When Parents Hurt: Compassionate Strategies When You and Your Grown Child Don’t Get Along

Joshua Coleman | English, 2007

In When Parents Hurt, psychologist and parent Joshua Coleman, Ph.D., offers insight, empathy, and perspective to those who have lost the opportunity to be the parent they desperately wanted to be and who are mourning the loss of a harmonious relationship with their child. Through case examples and healing exercises, Dr. Coleman helps parents: reduce anger, guilt, and shame; learn how temperament, the teen years, their own or a partner’s mistakes, and divorce can strain the parent-child bond; come to terms with their own and their child’s imperfections; and develop strategies for rebuilding the relationship or move toward acceptance of what can’t be changed. By helping parents recognize what they can do and let go of what they cannot, Dr. Coleman helps families develop more positive ways of healing themselves and relating to each other.