Why cutting off your child is a mistake #parenting #family

What should parents do when their adult child keeps making bad choices? A lot of times you'll see parents who lay down the law with a child, an adult child they think is messing up, and they come to a point where they say that if you're not going to change your ways, that's it. We're cutting you off. When a parent makes a move like that, it only further pushes the child from the parents' values. A child who's making decisions that veer from the values with which they were raised is only expressing the fact that they already feel emotionally removed from their identity as a member of this family. So, the antidote is the exact opposite. An adult child who's drifting from the ways of the family needs to be brought back into the fold. Every human being wants to feel like they belong somewhere, and ideally, everyone's first choice is their family. People seek belonging outside of their family only because, by necessity, they weren't able to find it with their family. But, if given the option, any healthy, normal person wants to feel that their primary [snorts] sense of identity and belonging comes from their family. But, a child who's drifting from the values of the family, the answer is not to push them even further away. It's to bring them closer and to become more present in their life.