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. Send an email to Janet@jesteinkamp. It is not possible to respond to your Fan Mail posts directly.
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.
