In this episode of the Parent Whisperer podcast, host Richard R. Ramos opens with a dramatized vignette about a father named Jerry who, after a pattern of angry, authoritarian parenting, realizes he is pushing his teenage daughter away and apologizes, rebuilding a bridge. Ramos then connects this story to his own experience with a stepson whose relationship deteriorated into conflict and estrangement. He emphasizes that secure attachment can still be formed with older children or adult children, but it requires the parent to turn inward, answer three self‑reflection questions (desire for secure attachment, commitment to the long haul, willingness to own one’s contribution), and work on themselves rather than trying to fix the child. Ramos references Byron Katie’s “Loving What Is” and the pivotal question, “How do you feel when you think those thoughts?” as a tool for recognizing and releasing unhelpful emotions. He then outlines six practical principles for reconnecting with estranged teens or adult children: (1) Lead with consistent respect, even when not reciprocated; (2) Seek first to understand before seeking to be understood (a Stephen Covey insight); (3) Repair, don’t just resume – acknowledge pain and own one’s part; (4) Create small, low‑pressure moments of connection; (5) Let actions speak louder than words, making consistent “deposits” into the emotional bank account; (6) Be authentic, vulnerable, genuine, and transparent, recognizing that personal growth yields the “law of the harvest” – sowing consistent effort will eventually reap secure attachment and relational harmony. The episode concludes with a call to subscribe, leave a review for a contest, and visit the podcast website for a free gift.
If you're a parent looking for sound, solid advice on how to raise your child in an ever-increasing dangerous world, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Richard Ramos.
You're going to lose your girls. I told the man in my office, "You don't have a chance." Unless you start making some massive changes now, and even now, it may be too late. The words shook him, but he needed shaking. Jerry was the kind of man who liked laying down the law and roaring out commands. Tenderness did not seem to be in his vocabulary. As a result, he had filled his 3 teenage daughters with anger. A few days later, he remembered our conversation at a critical moment. He had had his fill of his middle daughter Leanne's phone conversations with boyfriends. That's enough! he snarled. Maybe you need all your phone privileges revoked. I think you do, and that's the way it's going to be. Weeping, she ran upstairs. He stood at the bottom of the stairs and watched her. It was all too familiar. Angry father standing stiffly at the bottom of the stairs, weeping angry daughter hurrying away from him. Dear God, he thought, I'm doing it again. I'm pushing her away. I've got to do something. So he called to her tenderly, in a voice she rarely heard. Leanne, honey, Daddy was so wrong to say what I just said. She froze on the stairway, her back to him, not believing her ears. I'm so sorry for the way I've treated you, he went on. I love you, Leanne. Would you, could you forgive me? Suddenly she was down the stairs and in his arm, They held each other for a long time. Jerry realized what anger was doing to his family, and just in time, he built a bridge. Hello everybody, and welcome to the Parent Whisperer Podcast. I'm Richard Ramos, your host. In our last episode, I talked about how to prevent drug use, drug abuse, and mental health disorders. And the key to prevention was what clinical psychologists called the secure attachment. But most of what I talked about was the importance of creating a secure attachment with your infants and small children. But what about parents who were listening, or are listening, or were listening to that message and thinking? Oh, I wish I would have known all this before, but it's too late, and I never connected with my son or daughter that way. But I told you last week that I would come back in this episode and talk about how it's not too late to make this secure attachment with your older kids whom you might feel you missed your window of opportunity And I mentioned last week that the good news is, again, it's not too late. So, in my own experience with this, I had with one of my stepsons who I've been raising since he was, I don't know, three or four years old. And as he got older, we just began to clash and have fights and arguments, and just things got ugly and. He left for a while, and, you know, things have just not— over the years have not been great. But the change began to take place once I realized that I was only adding to the problem of our contentious relationship. Just like in the story I read, this man was being counseled and told, you're going to lose your daughters, and he's always yelling at them and laying down the law. And in the story I read, but there was that one moment where he realized that the turning point in the relationship when he realized, oh my God, what am I doing? Here I go again. My daughter's running away from me. And he caught himself and said, I've got to do something, which he did. He humbled himself and Spoke in a different voice and apologized. And it was the same for me. I had to do some soul-searching because what I was doing wasn't working, and I really had to think about it and answer 3 basic questions. Number one, do I want to make a secure attachment in this contentious relationship? Well, the answer was yes, I do. I wanted to fix this. But I had to stop trying to fix him and fix me. Number 2, the question was, am I in it for the long haul? Because these things don't happen quickly. There's no quick fix when things— these kinds of relationships are contentious. And yeah, again, yes, I'm in it for the long haul. And number 3, am I willing to be honest about how I am contributing to our problems and take responsibility for my own stuff? Well, the obvious answer is yes. So in other words, in order for us to make this secure attachment— okay, maybe we didn't make it when they were younger, but it's not too late. Even with our adult children, it's not too late. But the key is we need to get our emotional focus off of our child or children and go within ourselves, within our own heart. Now, one of the things during this process that I was going through that really helped me, and I want to reference this for you, was a book by a woman named Byron Katie. It's called Loving What Is. Now, you may or may not know or ever heard of Byron Katie. I hadn't. I came across her just in the research I was doing to just help myself and work on myself. But I really highly recommend her book, or you could even go on YouTube and look up Byron, B-Y-R-O-N, Katie, and you can see her working with people live on stage in the process that she calls the work on YouTube. And I'm not going to try to explain the whole process that she calls the work here because I don't know it well enough and I'm not qualified to teach it. But there's one question As I went through it myself, that she tells you to ask yourself when you're complaining about somebody, or you're mad at them, or you're upset at them, you're frustrated, you know, that whole thing. She says, okay, well, here's one question. There's a number of questions, but the one question that got me was, how do you feel when you think those thoughts? Anger, frustration, you know, it's their fault, all this. If he would only— all of that. How do you feel when you think those thoughts about this person? Well, obviously not very good. And the point is, well, then it's up to you. You can choose not to think those thoughts so you won't feel the ugliness you're feeling and just accept what is. Because the truth is, we can't change other people. And so that was my experience. But let me get back to the subject at hand here, and I want to share with you some of the principles that I teach in Parents on a Mission. But the key is to remember that using these principles and seeing them work, as I have seen, Depends on you working on yourself, not your child. I like the story I always refer to. It's called The Instant Millionaire, if you've ever heard the story. But in one of the chapters, he's teaching this young apprentice about how to have the mindset of a millionaire, and he teaches him that you can be the rose and the gardener At the same time. In other words, you can work on yourself, and that is the key. So I just want to share 5 principles for you to think about in this process of reconnecting with an estranged teenager or child or even an adult that you've had a broken relationship with. So number one is to lead with consistent respect. Even when it's not returned. Okay, so you start to respect your teenager, and well, for them, you know, it's a test whether they can trust you or not. And they might just reject it or ignore you because there's been trust broken. So the key there is to keep our tone, our words, our actions respectful. And consistent. And that over time is going to have a very positive effect because right now they're not ready. Secondly is a principle I learned from Stephen Covey: seek first to understand them before you seek to be understood by them. So that's very important that we're— okay, let me understand where you're coming from. And then instead of starting to explain or apologize, it's better to just listen. Ask open-ended questions and really listen without interrupting, defending, or correcting. Seek to understand before you seek to be understood. Number 3, repair, don't just resume. Don't assume there's a quick fix here. It's not going to happen. You can't simply pick up where you left off, you know, when it was good, and now all this stuff has happened, all this junk has happened, and then you just want to go right back to the point where you were doing good. It doesn't work that way. So we got to repair. We have to acknowledge the pain, name my part in that, and own my part without making excuses. Repair, don't just resume. Number 4, create small low-pressure moments of connection. So instead of saying, well, you know, we need to have a talk and have this big talk. Well, you know, I've done that many times. It didn't work. But just look for natural everyday chances to connect. Maybe you're just eating dinner or you're just taking them to school in a short ride, or you're watching TV together, and you can just keep it light and positive and just, you know, have some interaction, some conversation, not about what's going on, the problem, just making that connection of being genuine and sincere, and you're just trying to have a quick short conversation. Number 5, Let actions speak louder than words. I mean, that's nothing new. That's nothing we don't know. But again, it's not about what we know. It's about what we do. And if we say we know something and we're not doing it, then we don't know it. We all know that actions speak louder than words, but the key is to be consistent over time and prove that our intention is sincere. Keep your word. Follow through on the promises. Show up when you say you're going to show up. And whatever boundaries you've agreed on, maintain those boundaries. And these kind of things are what are called daily deposits in the emotional bank account. The trust— you're building trust. It's like putting money in a bank. And you're not making withdrawals on that account to the point where you overdraw your account, but you are consistently depositing trust in the emotional bank account of your son or your daughter. Little deposits. They don't always have to be big. They can just be small but consistent deposits that you're building up that trust and consistency over time. And finally, number 6. Again, when I think about myself and I think about just— this doesn't have to be deep and psychological and so really difficult if we can just be authentic, be vulnerable. Be genuine and transparent. And all of those things, as you already know what I'm going to say because I say it all the time— authenticity, vulnerable, genuine, and transparent takes emotional maturity, personal growth. And that is why working on ourselves is the key, because by doing these things on a consistent basis, you are putting the law of the harvest on your side. And what that means is that we are going to reap what we sow. That is the law of the harvest. That's how it works. And we all know that no farmer reaps a harvest overnight. It's that plowing, it's that planting, it's that watering, it's that cultivation season after season. But the law is What you sow, that is what you are going to reap. And if we can be consistent with these six things that I've just shared, you are putting the law of the harvest on your side, and in due season you will reap your harvest. Or in other words, you will make that secure. You will reestablish, let me say, the secure attachment that brings harmony and peace and happiness. And that's what you want in your relationship that may have been broken years before. You've been listening to the Parent Whisperer podcast. I'm Richard Ramos. Be sure to subscribe. Be sure to leave a review, and be sure to share these episodes with anybody that you know this would help them. This would be a source of encouragement. And always remember this: Parents on a Mission is not for bad parents; it's for good parents. That want to get better. See you next time.
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