How To Deal With A Child’s Rejection

How do you execute unconditional love and forgive when your son has rejected you?

It is a process of back and forth, forgetting, forgiving and moving on. It is a moment by moment work that is painful and necessary at the same time.

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poem of son

My Heart To Yours

I am speaking from the heart. I know what you are going through, and I can talk to your heart. Your soul that aches every day to have the son you use to have.

I know that your heart yearns to have a relationship of love and laughter with your son like it was before.

But that time is gone and a new day has dawned. How do you keep going every day and deal with the loss and regret?

I can let you know how I have done it, and give you strength and hope for the future. I have spent so much time thinking about this issue that I feel I can speak freely and give it to you straight.

Please give me a moment to say that this post is for you. It is not for me to moan and groan or tell you what has happened. It doesn’t matter what took place, but only how do you get through the days ahead.

His Heart Is In You

You may have given birth to your son, or he may have come into your life differently. The pain is still the same. It is one that affects the heart and every core fiber in your body and spiritual world.

It smothers you and causes sleepless nights. You wonder how can a person you have loved and shown love toward do things to cause you pain.

girl with hands over heart

Why Is This Happening?

Your son is not doing this to cause you pain. The world revolves around him and not how you feel. He is not thinking clearly because of drugs or criminal actions, involvement with an unhealthy person, or a warped perception.

He believes you are here to take care of him, or you are here to harm him. Your son could be sane and persuaded the wrong way, for he could be mentally unstable.

Again, the real reason is not the issue. You have to stop trying to figure out what the reason is. Knowing the cause does not change the outcome. Your son is no longer in your life because of the choices he made.

Tough Love

He chose to go down the wrong path or listen to another that is untruthful. You did not hold his hand and lead him in this direction, and you can not lead him out of this path.

Your son is not doing this to cause you pain. The world revolves around him and not how you feel. He is not thinking clearly

You will need to break the ties to protect yourself and attempt to elicit responsibility from him with the use of tough love. You can not change him. He will have to decide to change himself.

Rejection

If your son has rejected you, then you may want to attempt to repair the relationship. But again, you cannot force him to mend a relationship with you.

Here in this article, I am going to dig deeper into a son who has rejected you for any number of reasons.

Initial Reaction

  1. You beg: It hurts, and you can not understand what has happened, so you resort to begging your son to stop this behavior. You can’t believe it has happened, so you continue to communicate with him any way you can, which will only intensify the rejection.

a woman crying

2. You ask him to explain what you did wrong. If he has rejected you, then you must have done something wrong. Why else would he do this?

3. You give up all self-respect and drop all boundaries to reach your son. You will do almost anything to have the relationship you had before.

4. You blame yourself for everything. It must have been the mistakes you made that caused this problem.

Forgiveness and Grace

Anger

  1. Treatment: you become angry because of the way he treated you. You blame him for what has happened.
  2. You raised him: you roll the situation over in your mind minute by minute. You don’ even understand what happened, but the anger comes in waves. How dare he do this to you when you tried to so hard to protect him and raise him the best you could.
  3. Never Repaired: What if you or he dies before you reconcile? You are mad because you know he doesn’t think of these things. You don’t want him to feel guilty because of wasted time.
  4. Control: You know he is making a big mistake, but you can not control the outcome, and it makes you angry

Acceptance

Then one day, you wake up, and you have peace. How did that happen?

  1.  Forgiveness: You have forgiven in your heart. You forgave you, and you have forgiven your son.
  2. Reasons don’t matter: you realize that the reasons this all happened are not the issue, nor will it change any of the problems.

hands held out with a daisy

3. Change: you know you can not change another person. That person has to want to forgive and change. He has to want to be a part of your life. You can not force him to accept who you are.

4. Respect: you regain respect for yourself. You did the best you can, and for anyone to treat you as poorly as he did is not a reflection on who you are.

5. Letting go. Your son is not yours to keep. He was yours for a time and has chosen not to be in your life. Turn him over to the Lord in prayer.

You, Forgiveness, and Children

Hope

  1. You always carry hope in your heart that one day he will call or show up on your doorstep, but you do not dwell on it.
  2. You know if the Day of Reconciliation comes, you will forgive and forget and accept him back into your fold.

You have to go through the process that I did. But with my experience here written out for you to see, maybe, you can move through your initial reaction and anger to acceptance and hope.

Acceptance and hope will give you the peace that you crave. It does not give you answers. You may never have the answer, but you will live your life to the fullest. Even without your son, you can move forward and live.

Please Remember

Please remember, do not stoop so low that you allow your son to steal your self-respect. Do not accept all of the guilt and responsibility for the choice he made. Do not let him treat you poorly.

You raised him to the best of your ability, and he can forgive you for your mistakes just like anyone else in this world. Forgiveness is a choice and not a mandatory part of life.

index finger with string around it, remember

Making that choice is something he has to do individually and set apart from you and your actions.

I made it sound a bit easier than it is. I know you hurt, and I know how painful it is. But if you let it go, you will still be OK, and you will again breathe in the air around you.

Has your son rejected you? Is the pain more than you think you can handle? Please share your story with us and let us know how you made it through.

Please leave comments, questions and shares in the comment section below. I am here to answer any questions and assist you on your road out of the tunnel of pain that life handed you.

12 thoughts on “How To Deal With A Child’s Rejection”

  1. Hi there! First of all, I would like to thank you for this amazing and awesome subject you’ve threated in your post, I have 3 kids and I can confirm all the points that you’ve mentioned in your article. That helped me to have a clear vision about what going on in my rapport with my kids. I will be sharing this. 

    Reply
    • You are so welcome. I hope all is good for you and your kids. If I can answer any questions please let me know. Thank You for sharing. 

      Reply
  2. Thank you for such an amazing article about how to deal with a child’s rejection. Your explanations are excellent and will help me immensely.

    I have a 13 year old child and I get hit by these problems quite often. I have read many articles on the internet, but this is the best I have found.

    Thanks again for this post. If you don’t mind, I will share this article on my social media account. Good luck!

    Reply
    • Yes, teenagers are difficult at times. I would appreciate the share. It may help more people. Thank you so much.

      Reply
  3. Most people do not go further from Anger within your proposed path to overcome your own son’s rejection.

    >Initial Reaction >Anguer >Acceptance >Hope

    You can never be a good son without having tried to be a good father. It’s being a father at teaches you the better way how to be a good son. If humans could recall memories from our early childhood, humanity would be a much better one.

    If you get the chance to talk to your son during the Initial Reaction, you should try to tag his feelings so he could become aware of them. We are so free to feel, that sometimes we could do that not getting any consciousness of it.

    During the Anger period, remember our children are just borrowed. We sacrificed things only ourselves could know; but it’s important to remember, they didn’t ask you to bring them to this world.

    Acceptance and forgiveness are the keys to make your relation sustainable. You always will be his mother, but he could behave as if he ha never gotten one (Respect his decisions and offer your help allowing some space for him to take responsibility for his acts).

    Hope, this is really everything we have!

    Reply
    • Juan, It is important that we accept anger as an emotion we can have. Anger is not a bad word. It is how we react to our feelings of anger that determines if it is functional or not. 

      Forgiveness is very important. We forgive so we too can be forgiven. But the sad part is just because we handle things properly and forgive it is not a guarantee of reconciliation. 

      Respect is also very important between both. It sounds like you are familiar with rejection. Maybe you have been the one who has rejected one of your parents. 

      I wish for your heart much acceptance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. 

      Reply
  4. It truly breaks my heart to think that a child would desert a mother but in your post you have wise words for coping with the guilt and the anger.

    Hopefully to understand that we can’t always control things in our life and it is ok to grieve. There is a time to just let it go, accept and move on. It takes two to make this situation and healing can only start when we stop blaming. 

    Thanks for your wisdom 

    Lily 💕🎵

    Reply
    • Lily, yes it is a heartbreaking thought. I know if I have been through this there are many more who need guidance also. And yes the blaming game will stop us from moving forward. 

      Reply
  5. Thanks for this helpful article. I have been through this and have just had to come to accept we just don’t jibe, yet ironically, I think he is a lot like me! So I can laugh also! The problem solving method of Ho’oponopono has helped me a lot. One tip from that is to talk to your son at night, while he is asleep. You don’t need to even be near him. Your reminders to not let your son steal your self-respect or treat you poorly or to take on guilt or responsibility are so important and something I had to learn. Do you share any quotes/poems of dealing with regret?  Thank you.

    Reply
    • Cyndi, Talking to your child when they can not hear is a great idea. It will keep us from saying things that do not need to be said. 

      I do not have any poems on regret but you have set my mind in motion. I am sure one will pop up now. 

      Thank you so much for your input. 

      Reply
  6. Raising children and maintaining a healthy relationship with them is so difficult especially as they enter their teens and young adulthood. My issue is with a daughter. Your post about acceptance holds some of the keys to working through the process and having a proper perspective. Forgiveness, letting go of all the things you can’t change (the past and others), and letting go are essential in all relationships especially the ones with your children. 

    Reply
    • I am sorry to hear about the strained relationship with your daughter. Yes, acceptance and forgiveness are so important. I am believing that when she matures you two will be best of friends. 

      Reply

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