What to Say Your Adult Child: 30 Conversation Scripts for Setting Boundaries — Without Losing the Relationship

"I don't know what to say to you anymore." >You have explained. You have defended. You have given in, and you have gotten angry, and none of it brought your child back to the table. Here is why: when the argument is about who was at fault for the relationship, facts cannot win it. You are not losing a debate. You are playing a game that cannot be won. This is not another book about managing your emotions. It is a book about what to actually say. Thirty scripts, covering the ten situations that do the most damage: - He asks for money - again - The holidays, and whether he shows up - Grandchildren you are not allowed to see - The partner you were never sure about - When he brings up the past - When he will not talk to you at all - When you no longer see the world the same way - His choices about work, school, marriage, children - Moments of real crisis - When you have said the boundary and nothing changes - > And the scripts are yours to keep. The back of the book has all thirty printed as cut-out cards, two to a page, so you can take the three that matter to you and put them where you actually take your calls. No script in this book promises your child will come back, change, or understand. What it can do is smaller and truer: get you through the next conversation without making things worse. You cannot make him come back. You can only decide who you are going to be while you wait. For parents in their fifties, sixties and seventies whose adult child is distant, hostile, or barely speaking to them.