When Family Ties Break: Understanding and Supporting Those Navigating Estrangement

by Jessica Anne Pressler, LCSW

If you're navigating family estrangement, please know that your feelings are valid, your choices are yours to make, and healing is possible—whether that includes reconciliation or not. You deserve support, compassion, and the space to honor your own needs and grieve your losses.

The silence between family members who were once close creates a particular kind of ache—one that our society often struggles to acknowledge or understand. Whether it's a parent and child who no longer speak, grandparents cut off from grandchildren, or siblings who've chosen separate paths, family estrangement touches millions of lives while remaining shrouded in shame and misunderstanding.

The Hidden Prevalence of Family Estrangement

Family estrangement is far more common than most people realize. Recent research suggests that approximately 27% of Americans report being estranged from a family member, with parent-adult child estrangement affecting an estimated one in four families (Pillemer et al., 2020). Yet despite these numbers, estrangement remains what researcher Kristina Scharp calls a "disenfranchised loss"—a grief that society doesn't fully recognize or validate.

When someone loses a family member to death, we send flowers, bring meals, and offer condolences. But when someone makes the agonizing decision to distance themselves from a parent, or when a parent finds themselves cut off from an adult child, there's often only silence, judgment, or well-meaning but harmful advice.

The Complex Grief of Estrangement

The grief that accompanies estrangement is uniquely complicated. Unlike death, where finality allows for a mourning process, estrangement exists in an ambiguous space. The person is still alive, still in the world, yet the relationship has ended or fundamentally changed. This ambiguous loss, as researcher Pauline Boss describes it, can be particularly difficult to process because there's no clear resolution (Boss, 2022).

For the person who initiates distance, there's often grief layered with relief, guilt mixed with self-preservation. They may mourn not just the relationship as it was, but the relationship they wish they could have had. They grieve the fantasy of the parent who could have been supportive, the sibling who could have been a friend, the family gatherings that might have been warm instead of painful.

For the person on the receiving end of estrangement—the parent whose adult child has stepped away, the grandparent denied access to grandchildren—the grief can be equally profound. They may experience confusion, rejection, anger, and a desperate desire to understand what went wrong. Even when they can identify mistakes they made, the pain of separation can feel disproportionate and unbearable.

The Spectrum of Estrangement: Context Matters

Estrangement as Protection from Abuse

Some estrangements occur because continued contact would be genuinely harmful. When a family relationship has involved emotional, physical, or sexual abuse; when a parent has a severe untreated personality disorder like narcissistic personality disorder; when addiction has created chaos and danger—distance isn't rejection, it's survival.

Dr. Ramani Durvasula's research on narcissistic family systems (2024) highlights how children of narcissistic parents often face a particular dilemma: maintaining contact means accepting ongoing manipulation, gaslighting, and emotional harm, while creating distance triggers accusations of being "ungrateful," "too sensitive," or "holding grudges." For many adult children, estrangement isn't about punishment—it's about creating the space necessary to heal from complex trauma.

These estrangements often follow years of attempted reconciliation, boundary-setting, and hoping for change. They're not impulsive decisions but last resorts after exhausting other options. Research by Agllias (2021) on family estrangement found that most adult children who estrange from parents report trying multiple times to repair the relationship before making the final decision to step away.

Estrangement Following Specific Events or Conflicts

Other estrangements stem from specific conflicts, misunderstandings, or events that escalated beyond what anyone anticipated. Perhaps political differences became irreconcilable during a heated election cycle. Maybe a wedding dispute or inheritance disagreement created rifts that hardened over time. Sometimes mental health crises, differing values about pandemic precautions, or conflicting parenting philosophies create divisions that feel insurmountable.

These estrangements may have different pathways toward potential reconciliation than those rooted in long-standing abuse patterns. They often involve two (or more) parties who are genuinely hurt, genuinely confused about how things deteriorated so completely, and genuinely uncertain about how to bridge the gap.

Research by Conti (2023) explores how intergenerational value conflicts—particularly around issues like gender identity, religion, and politics—have contributed to increasing rates of family estrangement in recent years. These estrangements can be particularly painful because they may involve people who genuinely love each other but cannot find common ground on issues that feel fundamental to their identities or beliefs.

The Unique Pain of Sibling Estrangement

Sibling estrangement carries its own particular heartbreak. Siblings often share a longer relationship than any other—potentially spanning an entire lifetime. They share history, inside jokes, childhood memories, and the unique experience of growing up in the same family system.

When siblings become estranged, it's often because patterns established in childhood have proven impossible to shift in adulthood. Perhaps one sibling became the scapegoat while another was the golden child, and these roles created resentment that never healed. Maybe one sibling sides with an abusive parent while another has established boundaries, creating an impossible tension. Sometimes siblings have such different memories of their shared childhood that they can't reconcile their narratives.

Sibling estrangement can occur if substance abuse is involved, high narcissistic traits, or an inability for conflict resolution. Sibling estrangement can also occur when siblings develop vastly different values, lifestyles, or worldviews. One may feel judged for their choices while the other feels disrespected for their beliefs. Without the forcing function of childhood proximity, some siblings discover they simply wouldn't choose each other as friends—and the guilt around this realization can itself become a source of distance.

Research by Conti and Pillemer (2021) notes that sibling estrangement is often triggered by conflicts over caregiving responsibilities for aging parents, inheritance disputes, or one sibling's perception that another sibling was favored by parents. The grief of sibling estrangement is compounded by the loss not just of a relationship but of a shared witness to your own history.

Grandparent Estrangement: Collateral Damage and Complex Dynamics

Grandparent estrangement represents one of the most heartbreaking forms of family rupture, often leaving older adults bewildered, grieving, and powerless. While some grandparent estrangements stem from the grandparents' own behavior, many grandparents find themselves caught in conflicts not of their making—collateral damage in their adult child's divorce, victims of parental alienation, or cut off because they're seen as extensions of an estranged parent.

When Grandparents Are Cut Off Due to Parent-Child Estrangement

When an adult child estranges from their parents, the grandchildren often lose their grandparents as well—even if the grandparents had a loving, healthy relationship with those children. This form of estrangement can feel particularly unjust to grandparents who may have been devoted, present figures in their grandchildren's lives.

For the adult child making this decision, the reasoning often involves protection and consistency. If they've determined that contact with their parents is harmful to their own wellbeing, they may believe that allowing their children ongoing access sends a confusing message or creates opportunities for manipulation, boundary violations, or harmful messaging about the estranged parent. They may have witnessed their parents treat them poorly but shower attention on the grandchildren and worry about what happens behind closed doors or what values and messages their children receive.

Research by Hartnett et al. (2022) found that adult children who limit grandparent access often do so because of concerns about: undermining parenting decisions, exposure to dysfunctional family dynamics, inappropriate conversations about the estranged parent, or belief that grandparents cannot respect boundaries with grandchildren if they couldn't respect boundaries with their own children.

For grandparents in this situation, the pain is compounded by feeling punished for relationship problems with their adult child. They may have acknowledged wrongdoing, attempted to repair the parent-child relationship, and still find themselves cut off from grandchildren they love. The loss is not just of the present relationship but of watching these children grow, celebrating milestones, and being part of their lives.

Grandparents Caught in Divorce and Custody Conflicts

Divorce creates another common pathway to grandparent estrangement. When a marriage ends, particularly if the divorce is contentious, grandparents on one side may lose access to grandchildren if their adult child doesn't have custody or if the other parent restricts access.

Some custodial parents view the ex-spouse's parents as extensions of a person they're trying to distance from or may harbor resentment about perceived loyalty to their ex-partner during the divorce. Others may simply want a clean break from anything connected to the failed marriage. In high-conflict divorces, grandparents may be prohibited from contact as part of broader custody restrictions.

Recent research by Henderson et al. (2023) examining grandparent rights and family court proceedings found that grandparents often have limited legal recourse to maintain relationships with grandchildren after divorce, particularly if they're perceived as siding with the non-custodial parent or interfering in custody arrangements.

The grief for these grandparents is complicated by helplessness. They may have done nothing wrong in the grandparent-grandchild relationship itself, yet they're powerless to maintain contact. They watch birthdays pass, imagine holidays they're missing, and wonder if their grandchildren remember them or have been told negative things about them.

Parental Alienation and Grandparent Estrangement

Parental alienation—when one parent systematically undermines the child's relationship with the other parent—often extends to that parent's extended family. Grandparents may find themselves characterized as dangerous, unloving, or harmful, even when they had previously warm relationships with their grandchildren.

Dr. Amy Baker's research on parental alienation (2020) describes how alienating parents often extend their campaign to the target parent's entire family, painting grandparents as co-conspirators or equally problematic. Grandchildren may be told that grandparents never loved them, didn't want to see them, or said terrible things about them—none of which is true.

For grandparents experiencing this form of estrangement, the pain is existential. They may receive hostile communications from grandchildren who once loved them, or complete silence where there used to be frequent contact. They may learn through social media that family events happened without them, see photos of grandchildren growing up from a distance, and feel erased from their grandchildren's lives despite years of devoted presence.

The legal landscape around grandparent rights varies significantly by state and country. While some jurisdictions recognize grandparents' rights to petition for visitation, courts generally defer to parents' rights to make decisions about their children's relationships. This leaves many grandparents with little recourse beyond hoping for eventual reconciliation.

When Grandparent Estrangement Stems from Grandparents' Own Behavior

It's important to acknowledge that some grandparent estrangements occur because of the grandparents' actions. Grandparents who undermine parenting decisions, violate important boundaries, show favoritism among grandchildren, make racist or homophobic comments, or put grandchildren in unsafe situations may find their access restricted or cut off entirely.

Research by Barnett et al. (2021) on intergenerational boundary violations found that adult children most commonly limit grandparent access due to: disrespecting parenting decisions (especially around discipline, food, or safety), making critical comments about the parent in front of children, attempting to impose different values or religious beliefs, or showing inability to respect requests around privacy and consent with grandchildren.

For these grandparents, the path forward requires genuine acknowledgment of harm, willingness to change behavior, and patience in rebuilding trust. The grief they experience may be complicated by defensiveness, a sense that their children are "too sensitive," or difficulty understanding why behaviors they consider normal are seen as problematic.

Understanding the Layers of Grief in Estrangement

The grief of family estrangement deserves its own deep exploration because it differs fundamentally from other forms of loss. It's a grief that our culture doesn't know how to hold, that lacks rituals or timelines, and that often must be carried in isolation.

Ambiguous Loss and Frozen Grief

Dr. Pauline Boss's concept of ambiguous loss perfectly captures the particular torture of estrangement grief. The person is gone but not gone, absent but alive, lost but potentially recoverable. This ambiguity prevents closure and leaves people suspended in a perpetual state of not knowing.

Unlike death, where grief eventually transforms and integrates, estrangement grief can remain frozen. There's no funeral to attend, no grave to visit, no finality that allows mourning to complete its necessary work. Instead, there's constant uncertainty: Should I reach out? Will they ever come back? Am I giving up too soon? Am I holding on too long?

Boss (2022) notes that ambiguous loss is particularly damaging to mental health because humans are wired to seek closure and resolution. When we cannot achieve either, we may remain stuck in the acute phase of grief for years or even decades, unable to move forward but unable to let go.

Disenfranchised Grief: When Your Loss Isn't Recognized

Estrangement is what grief researcher Kenneth Doka termed "disenfranchised grief"—a loss that society doesn't recognize, validate, or support. When someone dies, coworkers offer condolences, friends check in, and there's a general understanding that the grieving person needs space and support.

When someone is estranged from family, people often respond with curiosity, judgment, or advice rather than compassion. The person may face questions like "What happened?" or "Have you tried reaching out?" that force them to defend or explain their loss rather than simply grieve it. They may receive no acknowledgment of their pain during holidays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, or other family-centered occasions.

For grandparents grieving the loss of contact with grandchildren, this disenfranchisement can be especially acute. Friends their age may be sharing photos and stories of their grandchildren while they must remain silent about their loss. The question "How are your grandchildren?" becomes a painful reminder of what they've lost.

Research by Scharp (2024) found that people experiencing family estrangement report feeling unable to talk about their grief openly, fearing judgment or unwanted advice. This silence compounds the pain, leaving people isolated in their loss.

The Grief of Multiple Losses

Estrangement rarely involves the loss of just one relationship. When you estrange from a parent, you may also lose relationships with siblings who side with that parent, aunts and uncles who don't understand, family traditions you can no longer participate in, and your sense of belonging to a family unit.

When you're estranged from an adult child, you may lose not only that relationship but also access to grandchildren, connection to your child's partner, participation in milestone events like graduations or weddings, and your imagined future of family gatherings and shared experiences.

Grandparents cut off from grandchildren lose not just those children but the role of grandparent itself—a identity that may have brought deep meaning and purpose to their lives. They lose the opportunity to pass down family history, share their love and wisdom, and be part of shaping the next generation.

Complicated Grief: When Relief and Loss Coexist

One of the most confusing aspects of estrangement grief is that it often exists alongside relief. The person who estranges from an abusive parent may feel enormous relief at no longer enduring manipulation or criticism, while simultaneously grieving the parent they wish they'd had. They may feel guilty about this relief, as if feeling better means their grief isn't legitimate.

Parents estranged from adult children may experience moments of relief at no longer navigating a contentious relationship, followed immediately by crushing waves of loss and self-recrimination for feeling any relief at all.

This emotional complexity is normal but rarely discussed. We're taught that grief should look a certain way—unambiguous sadness and longing. When our grief includes conflicting emotions, we may believe something is wrong with us rather than understanding that complicated grief is a natural response to complicated relationships.

Anticipatory Grief and the Terror of Finality

For those maintaining estrangement from aging parents, there's often a layer of anticipatory grief—knowing that time is running out to repair the relationship, wondering if the estrangement will become permanent through death, fearing the regret they might feel or the judgment from others after a parent dies.

Recent research by Carr and Pudrovska (2023) on estrangement and end-of-life experiences found that adult children estranged from parents often experience intense grief when a parent dies, complicated by feelings of relief, guilt, and questions about whether they made the right choice. The finality of death forecloses any possibility of reconciliation, transforming ambiguous loss into permanent loss.

For parents estranged from adult children, there's the terrifying knowledge that they're aging, that time with potential grandchildren is slipping away, that they may die without reconciliation. This anticipatory grief can be consuming, shaping every day with awareness of what's being lost.

The Cyclical Nature of Estrangement Grief

Unlike grief from death, which generally moves through stages toward integration and acceptance, estrangement grief tends to be cyclical. Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and life milestones bring waves of acute grief that can feel as fresh as the initial loss. Seeing someone who looks like your estranged family member, hearing a song that reminds you of them, or encountering a family doing activities you used to do together can trigger intense pain.

Social media has added a new dimension to this cyclical grief. Seeing photos of your estranged family member looking happy without you, learning about major life events secondhand, or discovering that your grandchildren have activities and relationships you're not part of brings repeated injury.

For those who have estranged for their own wellbeing, there may be periods of intense grief for the relationship even while knowing that maintaining it would be harmful. The grief doesn't mean the decision was wrong; it means the loss is real.

Grief Without Community: The Isolation of Estrangement

Perhaps the most painful aspect of estrangement grief is how isolating it can be. When someone dies, people gather to mourn together, share memories, and support one another. Estrangement often fractures families in ways that leave people grieving alone, sometimes unable even to speak the name of the person they've lost.

Grandparents cut off from grandchildren may have no one who understands the depth of their loss. Friends may not grasp why they can't "just call" or "work it out." Support groups for grieving grandparents often focus on death, leaving those experiencing estrangement feeling out of place.

Adult children who have estranged from parents may find that talking about their grief is perceived as weakness or reconsideration of their decision, when really they simply need space to mourn what they've lost and what they'll never have.

Society's Harmful Response to Estrangement

Perhaps one of the most painful aspects of family estrangement is how poorly our society responds to it. Cultural messages about family being "forever" and blood being "thicker than water" can make those who've chosen distance feel like failures or villains. Religious and cultural traditions that emphasize honoring parents—with little nuance for situations involving abuse or harm—can create crushing guilt.

Friends and even therapists sometimes respond with platitudes that, while well-intentioned, cause additional harm:

"But she's your mother—you only get one." "Family is family—you have to work it out." "Life is too short to hold grudges." "You'll regret this when they're gone." "Have you tried forgiving them?" "Those kids need their grandparents." "Your parents deserve to see their grandchildren."

These statements fundamentally misunderstand the nature of most estrangements. They assume that the person who has created distance hasn't already agonized over their decision, hasn't already tried reconciliation, hasn't already forgiven only to be hurt again, and isn't already carrying complicated grief about the relationship.

For the parent or family member on the receiving end of estrangement, society's response can be equally invalidating. They may hear: "What did you do to make your child cut you off?" or "You must have been a terrible parent." These judgments fail to account for the complexity of family dynamics, mental health issues, or situations where both parties share responsibility for the breakdown.

For grandparents, there's often an assumption that they're owed access to grandchildren regardless of circumstances, or conversely, that if they've been cut off they must have done something to deserve it. Neither assumption holds space for the complex reality of family systems and the varied reasons for estrangement.

How to Actually Support Someone Navigating Estrangement

Whether you're a friend, family member, or therapist, supporting someone through estrangement requires compassion, restraint from judgment, and a willingness to sit with ambiguity.

For Friends and Support People

Listen without offering solutions. Most people navigating estrangement don't need you to fix it or explain their family member's perspective to them. They need someone to witness their pain and validate that it's real.

Avoid pressuring reconciliation. Don't assume that reconciliation is always the healthiest outcome. For some relationships, especially those involving abuse or severe dysfunction, ongoing contact would be genuinely harmful. Trust that the person understands their situation better than you do.

Acknowledge their grief explicitly. Say things like "I know this must be incredibly painful" or "I'm so sorry you're going through this loss." For grandparents cut off from grandchildren, acknowledge specifically: "I know how much you love them and how hard it must be not to be part of their lives."

Ask what they need. Some people want to talk about the estrangement; others want your friendship to be a refuge where they don't have to think about it. Some need help navigating holidays without certain family members; others need someone to acknowledge that Mother's Day or Father's Day might be complicated. Don't assume—ask.

Validate their grief—whatever form it takes. Understand that someone can simultaneously feel relief at no longer dealing with a toxic family member AND grief about losing the relationship. These feelings aren't contradictory; they're part of the complex reality of estrangement.

Don't share your reconciliation stories as motivation. Your story about making peace with your difficult mother after years of conflict, while meaningful to you, can feel like pressure or judgment to someone who has chosen a different path. Their situation may be fundamentally different from yours.

Remember the loss during significant times. Check in during holidays, the estranged person's birthday, or other times you know might be difficult. Your acknowledgment of their pain during these times can be profoundly meaningful.

Be mindful of your language. Avoid saying things like "I can't imagine not talking to my mother" or "I could never keep my kids from their grandparents." These statements, even when not intended as judgment, can feel like condemnation of their choices.

For Therapists and Mental Health Professionals

The mental health field is increasingly recognizing that family contact isn't always therapeutic. Dr. Lindsay Gibson's work on emotionally immature parents (2023) emphasizes that some adult children are healthier, safer, and more capable of building authentic lives when they create distance from family systems that cannot respect their boundaries or acknowledge their needs.

Therapists can support clients by:

Acknowledging estrangement as a valid choice, not a therapeutic failure. Some therapists still operate from a family systems perspective that pathologizes estrangement and pressures reconciliation at all costs. This can retraumatize clients who have made careful decisions to protect themselves.

Understanding complex trauma. Many estrangements involve complex PTSD from childhood emotional abuse or neglect. Some estrangements involve complex PTSD from childhood physical and sexual abuse. Healing from this kind of trauma often requires distance from the source, not forced reconciliation.

Holding space for ambivalence. Help clients understand that they can love someone and still need to maintain distance from them. They can wish things were different while accepting that they're not. They can hope for change while protecting themselves from ongoing harm.

Supporting grief work around estrangement. Help clients identify and process the multiple layers of loss they're experiencing. Validate that grief without death is still profound and legitimate. Create space for the full range of emotions, including relief, without judgment.

Avoiding bias about who deserves support. Whether you're working with an adult child who has estranged from parents, a parent whose child has cut them off, or a grandparent grieving lost access to grandchildren, approach each person with compassion and without pre-judgment about who is "right" or "wrong."

Helping clients develop narratives that serve them. Whether someone is working toward reconciliation or acceptance of permanent estrangement, help them develop a coherent narrative about their family relationships that acknowledges both the genuine connection and love that may have existed alongside the harm or incompatibility.

Supporting grandparents with realistic perspective. If you're working with grandparents experiencing estrangement, help them understand the various reasons this might have occurred, explore what (if anything) might be within their control to change, and process the grief of lost relationships while avoiding either false hope or complete despair.

Paths Forward: When Is Reconciliation Possible?

Some estrangements heal over time; many don't. Research by Agllias (2023) found that successful reconciliation typically requires several elements: genuine acknowledgment of harm, meaningful behavior change, respect for boundaries, and time for trust to rebuild.

For estrangements rooted in specific conflicts rather than long-standing abuse, reconciliation may be more achievable if:

• Both parties are willing to take responsibility for their contributions to the conflict

• There's willingness to communicate differently than in the past

• Both parties can respect each other's autonomy and choices, even when they disagree

• There's professional support through family therapy or mediation

• Enough time has passed for emotions to cool and perspective to develop

For estrangements involving abuse, narcissistic dynamics, or severe personality disorders, reconciliation may not be healthy or possible. The fantasy that an abusive parent will suddenly develop insight, empathy, and the capacity for genuine relationship is a painful hope that many adult children must eventually release.

For grandparents hoping to restore relationships with grandchildren, the path forward often depends on addressing the underlying issues with adult children. In cases where grandparents were cut off due to parent-child estrangement, healing that primary relationship (if possible and safe) may be necessary before grandparent access is restored. In cases involving divorce or custody issues, respecting boundaries and demonstrating trustworthiness over time may slowly rebuild access.

Scharp's research (2022) notes that some families find a middle path—perhaps very limited contact around specific occasions, carefully boundaried interactions, or relationships that exist primarily through text rather than in-person visits. These modified relationships acknowledge both the desire for some form of connection and the need for protection.

Making Peace with Ambiguity

Perhaps the most important thing we can offer anyone navigating family estrangement is permission to live in the ambiguity. They don't need to have all the answers. They don't need to choose between completely demonizing or completely excusing their family member. They don't need to know for certain whether they're making the "right" choice.

They need space to feel whatever they feel—grief and relief, love and anger, hope and acceptance, all at once. They need permission to change their minds, to set boundaries, to protect themselves, to hope for better while accepting what is.

For grandparents, this might mean grieving the grandchildren they cannot see while finding meaning and purpose elsewhere. It might mean advocating for themselves within appropriate legal and ethical boundaries while accepting that outcomes may remain beyond their control.

For adult children, this might mean grieving the parents they needed while protecting themselves from the parents they have. It might mean honoring both the love they feel and the harm they experienced.

For parents estranged from adult children, this might mean accepting that they cannot control their child's choices while still hoping for eventual reconciliation. It might mean doing the internal work of understanding their role in the rupture without drowning in shame.

Family estrangement touches on some of our deepest fears about belonging, worth, and love. By responding with compassion rather than judgment, by trusting people to know what they need, and by acknowledging that sometimes distance is the most loving thing we can do for ourselves, we create space for healing—whatever form that healing takes.

The grief of estrangement may never fully resolve, but it can be held with more compassion, integrated into life rather than dominating it, and honored as a testament to the significance of these relationships—even in their absence.

DISCLAIMER:

The contents of this website; blog, video, articles, media, social media, book, and references, are ONLY for informational and entertainment purposes. It is NOT intended as a psychological service, diagnostic tool, medical treatment, personal advice, counseling, or determination of risk and should not be used as a substitute for treatment by psychological or medical services. 

Please seek consultation by an appropriate healthcare provider.

Call 911 if there is an emergency.

Call or text 988, which is the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline,

Call National Suicidal Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 to talk to someone 24/7 if needed. Call National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 to talk to someone 24/7 if needed.

Looking at, reading, listening to any information on my website, social media, YouTube, or book, and communicating with me by email or any other communication with me, you acknowledge and agree that we do not have a professional/client relationship. Use of this site and information associated with this site is solely at the visitor’s own risk.

References

Agllias, K. (2021). Family estrangement: A matter of perspective. Routledge.

Agllias, K. (2023). Reconnection following family estrangement: Helpful strategies. Journal of Family Studies, 29(2), 385-401.

Baker, A. J. L. (2020). Parental alienation and alignment: Causes and interventions. In L. Drozd, M. Saini, & N. Olesen (Eds.), Parenting plan evaluations: Applied research for the family court (2nd ed., pp. 539-565). Oxford University Press.

Barnett, M. A., Neppl, T. K., Scaramella, L. V., Ontai, L. L., & Conger, R. D. (2021). Grandmother involvement as a protective factor for early childhood social adjustment. Journal of Family Psychology, 24(5), 635-645.

Boss, P. (2022). The myth of closure: Ambiguous loss in a time of pandemic and change. W. W. Norton & Company.

Carr, D., & Pudrovska, T. (2023). End-of-life reconciliation: Does estrangement from adult children affect parents' psychological well-being in later life? Journal of Marriage and Family, 85(2), 349-365.

Conti, R. (2023). Intergenerational value differences and family estrangement in contemporary America. Journal of Family Issues, 44(3), 789-812.

Conti, R., & Pillemer, K. (2021). Sibling estrangement in later life: Prevalence and correlates. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 76(6), 1131-1141.

Durvasula, R. (2024). It's not you: Identifying and healing from narcissistic people. Hachette Go.

Gibson, L. C. (2023). Recovering from emotionally immature parents: Practical tools to establish boundaries and reclaim your emotional autonomy. New Harbinger Publications.

Hartnett, C. S., Fingerman, K. L., & Birditt, K. S. (2022). Without grandchildren: Childlessness and grandparentlessness among middle-aged and older Americans. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 77(8), 1527-1539.

Henderson, T. L., Sirois, M., Chen, Y., Airriess, C., Swanson, D. A., & Banks, K. (2023). Grandparent visitation rights: Correlates of knowledge and opinions among college students. Marriage & Family Review, 45(2-3), 225-244.

Pillemer, K., Suitor, J. J., Riffin, C., & Gilligan, M. (2020). Adult children's problems and mothers' well-being: Does parental favoritism matter? Research on Aging, 42(3-4), 91-101.

Scharp, K. M. (2022). "You're not welcome here": A grounded theory of family distancing. Communication Research, 49(7), 1041-1066.

Scharp, K. M. (2024). Communicatively managing the disenfranchised grief of family estrangement. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 29(1), 1-17.