Staying Connected: The Psychology of Being a Supportive, Caring Parent
By Dr. Jenn Merthe-Grayson, Licensed Clinical Psychologist
Many parents worry about losing closeness with their children-especially as kids grow into teens and adults. Estrangement is more openly discussed today, and while it’s painful to think about, it also offers an invitation: to parent with greater emotional awareness, humility, and care.
Why Emotional Attunement Matters
Healthy parent-child relationships thrive on attunement-the ability to sense, understand, and respond to your child’s emotional world. Children who feel seen and respected learn that their feelings are valid and manageable. Over time, this builds secure attachment and resilience.
When attunement breaks down-through criticism, control, dismissiveness, or unprocessed parental stress-children often protect themselves by withdrawing. As adults, that withdrawal can look like emotional distance or even estrangement.
Being a caring, supportive parent means practicing curiosity instead of control, empathy instead of judgment, and connection instead of correction.
Psychological Strategies for Supportive Parenting
Regulate before you relate.
Your child’s emotional storms will trigger your own nervous system. Before responding, take a pause to breathe, center, and ask, “What is my child’s feeling trying to communicate?” Regulation precedes connection.Validate experience-even when you disagree.
Validation isn’t permission; it’s acknowledgment. Saying, “I can see that was really hard for you,” tells your child their emotions make sense, even if their behavior needs boundaries.Shift from fixing to listening.
Many parents try to solve problems out of love-but this can signal mistrust in a child’s competence. Listening without advice builds autonomy and trust.Own your part openly.
When you lose patience or misread a moment, repair it. “I was short with you earlier, and that wasn’t fair. I want to do better.” Small repairs are psychological glue-they teach accountability and safety.Respect developing independence.
Especially with adult children, love must evolve. Support their choices without managing them. Ask before offering advice. Emotional closeness grows when respect for boundaries deepens.Nurture your own identity and regulation.
A grounded parent creates a grounded family. When you care for your mental health, relationships, and stress levels, you model emotional responsibility-not self-sacrifice.
The Deeper Work: Parenting from the Inside Out
Being a supportive parent requires self-awareness. Many adults unconsciously parent from their own unmet needs-longing for appreciation, closeness, or control. Reflecting on your emotional patterns helps you respond to your child’s world rather than reenacting your own past.
Therapeutically, this is the shift from reactive parenting to reflective parenting: moving from instinct to intention, from defending to understanding.
🪴 Reflective Prompts for Emotionally Attuned Parenting
These prompts are designed to help parents slow down, reflect, and realign with their values of empathy, connection, and respect. Take your time-there are no right answers. The goal is to cultivate self-awareness, not self-criticism.
🌿 Emotional Awareness
What emotions most often arise for me in parenting (e.g., frustration, fear, worry, pride)?
When I feel triggered, what tends to be underneath that reaction-fear of losing control, being disrespected, or feeling unappreciated?
How do I typically respond when my child expresses strong emotions? How might they experience my response?
💬 Communication and Repair
When conflict happens, do I tend to defend, withdraw, or try to fix things immediately?
How comfortable am I apologizing to my child when I’ve overreacted or misunderstood?
What does “repair” look like in our home, and what message does it send about love and accountability?
🪞 Boundaries and Independence
Where do I struggle most with giving my child autonomy?
What fears surface when my child makes choices I don’t agree with?
How can I express love and respect for their growing independence while still offering guidance?
🌱 Modeling Emotional Regulation
What coping skills do I actively model (e.g., deep breathing, time-outs for myself, open discussion of feelings)?
When I’m dysregulated, how do I reconnect with calm before re-engaging with my child?
What kind of emotional climate do I want my child to remember about our home?
💖 Connection and Presence
What are small daily moments of connection that help my child feel seen and safe?
How can I show curiosity about their inner world rather than focusing on performance or behavior?
When was the last time I expressed unconditional warmth without any correction, advice, or instruction?
🕊️ Self-Compassion for the Parent Self
In what ways do I offer myself grace for being human and imperfect?
How can I nurture my own emotional needs so I don’t seek fulfillment through my child?
What helps me reconnect to the kind of parent I want to be, not just the one I’m trying to avoid becoming?
Reflection Tip: Choose one section per week. Journal briefly, or simply sit with one question during a quiet moment. Small, consistent self-reflection is how emotional attunement grows.
When Connection Falters
Even loving families can experience conflict or distance. If communication has grown strained, approach it with gentleness:
“I notice we’ve been disconnected lately, and I miss you. I’d like to understand how you’re feeling.”
Avoid defending your past actions; focus instead on understanding their present emotions. Healing and connection often begin not with a solution, but with sincere presence.
Dr. Jenn Merthe-Grayson is a licensed clinical psychologist accepting new patients throughout Ohio. She specializes in emotionally attuned parenting, couples therapy, and family healing. She accepts Aetna, Medical Mutual, Cigna, Anthem, and other major insurance plans.
💔 Holidays After Divorce: Finding Stability in the Season of Change
By: Dr. Jennifer Merthe-Grayson, Licensed Clinical Psychologist
The holidays are often portrayed as joyful and connected-but for those navigating divorce or separation, they can stir grief, uncertainty, and emotional fatigue. What once felt familiar may now feel fractured, and even simple moments-decorating a tree, wrapping gifts, sitting at a table with one less chair—can bring up a deep ache of loss.
🌙 The Psychology of Holiday Grief
Divorce is not only a legal process-it’s an emotional reorganization. The mind must recalibrate its sense of identity, family, and safety. During the holidays, this recalibration can feel especially raw.
Attachment disruption: Divorce changes the emotional home base. Our brains are wired for connection, and losing a partner (even an unhealthy one) can activate the same neural circuits as physical pain.
Role confusion: Traditions and routines often serve as anchors. When those change, it can lead to identity uncertainty-Who am I now? What does family look like for me?
Cognitive dissonance: You may hold conflicting truths-feeling both freedom and grief, relief and loneliness. This ambivalence is normal and psychologically adaptive as you process loss.
Social comparison and shame: Seeing intact families on social media or in gatherings can trigger social pain, a form of psychological distress that mirrors physical pain in brain imaging studies.
🧠 Emotional Regulation Through Change
Therapeutic work after divorce focuses on helping the nervous system and sense of self find new equilibrium. A few evidence-based principles can help:
Ground yourself in the present. Holidays can amplify nostalgia and “what-if” thinking. Grounding techniques-like orienting to sensory details or mindful breathing-help re-anchor you in the now.
Reframe traditions. Rather than replicate the past, allow space for something new: new rituals, new foods, new locations, or new people. This signals to the brain that life continues and can still hold joy.
Normalize emotional complexity. Grief and gratitude can coexist. You may feel joy decorating with your children and sadness about doing it alone. Both are valid.
Protect your energy. Divorce recovery is taxing on the nervous system. Choose events, conversations, and company that promote safety and regulation, not guilt or pressure.
Focus on co-parenting stability. If children are involved, structure and predictability are healing. Create clear plans, communicate respectfully, and avoid using the holidays as emotional battlegrounds.
🕯️ Creating Meaning and Connection
Healing after divorce often means redefining what connection looks like. Supportive friendships, family of choice, faith communities, or even quiet solo rituals can restore emotional warmth.
Psychologically, this fosters resilience and neural flexibility-the brain’s capacity to adapt to loss by forming new pathways of attachment and meaning.
And remember: healing is nonlinear. Some years will feel tender; others will feel surprisingly peaceful. Both are progress.
✨ Closing Thought
This season, give yourself permission to grieve, rest, and rebuild. Healing isn’t about recreating what was-it’s about creating what can be.
Dr. Jenn Merthe-Grayson is a licensed clinical psychologist in Ohio specializing in relationship transitions, divorce recovery, and emotional healing. She accepts Aetna, Medical Mutual, Cigna, Anthem, and other major insurances and offers telehealth appointments.
💔 Estrangement and the Holidays: The Psychology of Missing, Mending, or Maintaining Distance
By: Dr. Jennifer Merthe-Grayson, Licensed Clinical Psychologist
The holidays often stir up emotions we think we’ve tucked away. For those living with estrangement, the season can feel especially heavy-filled with the ache of what could have been and the pressure of what “should” be.
🌙 The Silent Grief of Estrangement
Estrangement carries a unique kind of grief-what psychologists call ambiguous loss. It’s the experience of losing someone who is still alive. The person is physically absent but emotionally present, leaving you suspended between longing and self-protection.
This grief is layered: sadness, guilt, anger, relief, even shame. Estrangement may have developed slowly-through boundary violations, emotional neglect, or repeated invalidation-or it may have been a necessary act of self-preservation. Yet, the holidays-with their traditions and cultural messages about family unity-often reopen those wounds.
🧠 The Psychology Behind Estrangement
From a clinical perspective, estrangement touches many psychological systems:
Attachment: The holidays can reactivate old attachment wounds around belonging and rejection. You might find yourself craving closeness while simultaneously needing distance.
Cognitive Dissonance: Holding two conflicting truths-“I love them” and “being near them hurts me”-can create deep emotional stress.
Societal Shame: Messages like “family is everything” can compound guilt or make healthy distance feel like failure.
Trauma Activation: Even small reminders-holiday music, family photos, certain foods-can trigger the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses, leaving you tense or emotionally drained.
Understanding these internal systems can help transform what feels confusing into something comprehensible and manageable.
🕊️ Coping and Healing Through the Season
Healing doesn’t always mean reconciliation. Sometimes, it means finding peace with reality as it is. A few therapy-informed approaches include:
Normalize the complexity. Estrangement can bring both relief and sorrow. Multiple emotions can be true at once.
Define your boundaries, not your blame. Healthy limits protect you-they aren’t punishments or ultimatums.
Honor the grief. Write an unsent letter, light a candle, or create a ritual of remembrance. Grief doesn’t require an audience.
Anticipate triggers. Plan ahead for difficult moments-prepare grounding techniques, limit exposure to painful reminders, and build in time for rest and reflection.
Seek repair only when readiness meets safety. Reconnection, if desired, works best when both sides show accountability, empathy, and sustained change. Evidence-based models like Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) or Family Systems Theory emphasize pacing, structure, and emotional safety.
🌤️ Redefining What Family Means
You’re allowed to build a holiday that reflects your truth. Chosen family, supportive friendships, and rituals that align with your values can all bring meaning and belonging. Healing means integration—acknowledging the past while creating peace in the present.
✨ Remember: You are not broken for needing space. You are healing by choosing emotional safety over obligation.
Dr. Jenn Merthe-Grayson is a licensed clinical psychologist in Ohio specializing in complex family dynamics, estrangement, and relational healing. She accepts Aetna, Medical Mutual, Cigna, Anthem, and other major insurances and offers both in-person and telehealth appointments.