. One is a choice we make, openness, curiosity, a willingness to keep learning. The other is something we feel, shamed, diminished, our dignity on the line. Together they walk through what it actually takes to set humiliation down, and why humility turns out to be the stronger place to stand when we are trying to find our way back to each other. In This Episode Why humility is a choice we make, and humiliation is something we feel, imposed or perceived How the need to be right, and the need to be validated, can keep us locked in a fight that no one wins The quiet power of naming our own part before anyone else can, and setting the weight of shame down What our reactions, the sighs, the big feelings, the volume, keep saying to an adult child long after the words are gone Why stepping back can be an act of humility, not surrender How reconnection is built on mutual humility, not mutual humiliation “Reconciliation is built through mutual humility, not mutual humiliation.” Dr. Janet Steinkamp Voices from this episode “When I switched to a more humble mindset, I felt like a thousand pounds got lifted off of me. It was one end of the spectrum to the other. A huge swing.” Brianna “For me, the humiliating part was never really the mistake. It was being caught and called out for it. So if you can call yourself out before anyone else does, you take the power out of humiliation.” Brianna “Parents always ask me, I wonder if they even remember me saying this. And I tell them, your voice is in their head. I promise you.” Dr. Janet “One of the most impactful moments for me was when you stopped reaching out. To me, that was you humbling yourself. It was the opposite of what a parent usually does, and humility played a part in that.” Brianna Connect Find us on YouTube at @DrJanetSteinkamp for these conversations in video. If this one meant something, please share it with someone who might be walking through estrangement too. None of us should have to walk through this alone. One Next Step There is a place to bring these questions in real time. Dr. Janet and Brianna host Virtual Office Hours, a low-pressure, come-as-we-are space for the very things this episode stirs up. Register on the website. Virtual Office Hours: https://www.whenouradultchildrenwalkaway.com/office-hours 60-Minute Consultation: https://www.whenouradultchildrenwalkaway.com/service-page/60-minute-consultation Fall 2026 Workshops: https://www.whenouradultchildrenwalkaway.com/copy-of-classes Writer's Lab: https://www.whenouradultchildrenwalkaway.com/writers-lab #FamilyEstrangement #AdultChildren #EstrangedParents #ParentingAdultChildren #Reconciliation #FamilyHealing #HumilityVsHumiliation #EstrangementRecovery #WhenOurAdultChildrenWalkAway #DrJanetSteinkamp #FamilyRelationships #HealingFromEstrangement #ParentChildRelationship #ShameAndHealing #Reconnection LEARN MORE: WhenOurAdultChildrenWalkAway.com Produced by Balancing Life's Issues Hi Listeners. I'd love to hear from you! DISCLAIMER The content of this podcast is based on my professional work as an estrangement coach and my personal estrangement journey. Any examples, characters, or stories referenced are drawn from my own lived experience or represent a composite of multiple real-life situations shared with me over time. PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS: Dr. Janet Steinkamp When Our Adult Children Walk Away with Dr. Janet Steinkamp explores healthy communication, ethical interaction, safe family relationships, and reciprocal (appropriate) boundaries. The podcast provides education and support for parents navigating family estrangement, communication breakdowns, grief, reconciliation efforts, healthy boundary development and adult family relationship dynamics. Dr. Janet Steinkamp's work emphasizes emotionally healthy communication, adult accountability, ethical and safe relationship practices, mutual respect and appropriate boundaries, voluntary communication and reconnection and safe and appropriate family systems. Listeners gain practical tools to improve communication, understand the dynamics of estrangement, and pursue emotional responsibility, compassion, and integrity.
August 23, 202658min
Number 2: We Raised Them For A World We Couldn't See
The world our adult children grew up in is not the world we grew up in. The economy shifted. The technology shifted. The pace, the pressure, the rules for building a stable life, all of it moved while we weren’t looking. In this episode, Dr. Janet Steinkamp steps back from the arguments and the hurt feelings to ask a bigger question. Not what our adult children believe, but what world shaped them, and why understanding that changes everything. In This Episode • Why the ground genuinely shifted for this generation, and how easy it is to mistake a different reality for a personal rejection • What the numbers actually say about how often young adults change jobs today, drawing on US Department of Labor data • How constant social comparison reshapes the way our adult children measure their own lives • The difference between agreeing with our adult children and simply understanding them • The one internal shift, from certainty to curiosity, that changes almost every conversation that follows Voices From This Episode • "Not what our adult children believe, but what world they came of age in. Because the ground shifted under them. The economy, the technology, the pressure, the pace, all of it looks different from the world that many of us stepped into as young adults. And when we forget that, we can mistake a different reality for a personal rejection." • "When I started out as a guidance counselor in the 80s, we told students as they graduated that they should anticipate changing jobs about five times in their career. What we say now, based on the US Department of Labor and Statistics, is that people will change jobs on average 17 times in their career, and that they may actually change into completely different industries." • "As adults, when we hear them say that we didn't prepare them, they're not altogether wrong. And we are not at fault. It isn't an issue of blame or shame. It's an issue of not knowing." • "There have been unprecedented changes in the level of social comparison. Where we used to talk about keeping up with the Joneses, and that was based on our neighbors, the people at work, maybe the people we knew from the schools. Today it is a constant inundation of messaging about what success looks like, how quickly success should come, who gets to decide what success is. And this isn't just local, this is global." • "Curiosity is not agreement. It never was. It's simply the willingness to ask what your adult child is up against before deciding what their choices mean, before deciding whether you agree with them or not. That one shift from certainty to curiosity changes almost everything in the conversations that follow." Connect Find the show on YouTube at @DrJanetSteinkamp. If this episode spoke to something you have been carrying, share it with a parent who needs to hear it. One Next Step If you would like a low-pressure place to bring your questions, Dr. Janet holds Virtual Office Hours. No commitment, just a chance to be heard and to hear from others walking the same road. You can find the details and register through the website. REGISTER FOR OFFICE HOURS: https://www.whenouradultchildrenwalkaway.com/office-hours LEARN MORE: WhenOurAdultChildrenWalkAway.com Produced by Balancing Life’s Issues. Hi Listeners. I'd love to hear from you! DISCLAIMER The content of this podcast is based on my professional work as an estrangement coach and my personal estrangement journey. Any examples, characters, or stories referenced are drawn from my own lived experience or represent a composite of multiple real-life situations shared with me over time. PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS: Dr. Janet Steinkamp When Our Adult Children Walk Away with Dr. Janet Steinkamp explores healthy communication, ethical interaction, safe family relationships, and reciprocal (appropriate) boundaries. The podcast provides education and support for parents navigating family estrangement, communication breakdowns, grief, reconciliation efforts, healthy boundary development and adult family relationship dynamics. Dr. Janet Steinkamp's work emphasizes emotionally healthy communication, adult accountability, ethical and safe relationship practices, mutual respect and appropriate boundaries, voluntary communication and reconnection and safe and appropriate family systems. Listeners gain practical tools to improve communication, understand the dynamics of estrangement, and pursue emotional responsibility, compassion, and integrity.
August 09, 202622min
Number 3: The Message Behind the Message (Audio Only) | After Hours Series
When a message arrives from an estranged adult child, the first read is rarely the real one. The words on the page are filtered through pain, through other voices, through timing, and through emotions that have been building for a long time. In this After Hours episode, Dr. Janet Steinkamp and her daughter Brianna take one of the most discussed topics from Virtual Office Hours and open it up: how to decode what is actually being communicated, and why the message on the surface is almost never the whole story. Bri and Janet walk through three things that shape every message received during estrangement: whose voice might be coming through alongside the adult child’s, the gap between the words being used and the intention behind them, and the context of what is going on in an adult child’s life when they sit down to write or speak. Along the way, they get into trigger words, the read-aloud feature that strips emotion from text, the seventy-two-hour re-read, and the hard truth about why adult children sometimes push hardest at the people who love them most. This is a quiet, clarifying episode. Not easy, but clarifying. IN THIS EPISODE Whose voice is really coming through — attorneys, therapists, gatekeepers, social media, and why messages are rarely written in isolation Why adult children are communicating from peak emotional bandwidth — and what that means for how the words land The gap between word choice and intention: what they’re trying to say versus what is being perceived Trigger words — how terms like trauma and abuse carry very different weight today than they once did, and why that matters The seventy-two-hour re-read: why the same message sounds different after time and distance The read-aloud feature: using text-to-speech to strip emotion and hear a message more neutrally The possibility of AI in communications — and why it’s worth considering The hidden message: when an adult child’s real communication is simply “I need space” and everything else is noise Why adult children sometimes push hardest at parents — and what that actually means about the relationship Leaving the light on: what it looks like to stay accessible without chasing VOICES FROM THIS EPISODE “Your adult child is likely not prioritizing your comfort in reading the letter. They are saying things that they’ve wanted to say for a long time probably. So their word choice may not be great — intention might be different than how it’s coming off.” — Bri “If you can read between all of the lines or catch little nuggets of your child coming through in the letter, just consider what they might actually be trying to say. And if you take the emotion out of it, it doesn’t have to be offensive.” — Bri “You don’t get to the point of pushing your parents out unless everything else in life is absolutely unmanageable or too much — and your parent is one of the safest things to let go. And that’s really backwards and probably not nice to hear, but it’s the truth.” — Bri “Leave the light on. Leave the path open. No barriers between you and your adult child so they can get to you directly, easily, when they need and want to, when they’re ready to.” — Dr. Janet Steinkamp “When you read the message the first time, and if you wait seventy-two hours and you read it again, you hear it differently, you read it differently.” — Dr. Janet Steinkamp “It wasn’t really about them. The part that was about the parent was that they couldn’t get enough space to work out whatever was going on. And parents are often very surprised to hear that.” — Dr. Janet Steinkamp WHAT IS AFTER HOURS? After Hours episodes follow Virtual Office Hours — live sessions where listeners join Dr. Janet Steinkamp and Bri in real time to ask questions and share what’s on their minds. After each session, Janet and Bri take the most important topics from those conversations and go deeper. These episodes are intentionally light touch. The topics are complex and nuanced — they deserve more than a quick answer. Think of After Hours as the conversation that continues after the room goes quiet. Join the next Virtual Office Hours session at: www.whenouradultchildrenwalkaway.com/office-hours Hi Listeners. I'd love to hear from you! DISCLAIMER The content of this podcast is based on my professional work as an estrangement coach and my personal estrangement journey. Any examples, characters, or stories referenced are drawn from my own lived experience or represent a composite of multiple real-life situations shared with me over time. PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS: Dr. Janet Steinkamp When Our Adult Children Walk Away with Dr. Janet Steinkamp explores healthy communication, ethical interaction, safe family relationships, and reciprocal (appropriate) boundaries. The podcast provides education and support for parents navigating family estrangement, communication breakdowns, grief, reconciliation efforts, healthy boundary development and adult family relationship dynamics. Dr. Janet Steinkamp's work emphasizes emotionally healthy communication, adult accountability, ethical and safe relationship practices, mutual respect and appropriate boundaries, voluntary communication and reconnection and safe and appropriate family systems. Listeners gain practical tools to improve communication, understand the dynamics of estrangement, and pursue emotional responsibility, compassion, and integrity.
July 20, 202616min
Number 4: Are We Really Listening? The Difference Between Hearing and Being Present (Audio Only)
Are we really listening — or just waiting for your turn to speak? There’s a difference between hearing and listening that most of us never stop to examine, and in estrangement, that difference can be the distance between repair and permanent disconnection. In this episode of When Our Adult Children Walk Away, Dr. Janet Steinkamp breaks down what active listening truly requires, why passive listening causes more damage than we realize, and what it looks like to listen in a way that makes people feel genuinely seen and valued. WHAT YOU WILL LEARN: The key difference between hearing and active listening, and why it matters for estrangement What an active listener looks, sounds, and feels like to the person speaking The specific behaviors that signal you’re not fully present, even when you think you are Why kinesthetic learners may seem distracted but are actually deeply engaged How to reflect back what you hear so the other person feels truly understood What passive listening is, when we do it, and the relational cost Why “listening to react” vs. “listening to learn” changes every conversation A simple, practical challenge you can try this week If you’ve ever felt like conversations with your adult child go sideways before you understand why, or like what you say never quite lands the way you intend, this episode gives you a foundational skill that changes everything. "Listening to learn creates connection. Listening to react creates distance.” - Dr. Janet Steinkamp Active listening is a skill. And like any skill, it takes practice, in conversations that matter, and in conversations that don’t, so you’re ready when it counts. SUBSCRIBE for new episodes on family estrangement, parent-adult child relationships, reconciliation, emotional healing, and communication repair. JOIN VIRTUAL OFFICE HOURS: https://www.whenouradultchildrenwalkaway.com/office-hours LEARN MORE: https://www.WhenOurAdultChildrenWalkAway.com Produced by Balancing Life’s Issues #FamilyEstrangement #AdultChildren #EstrangementRecovery #ParentingAdultChildren #FamilyHealing #NoContact #EstrangedParents #ActiveListening #CommunicationSkills #ListeningToLearn #DrJanetSteinkamp #WhenOurAdultChildrenWalkAway #FamilyReconciliation #EstrangementSupport #EmotionalHealing Hi Listeners. I'd love to hear from you! DISCLAIMER The content of this podcast is based on my professional work as an estrangement coach and my personal estrangement journey. Any examples, characters, or stories referenced are drawn from my own lived experience or represent a composite of multiple real-life situations shared with me over time. PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS: Dr. Janet Steinkamp When Our Adult Children Walk Away with Dr. Janet Steinkamp explores healthy communication, ethical interaction, safe family relationships, and reciprocal (appropriate) boundaries. The podcast provides education and support for parents navigating family estrangement, communication breakdowns, grief, reconciliation efforts, healthy boundary development and adult family relationship dynamics. Dr. Janet Steinkamp's work emphasizes emotionally healthy communication, adult accountability, ethical and safe relationship practices, mutual respect and appropriate boundaries, voluntary communication and reconnection and safe and appropriate family systems. Listeners gain practical tools to improve communication, understand the dynamics of estrangement, and pursue emotional responsibility, compassion, and integrity.
July 05, 202617min
Number 5: After Hours from Virtual Office Hours on May 24th, 2026 - Why aren't' they responding? (Audio Only)
Are you an estranged parent who finds themselves asking the same question over and over... "Why isn’t my message landing the way I intend?" Or, "Why isn't (adult child) responding?" In this first After Hours Series episode, Dr. Janet Steinkamp and her daughter Brianna take the most urgent issue from their inaugural Virtual Office Hours on May 24th, 2026 and share it here: what we say, how we say it, and why it matters more than most parents realize. This isn’t a conversation about finding the perfect words. It’s about understanding that a message often reaches your adult child through others' filters. There is often a partner, a therapist, an attorney, or a deeply held influence standing between what is written and how it’s received, and every word has to make it through that gauntlet first. Bri and Janet break down three things that came up most in their Office Hours conversation on May 24th, 2026: knowing who is really being written to, understanding when and whether to say anything at all, and staying emotionally neutral when everything inside wants to defend, explain, or beg for contact. You’ll also hear Bri reveal how she decided whether to read a message and why. This is the episode for every parent who has sent a letter, a text, or an email and heard nothing back. And for every parent who is afraid of saying the wrong thing. IN THIS EPISODE Who is really interpreting your message? Attorneys, therapists, partners, gatekeepers, and why a stranger’s interpretation can end the conversation before it starts The shorthand trap: why inside references and half-sentences can be misinterpreted and even weaponized by a third party Knowing your goal before communicating and why writing to be explain, to defend, or to get a response almost always backfires The 24-hour rule and why Bri thinks 72 hours is the real minimum Why responding quickly, even with love and good intentions, can feel offensive to an adult child who spent weeks on a single letter “I didn’t read most of your messages,” Bri’s honest account of what made her stop reading, and what finally made her read a complete message Why is silence after sending something not rejectionThe letter that took Janet six months to write, and why every iteration taught her something new What “staying in your lane” really means when desperate for any contact (listen to the episode Note to Self: 10 Daily Tips to Keep You in the Parent-Partner Lane) VOICES FROM THIS EPISODE “Somebody else is gonna read this letter. Everything put out there is just available for the taking, and the actual message is lost.” Bri “Statements need to say what you mean, and you have to mean what you say. There’s no shorthand.” Dr. Janet Steinkamp “If the goal is about you, if you’re wanting something, needing something, feeling something, then just don’t. It’s most likely not going to land well.” Bri “Even if you wait a month to respond, if the response is genuine and reflective and thought out, the month isn’t going to even register. They want change or movement, not validation.” Bri “I didn’t read some of your communications. I’d read the first sentence, and I’d be like nope. I don’t think this is going to be any different.” Bri “Silence does not mean rejection. It does not mean they’re not thinking about it.” Dr. Janet Steinkamp “That letter took me six months to write. And every iteration, you learn more. You see more. You understand more.” Dr. Janet Steinkamp WHAT is the AFTER HOURS Series? The After Hours Series episodes follow Virtual Office Hours live sessions where listeners join Dr. Janet Steinkamp and Brianna in real time to ask questions and share what’s on their minds. After each session, Janet and Bri take the most important topics from those conversations and go deeper. The issues discussed in Office Hours are complex and nuanced, they deserve more than a quick response. Similarly, the topics we bring back to the After Hours Series listeners are equally as complex. Think of the After Hours Series as the conversation that continues after the room goes quiet. Register to join the next Virtual Office Hours session at: www.whenouradultchildrenwalkaway.com/office-hours Connect directly with Janet: [email protected] For more information: https://www.WhenOurAdultChildrenWalkAway.com Share If this episode resonated with you, please follow or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps more families find their way to these conversations. #FamilyEstrangement #EstrangedAdultChildren #ParentsOfEstrangedChildren #Estrangement #WordsMatter #WhenOurAdultChildrenWalkAway #EstrangementHealing #CommunicatingWithEstrangedChild #AfterHours #FamilyReconciliation Hi Listeners. I'd love to hear from you! DISCLAIMER The content of this podcast is based on my professional work as an estrangement coach and my personal estrangement journey. Any examples, characters, or stories referenced are drawn from my own lived experience or represent a composite of multiple real-life situations shared with me over time. PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS: Dr. Janet Steinkamp When Our Adult Children Walk Away with Dr. Janet Steinkamp explores healthy communication, ethical interaction, safe family relationships, and reciprocal (appropriate) boundaries. The podcast provides education and support for parents navigating family estrangement, communication breakdowns, grief, reconciliation efforts, healthy boundary development and adult family relationship dynamics. Dr. Janet Steinkamp's work emphasizes emotionally healthy communication, adult accountability, ethical and safe relationship practices, mutual respect and appropriate boundaries, voluntary communication and reconnection and safe and appropriate family systems. Listeners gain practical tools to improve communication, understand the dynamics of estrangement, and pursue emotional responsibility, compassion, and integrity.
June 23, 202621min