Tina Gosney  00:00

Welcome to Coaching Your Family Relationships. I’m Tina Gosney. I’m a family conflict coach. I’m a parent educator, and on this podcast, we’re talking about what to do when your relationship with your adult child feels strained or confusing, and even painful. And we’re going to do it through a family systems lens, because there is one hope that I really want you to hold on to is that when one person, just one person in the family, becomes more steady and grounded, that can shift the entire relationship system. The entire relationship, the entire family can begin to shift just through one person becoming more grounded.

Tina Gosney  00:42

Now, I am going in this episode. It’s in the middle of a series that I’m doing on therapy words. These are words usually that parents don’t understand. Your child might be using them. They can be really confusing to parents. And when these words are used in a conversation, and they they feel like they’re being used as a weapon against you, you know that’s really difficult. So this episode is part of that series.

Tina Gosney  01:06

Last week we talked about boundaries. That was episode 225. What does it mean when your adult child says you don’t respect their boundaries? That’s the title of that one. That was a really good episode. Had a lot of really really relevant information in it. So if you haven’t listened to that one, you can listen to this one first. You don’t have to listen to that one first. They’re not going in order, but you can listen to this one, and then you can go click on that one because that boundary word is being thrown around a lot right now, and most people are using it incorrectly.

Tina Gosney  01:38

But today we’re going to talk about a different therapy word that’s being thrown around a lot, and this one really feels terrible when your child uses it to describe you. It feels awful.

Tina Gosney  01:49

But before we get into that, I want to tell you something. So, as a podcaster, sometimes it feels like I’m putting these episodes out into the world. You know, I record it in my office, and I upload it onto my podcast distribution channel, and I don’t know if anyone’s listening. You know, it’s one of those jobs. Podcasting is one of those jobs that you don’t get feedback on very often. So there is a link in the show notes that allows you to send me a message. I would love to hear from you. I can see the downloading numbers.

Tina Gosney  02:22

I can see those numbers climbing over the last few months, and I would love to connect with you if you have a minute to send me a message. So if you click on that link that says “Send us, ask a question, send us a message, or let us know how you like the podcast, I mean that’s what it says right now. I might change it in the future, but right now that’s what it says. That is the link that will let you send me a message, and then I can answer you. So if you have a minute, drop a line. Let me know your thoughts. You can even put in a request for a topic if you have one, because I’m always looking for new topics to highlight on this podcast.

Tina Gosney  02:58

So let’s get into today’s topic: a therapy word. This is one word, and for a lot of parents, it can just stop you cold. It can feel like a gut punch. So I hear, I can hear something like somebody telling me, my daughter told me I was toxic. I don’t even know how to hear that. I gave that girl everything. Or maybe somebody says something like this: My son said our whole relationship growing up was toxic. Toxic-that’s the word he used about me. Toxic. Have you ever had that word directed at you? If you have, I want you to know something before we go any further. You are not the only parent this has happened to, and hearing it does not mean, in fact, that you are a toxic person. But I also don’t want to rush past it or explain it away too quickly because something is happening underneath that word, and today we’re going to slow down and we’re going to look at that word together.

Tina Gosney  04:02

We’re going to talk about why that word lands so hard, and what it might actually be pointing to, where it can get oversized or misapplied, and then most importantly, what you want to do next, which is not to defend yourself, not to collapse into into shame, but actually to move this relationship somewhere better. So let’s get into that. We’re going to talk about why this word lands differently than other words.

Tina Gosney  04:34

Let’s start right there. Of all the words that your adult child could use to describe maybe a hard conversation, a hard situation, or a rough patch in your history. If they use the word toxic, that is one of the heaviest words. They’re not saying, “Hey, this hurt me, or “I wish that had gone differently. That word describes an entire environment. It suggests that something is. Ongoing, they got poisoned in the air of a relationship. It’s not just describing a moment that something went wrong. And when your adult child uses it about you, or about your family, or about how you raised them, your nervous system does not experience that as feedback. It experiences that as an indictment, and here is what I want to normalize right away.

Tina Gosney  05:29

It is completely human to feel your whole body tense and brace when you hear that word. Some parents will have a flood of shame, some will feel a flash of anger. Some will just go numb, like you’ve been hit and you haven’t even like your body hasn’t even caught up to the pain yet. All of those responses are normal to being labeled in a way that feels so totally misrepresentative of you. Here’s the distinction that you can hold on to, though. The word toxic describes an impact, it is rarely, if ever, a complete and fair description of the whole person that you are, or of the whole relationship that you have.

Tina Gosney  06:14

So relationships are made up of 1000s, millions of moments. Most of them super ordinary. Some of them really hard, and maybe a few of them genuinely damaging. Your child is not handing you a verdict on the entirety of who you are. They are describing how something felt to them, and they’re trying to use the strongest word that they have for it. That does not mean that you are not feeling the weight of that, and it does not mean that it’s fair to call you that, but it does mean that there’s something underneath all of that that you should give your attention to. I want to be honest about what this word toxic, like where it comes from, because I think it helps us to understand, you know the link, the landscape that our child is speaking from.

Tina Gosney  07:06

Over the past several years, this language of mental health and trauma and relationship harm, it has moved from clinical offices in therapy into everyday conversations. So you might hear a lot about it on podcasts, you see a lot of social media, TikTok or Instagram or you know any other type of social media platform. You’re going to see a lot of posts that address the word toxic. You’re going to have books that talk about it, therapy informed content. All of this has given your child a vocabulary that did not exist in the same way as when you were raising them. A lot of that vocabulary is genuinely useful. It gives people words for patterns that they couldn’t name before, like being dismissed, or walking on eggshells, or feeling like their feelings don’t have enough space in the room because they’re taken up by somebody else’s feelings, so your adult child is reaching for language that means they’re trying to make sense of something that they experienced.

Tina Gosney  08:12

But the other side of it, and I think this is really important that we say this out loud, that a word like toxic gets used online to describe everything from genuinely an abusive situation, all the way to one single frustrating conversation. It’s become a catch-all, and when a word covers everything from something that is so severe and is harmful to ordinary relationship friction, it tends to lose its precision and its real meaning. So when your child says you were toxic, they might be to be describing a pattern that caused real, lasting pain, and that’s worth taking a pause.

Tina Gosney  08:58

Or it’s possible that they could be reaching for a big word to describe a handful of really difficult years, or maybe even a parenting style that was flawed because most of them are, but it wasn’t malicious, or maybe even a season of family stress that hurt everyone, including you. Your job is not to fact check or label the word toxic. Your job is to get curious about their experience underneath it. What did it feel like to grow up in your home? What moments are they thinking of? What did they need that they didn’t get? And then how did that impact them? That is a very different question than was I toxic? Yes or no. And these other questions actually lead somewhere.

Tina Gosney  09:47

So I’m going to pause here and talk about why this conversation matters beyond just one really hard moment, because research and reporting on family estrangement points to a consistent pattern. When adult children explain why they pulled away from a parent, they most often describe things like feeling that their parent lacked empathy, that their limits and boundaries were not respected, or that they experienced their parent as being overly critical or harsh. So notice what’s not on that list. It’s not usually one dramatic event.

Tina Gosney  10:23

It’s a pattern of feeling unseen, feeling judged, feeling like they’re saying no didn’t count. They talk about patterns of asking for what they want and not getting it, or not even having the room to ask for what they want. So they felt like their only option was to create distance, and then over time, a pattern like that can add up to something that your your child eventually may name as toxic, even if no single moment felt that extreme to you at the time. And I am not telling you this to make you feel worse. I’m telling you this because I want you to understand what’s actually at stake in how you respond at this moment.

Tina Gosney  11:05

If you meet that word “toxic” with defensiveness and dismissal, you are going to confirm the very pattern your child may be describing. But if you meet it with curiosity and steadiness, you open a door that a lot of families may never find their way back through. This is the moment, not the word itself, but this is the moment, and what will you do with it counts. So let’s be really practical about what they’re actually saying. When your adult child says you, or your parenting, or your household, your family was toxic.

Tina Gosney  11:43

Here are some of the things that are often underneath that word.

Tina Gosney  11:46

They might be saying, “I didn’t feel emotionally safe, which means you know conversations in your home maybe they ended up in yelling, or silence, or unpredictable moods, and your child learned to brace for those things rather than to be able to relax, and that underlying message is, you know, I need to know that I’m not going to be walking on eggshells with you.

Tina Gosney  12:10

Another thing they might be saying is, my feelings were not allowed to exist, and that could be true because if sadness and anger or disagreement were met with punishment, or dismissal, or a don’t be so sensitive. Your child may have learned that their inner world and how they were feeling was not welcome, and the underlying messages from them is saying, “I needed room to feel things without being shut down.

Tina Gosney  12:41

Another thing they might be saying is, “I was criticized a lot more than I was celebrated. So even well-intentioned, you know, pushing towards achievement or toughening up experiences for a child can be experienced as like this constant correction. And the underlying message they might be sending to you now is, I needed to feel liked, not just managed and pushed. So another thing they might be saying is, my no didn’t matter to you.

Tina Gosney  13:13

So if limits that your child tried to set about privacy or about choices or about their own life, if those were constantly overridden, this repeated experience it can calcify into that word toxic, and their underlying message is to you is I needed you to take my limits seriously. They may be saying, I’m still carrying something from back then, and I don’t have anywhere else to put it.

Tina Gosney  13:39

So sometimes that word “toxic” is less of a precise clinical description and more the only container big enough for them to hold these years of the accumulated hurt that they’ve been holding. That underlying message is, you know, this weighs a lot to me, and I want you to to see that. I want you to realize that none of these underlying messages mean that you are a bad person or that you are a bad parent.

Tina Gosney  14:05

What they do mean is that there’s a gap somewhere between what your child needed and what they experienced, and that is normal. That gap is workable. This is not a life sentence on the relationship. It’s not a life sentence on your character. This gap is such a common childhood experience for just about everybody. So please don’t leave this podcast thinking that you’re the only imperfect parent out there. Hey, we’re all there with you. I promise you, every single parent is imperfect.

Tina Gosney  14:36

We’re not even going to pretend like there’s a parent that was able to give their child 100% of what they needed, 100% of the time. Parents are often managing these levels of stress and uncertainty at levels their child has no concept of. I know so many parents who are just trying to get from one day to the next day. When we look at the past. And we look at our family relationships. We really need to give some perspective to the big picture. So let’s talk about what do you do with this word toxic. Your child’s used this word, and now what?

Tina Gosney  15:14

Let’s walk through this step by step. Step number one: Let yourself feel it without reacting from it. That word. can hit you like a wave. Let it move through you before you respond. Give a pause. That might mean you wait a day or longer. It might mean that you say, “I hear you, and I want to give this the response it deserves, but I need a little time to sit with us before I say anything else. When you slow down, you are not avoiding, because this is the difference between a gut reaction and a thoughtful response.

Tina Gosney  15:52

Here’s step number two: resist correcting the word. Your instinct, and this would be normal, to say, hey, I’m not toxic. I did my best. Well, I understand that instinct completely. It makes complete sense to me. But leading with correction tells your child that the label matters more to you than their experience does. Instead, try setting the word down for a moment and ask about what’s underneath it.

Tina Gosney  16:22

Step number 3/3, is do not defend. Instead, ask. Try something like this. I want to understand what that felt like you for you growing up. Can you help me see it through your eyes? Now, this does not mean you’re going to agree with every detail that they give you. It’s a signal that their experience is allowed to exist in the room, even before you understand it or agree with it. It’s still allowed to exist.

Tina Gosney  16:50

Step number four is to acknowledge the impact even before you fully understand the whole picture. You might say, you know, it sounds like there were some really difficult times where you didn’t feel safe with me, or you didn’t feel like I heard you, and I don’t want that to have been true for you. I’m so sorry how that felt. Notice that that sentence doesn’t require for you to accept every characterization that they’re making of you. It acknowledges their impact, which is the part that they need to know, has landed.

Tina Gosney  17:25

Step number five: Ask what would help now. So once some of that emotional climate has settled, you can ask them, “Hey, what would it look like for things to feel different between us going forward? This moves the conversation from the past and ruminating and concentrating on the past and digging up emotions sometimes can spend us down on a downward spiral to the relationship that we’re building now. So we can move it from the past to what we’re going to be focusing on in the future.

Tina Gosney  17:59

And then sixth, and this is super important. And this is when when I’ve talked to adult kids, they tell me that this is what their parents are missing. It’s let your changed behavior do the talking. Words matter, but consistency really is what rebuilds trust.

Tina Gosney  18:17

If your child says they need less criticism, or they need more space, or they need for you to listen more. You know, the relationship heals in the months where you actually do that, not the conversation that you agree to try. I want to say something else here because I think it’s really important, and it really often gets left out of these types of conversations. There are situations where the word toxic it gets applied more broadly than the facts can really support it.

Tina Gosney  18:50

So ordinary parenting mistakes, generational differences in how emotions were handled, or you know even a hard season in your family, maybe a divorce or a financial crisis, those are not the same as a toxic pattern of harm. Struggling as a parent and with life, while still loving them and trying, is not the same thing as being toxic. If that’s part of what’s happening, you are allowed to gently and honestly say so once your child feels heard, but they need to feel heard first. You might say something like, “I hear that some of what happened really hurt you, and I take that seriously. I also want to share my own memory and experience of that time, when you’re open to hearing it.

Tina Gosney  19:37

Now, that’s not defensiveness. That is two things that are true that can exist at the same time, but they have to be done in the right order. They need to feel heard first. So what what matters is the order. Understanding first, your perspective second, and only once there’s room for it. If you ever reverse that order, even a completely reasonable point. Can very land as them feeling dismissed, and if you don’t genuinely recognize the picture that your child is describing at all, it’s fair and normal to ask a clarifying question with real curiosity. Something like, “I really want to understand what specifically felt that way. Please tell me. I really want to understand. And when they tell you, don’t argue with them. Ask it with warmth. Ask it questions that can open things up rather than shut them down.

Tina Gosney  20:33

Most parents I talk with move through something that’s predictable when they heard this word. First, there’s shock. Then there’s defensiveness, and then sometimes, pretty often, comes shame. And if you stay in that cycle long enough without adequate support, that can calcify into distance, resentment, or sometimes giving up on the relationship altogether. But I want you to know that there is a path through defensiveness, and it is not about proving your child wrong and proving you right. It’s all about becoming someone who can hold on to a hard truth about the impact of their life without it destroying your sense of who you are.

Tina Gosney  21:14

That’s really what growth looks like here. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with every word. It does not. It’s not collapsing into guilt that helps nobody-it’s about staying steady enough to say something in our relationship needs to change, and I’m willing to be a part of that. Even while you’re still holding on to this truth that you love your child and you were doing the best with what you knew how to do at the time. In my coaching work, I help parents navigate words like this, toxic and boundaries, as in last week’s episode number 225.

Tina Gosney  21:48

These are things that we work on in our coaching calls in Bridge to Connection, and we walk through a couple of different frameworks that I use in that program. It can be so useful to have a framework that when you feel like you just got the wind knocked out of you, you have something that you can grab onto. This is deeper work than we get into in the podcast, and that deeper work is exactly what we do together in Bridge to Connection. So check that out if today’s episode is resonating with you. But right here, right now, the place to start is smaller than a framework. It’s this: let that word land without letting it define you, and get curious about what is underneath it. Let’s go into some of the common mistakes and what to do instead.

Tina Gosney  22:38

These are some of the things that I see parents doing most often, and just naming these can help you to avoid them. So, mistake number one: treating that word “toxic” as a final verdict instead of an opening.

Tina Gosney  22:54

So, when a parent hears “toxic” and assumes their relationship is over, they often stop trying right when it matters the most. This word, as painful as it is, is often more a door opening than a door closing.

Tina Gosney  23:10

Mistake number two: you need your child to take the word back before you can move forward. Waiting for them to say, “I didn’t really mean to use the word toxic, you know that keeps both of you stuck. You can move forward by responding well to what they’re describing, whether or not the exact word ever gets taken back or revised.

Tina Gosney  23:32

Mistake number three: over apologizing for things that you don’t even understand yet. A blanket “I’m sorry for everything” can feel really hollow to your child if it is not connected to something specific. It’s more powerful to say, “I want to understand this well enough to apologize for the right things, and then you guys can actually have a conversation that lets you do that work together.

Tina Gosney  23:56

Mistake number four, and this is a big one, letting your own pain take over the conversation. Your hurt at being called toxic is real, and it’s valid. But if your child ends up comforting you about how hard it is to hear that, the roles have just reversed, and they’re going to stop bringing you things at all. So feel your pain. Just don’t hand it to them and expect them to take care of it. Energy is not supposed to flow from child to parent. It’s supposed to flow from parent to child.

Tina Gosney  24:29

So getting it right looks like this: you hear the word toxic, and your whole body wants to defend. And instead, you slow down. You ask a curious question: What is underneath that? Instead of arguing about the word toxic, you acknowledge the impact that you can see even before you fully understand it, and then over months-not just one conversation-over months, you become steadier, softer, and a more curious version of the parent than you already are. That is not weakness. That’s a path to growth and connection.

Tina Gosney  25:05

Here’s what I want you to take with you today: the word “toxic” is heavy, and it is allowed to hurt, but it is not a permanent verdict on who you are as a parent or as a person. It’s your child’s attempt to describe the impact, and they’re using the biggest word that they have for it. You don’t have to accept every detail of that word to seriously take the need that is underneath it. You don’t have to lose yourself in guilt. You don’t have to argue your way out of their pain. You just need to stay in the room, stay curious, let your actions over time become the answer. The fact that you’re here listening to this and that you’ve made it this far in this episode tells me that you’re already doing a lot of those things, or that you’re wanting to know how to do a lot of those things. It tells me that you care, that you’re willing to look at difficult things, and that matters so much more than you realize.

Tina Gosney  26:03

So take a breath, stay steady, and keep showing up. I really want to thank you for being here with me today. Remember, you don’t have to do this perfectly. Just keep working on how you’re showing up, because when one person in a family becomes more grounded, that whole relationship system can begin to heal. This is coaching your family relationships, and I’m Tina Gosney. If this episode gave you something useful today, I would love it if you’d leave a review on your favorite podcast app. You know that helps this podcast to reach another parent who needs this, and we need so many parents to hear these messages. So take care of yourself and take care of your family relationships.