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When Our Adult Children Walk Away
My story. Reflecting my experiences, observations and perspective - in my words.
In the early spring of 2019, under the influence of her gatekeeper-partner, in the heart of the global pandemic. After several years of trying to sort through our differences, my (young) adult daughter made the heartbreaking choice to cut all communication with our family.
My name is Dr. Janet Steinkamp, and the reason for this podcast is simple. During the long, dark hours of my isolation and desperation, I decided to use my formal training and professional experience to help people struggling to understand how to strengthen their communication styles and interpersonal behavior to rebuild a fracturing relationship. I pivoted from decades of work in medical education and communication to work with families.
I now coach people, both parents and adult children, through the dark days, isolation, and pain of estrangement from their parent or adult child. We work to find hope and look toward the future, to grow despite and because of their estrangement, and find strategies that help them prepare to strengthen and rebuild their fractured relationship.
When you are ready to walk through the hot coals of self-reflection toward self-discovery - to prepare for repair - I'm here to walk alongside you.
I can't promise reconnection, I can and will help you find clarity, purpose and strength as you prepare for opportunities to establish respectful, trusting communication.
When Our Adult Children Walk Away
When It Was Us - Episode 1: How We Got Here (audio only)
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What does estrangement actually look like before it happens? In this deeply personal episode, Dr. Janet Steinkamp does something she has never done before — she opens up about her own estrangement, inviting her daughter Brianna to join her for a candid, unfiltered conversation about the years that led up to Bri walking away from their family.
This is Part One of a three-part series. Together, Janet and Bri go back to the very beginning — tracing the roots of their disconnect through childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. What they find isn't one dramatic moment or a single unforgivable event. It's something far more familiar: the quiet accumulation of small things. A community obsessed with perfection. A home where honesty was punished the same as a lie. A daughter who learned to keep her guard up and manage everyone else's emotions while her own went unspoken.
This is the story of the start - the foundation. And it probably sounds more like your family than you expect.
The video recording of this episode is also available on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/@Dr.Steinkamp
**If you have questions or would like to talk about this episode, please join us during Office Hours for a live discussion May 24th. Register at:
https://www.whenouradultchildrenwalkaway.com/office-hours
IN THIS EPISODE
- Why growing up in a community that valued perfection made it nearly impossible for Bri to feel safe being herself.
- How being punished for honesty and lying equally taught Bri that hiding was the only rational choice.
- The moment Janet realizes she didn't just raise a child, she raised someone who was quietly managing everyone else's emotions.
- The college graduation moment that changed everything, the first time Bri felt her mother was proud of her, not just her accomplishments.
- How "helicopter parents who never parked the helicopter" set the stage for what came next.
COMING UP IN THIS SERIES
In Part Two, The Silence, Bri talks about her decision to walk away. And the family went quiet. Janet and Bri will talk about what that silence actually looked like from both sides: what Bri was feeling during those years apart, what Janet was feeling, and what it does to a parent — and a child — to disappear from each other's lives.
In Part Three — The Long Way Back — they'll share what it took to find their way back to each other, and how the relationship they have today is more honest, more joyful, and more real than anything they had before they fell apart. That part of the story is possible. That is what this podcast exists to tell you.
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.