Your adult child is telling you things about their childhood or your parenting that don’t match your memory. At all. Perhaps they’re describing hurt, loneliness, or fear from moments you barely remember—or remember completely differently. Every instinct screams at you to correct them, to defend yourself, to explain what was really happening. But trust me, that won’t end well.
That’s where validation comes in. And to be clear, validation is not the same as agreement. You can acknowledge their pain without accepting that you were a terrible parent. And I’m assuming you weren’t actually a terrible parent, given you care enough to read this article. This is probably one of the hardest conversations parents and adult children navigate, but it’s also one of the most important.
1. Listen without defending, even when every cell in your body wants to.
When someone criticizes your parenting—something you presumably poured your entire heart and soul into—the urge to defend yourself is overwhelming and completely human. Your mind likely races with justifications: “But I did that because we couldn’t afford anything else,” or “You don’t remember how difficult things were back then,” or “Your sister doesn’t feel this way about it.”
You might want to list everything you sacrificed, every way you showed up, every time you put them first. That defensive wall shoots up because hearing that your child was hurt feels like an accusation that you’re a bad parent, that you failed at the most important job of your life.
But defensiveness, however understandable, sends a clear message: “Your feelings are wrong, and I’m more interested in protecting myself than hearing you.” It transforms what could be a connecting conversation into a battle over who’s right.
Take breaks if you need them. Write your responses down before speaking them. Remember that this isn’t a trial where you need to prove your innocence. It’s a chance to see and understand your child’s version of things and bridge the gap between you.
2. Take time to honestly reflect on what they’re telling you.
Once you’ve listened without immediately defending yourself, give yourself space to genuinely consider whether there might be truth in what your child is saying—even if it’s just a tiny grain of truth.
This isn’t about beating yourself up or accepting every detail as absolute fact. It’s about approaching their perspective with curiosity rather than a closed door. Sit with it for a few days. Think back to that period of your life honestly.
Were you going through something difficult that might have affected your parenting? Did you have to work ridiculously long hours just to get by? Were you present but preoccupied? Did you rely on certain parenting strategies because that’s how you were raised, without questioning whether they were actually healthy?
Even if you don’t agree with their perspective, this self-reflection can give you the opportunity to see why they view things the way they do.
Sometimes our children see things we couldn’t see at the time because we were too close to the situation or too overwhelmed by circumstances. They might be offering you insight into how your actions—however well-intentioned—actually landed for them.
This reflection takes courage because it means acknowledging you might have caused harm even when you were trying hard. But it’s also how growth happens and how you demonstrate that your child’s wellbeing matters more than your own comfort.
An important note: if what they’re telling you reveals something more serious—that you missed signs of abuse from someone else, that you turned a blind eye to harmful situations, or that your own behavior crossed lines you’re now uncomfortable acknowledging—that requires a different level of response and professional support to navigate.
3. Remember: they were the child, you were the adult.
The power dynamic between parent and child is inherently, unavoidably unequal, and that context matters enormously. A child’s brain isn’t fully developed—particularly the parts responsible for emotional regulation and understanding context. They’re completely dependent on their parents for survival, safety, and their sense of self-worth. They have no framework for what’s “normal” because their childhood is their normal.
What might seem like a small moment to an adult can be absolutely formative to a child. You might have snapped at your child once after an extraordinarily terrible day at work, immediately felt guilty, and apologized within the hour. You barely remember it now. But your child remembers feeling frightened and confused because they didn’t have the context of your life.
To be clear: this isn’t about parent-blaming or suggesting that parents aren’t allowed to be human. It’s about understanding developmental psychology and why children and adults experience the same moments so differently.
4. Understand that their truth doesn’t negate your truth.
It can help to understand that two people can experience the exact same event in completely different ways, and both experiences are equally real. For example, you might remember a family holiday filled with laughter and adventure. Your child might remember feeling anxious and out of place the entire time.
These aren’t contradictory facts where one person must be wrong—they’re different perspectives shaped by age, emotional state, personality, and what else was happening in each of your lives at that moment. Going back to the holiday example, you were the adult managing logistics and finances, trying to create happy memories. They were the child who maybe felt homesick, or struggled with the change in routine, or desperately wanted more one-on-one time with you.
Remember that when your child shares their painful memories, they’re not erasing the love you poured into parenting. They’re just telling you about how they felt.
5. Acknowledge what they’re saying before adding your perspective.
This point is key. Validation has a specific order, and it matters. It really matters. First, you acknowledge and accept what they’ve told you. Then—and only if appropriate—you can share your different perspective.
The instinct is usually to immediately jump in with “That’s not how it happened” or “Let me explain why I did that.” Stop. Try this instead: “I can hear that you felt really alone/sad/confused during that time. That must have been so hard. I’m sorry that’s how it was for you.” Watch your body language too. Put your phone away completely. Don’t interrupt or sigh heavily. Show through your entire being that what they’re saying matters to you.
Notice what you’re doing here—you’re not saying “you’re right and I’m wrong” or “I was a terrible parent.” You’re saying, “I accept that this is how you felt, and I have compassion for that pain.”
If you want to share your perspective later, you might say, “My memory and experience of that time is quite different, and I’d like to share it with you at some point, but first I want to make sure you know that I’ve truly heard you.”
6. Avoid comparing their experience to others’ (including their siblings’).
Comparisons are just another way to dismiss your adult child’s experience. “But your brother turned out fine!” “Your cousin had it so much worse, and she’s not complaining.” “Some children grow up in genuine abuse—we gave you everything.”
These comparisons, however tempting, are deeply invalidating because they suggest your child’s feelings are wrong or that they’re somehow weak or ungrateful for being affected by their experiences. And what’s more, they are fairly meaningless. Siblings in the exact same household can have wildly different experiences based on personality, birth order, what was happening in the parents’ lives at different times, and individual sensitivity levels.
For example, my oldest child definitely got the anxious, overly cautious first-time parents who hovered constantly. My youngest got the more relaxed, experienced parents who’d learned to pick their battles. Maybe your middle child had an easy-going temperament and genuinely didn’t internalize things the same way their siblings did.
None of this means anyone is lying or exaggerating. Your adult child’s pain isn’t diminished by the fact that their sibling remembers things differently or that other families faced more obvious hardships. Pain isn’t a competition, and healing doesn’t require ranking suffering.
7. Resist the urge to explain away or “correct” their memories.
Many people struggle to accept this, but the science is clear: memory is notoriously unreliable for everyone—adults and children alike. What’s more, this conversation isn’t a court case where you’re establishing facts for the historical record. So even if your child has some factual details wrong, the emotional truth is what matters right now.
For example, when your child says, “You never came to my school events—I felt so unsupported.” You immediately think, “That’s simply not true! I came to the 5th-Grade play and sports day in 9th Grade, and I would have come to more if work hadn’t been so demanding.” Your factual memory might be accurate. But your child’s emotional truth—that they felt unsupported and alone—is also real.
In their experience, your absences loomed so much larger than your presences that it felt like “never.” Yes, that hurts and feels unfair, and you don’t have to accept their account. But jumping in to correct the factual accuracy will only derail the entire conversation and transform it from a moment of connection into a battle over who’s got the better memory. You end up arguing about whether it was “never” versus “sometimes” instead of addressing the actual issue: your child felt alone, and that hurt them deeply.
8. Accept that your best might not have been enough.
This is perhaps the most painful truth to sit with. You can have tried your absolute hardest, given everything you had, sacrificed enormously, and your child can still have been hurt.
Maybe you were parenting whilst dealing with undiagnosed neurodivergence or depression. Maybe you were grieving a loss, struggling financially, supporting elderly parents, or working through your own childhood trauma. Maybe you were doing the work of two parents entirely alone. Maybe, like me, you were parenting whilst living with a life-altering chronic illness.
Your best in those incredibly difficult circumstances was real, valid, and deserves recognition. And yet, it still might not have been what your child needed. These two realities can coexist without negating each other. You’re allowed to say, “I did my best with the resources and understanding I had at the time, and I’m genuinely sorry that my best wasn’t enough for you.”
That’s not defeat or false humility—it’s honest acknowledgment of how hard life can be.
9. Understand what they’re NOT saying.
When your child tells you they struggled during their childhood, your mind might spiral into catastrophic territory. Let’s address your fears directly. Unless you were a truly awful or abusive parent, they’re almost certainly not saying: “You’re a monster who never loved me,” “Everything about my childhood was terrible,” “I hate you and want you out of my life,” “All my problems are entirely your fault and you should feel guilty forever,” or “I’m ungrateful for everything you did.”
What they’re usually actually saying is something closer to: “I’m hurting and I need you to see it,” “I want our relationship to be more honest and real,” “I’m trying to understand myself and heal from this pain,” “I trust you enough to be vulnerable with you about this,” or “I love you and I want us to be closer, but I can’t until I’ve processed this.”
Here’s something that surprises many parents: adult children often bring up painful childhood experiences because they want a better, closer relationship now, not because they’re planning to cut you off.
If they genuinely didn’t care about having a relationship with you, they wouldn’t bother having this difficult conversation. They’d simply go no contact.
10. Ask what they need from you now.
After you’ve listened and validated their experience, don’t assume you know what comes next. Ask them directly: “What do you need from me now?” or “How can I support you with this?”
Different adult children need different things from this conversation, and your child is the only one who knows what would be meaningful to them. Some want an explicit apology. Some want acknowledgment that their experience was real. Some want to see specific behavior changes going forward in how you interact. Some want to process why certain things happened. Some genuinely just want to feel heard and don’t need anything beyond that.
You might feel an urge to jump straight into fixing mode or making grand promises, but pause and let them tell you what would actually help. They might not have an immediate answer, and that’s completely fine. “I don’t know exactly what I need yet—I just needed you to know how I felt” is a legitimate response. Don’t pressure them for a clear action plan if they’re still processing. Sometimes the asking itself is the gift.
11. Remember: validation doesn’t mean you failed as a parent.
Validating your child’s difficult experiences doesn’t erase all the good you did, all the love you gave, all the sacrifices you made, or all the moments of joy you created together.
You can simultaneously be a loving, devoted parent who tried hard and also be a parent whose child struggled or was hurt despite your best efforts. Parenting is impossibly, breathtakingly complex. You’re shaping a human being whilst dealing with your own limitations, traumas, circumstances, and humanity.
Almost every adult has something from their childhood they need to work through—that doesn’t mean everyone had objectively terrible parents. What it means is that all parents are imperfect humans raising small humans in imperfect circumstances.
This conversation your child is initiating isn’t about keeping score or determining whether you pass or fail as a parent. Hearing about these struggles isn’t evidence that you failed. Often, it’s actually evidence that your child trusts you enough to be completely real with you, which suggests something important went right.
Final thoughts…
These conversations are among the hardest that families navigate, but they also hold tremendous potential for healing and deeper connection. Both parents and adult children are vulnerable here—parents facing the possibility that they caused pain despite their love, children risking rejection by speaking their truth.
Your willingness to listen without defending might be the greatest gift you ever give your adult child. Remember that this is a process, not a single conversation. Be patient with each other and with yourselves.
