What's your biggest challenge when it comes to family life? Send your questions and dilemmas to experienced life coach Joanne Mallon via this confidential form. Your name can be changed on request

Sue writes:

Three years ago my 26-year-old daughter (who has two children) fell out with me over not returning a power drill when I needed it. This led to a lot of nasty text messaging and after a short while she told me she wanted nothing to do with me. This meant I didn't see my grandchildren either.

Despite me trying to find a solution to our relationship problem, she just wouldn't respond at all for 18 months. Eventually through family she agreed to a chat and we met and talked for hours. All was well and I thought both of us had learned from any mistakes we had made. For six months things were normal, then suddenly she turned 'funny' over a disagreement we had about a family member and she has done exactly the same thing again. Both times she has ditched me by text! Then silence.

I feel like I have been constantly on trial. It would appear I am only allowed to say or do what she wants me to say or do or I am redundant as a mother. Should I just try and get on with my life and forget her? I am not sure I can forgive her a second time anyway because each time this happens it makes me so depressed and has a knock on effect on my life and other children ( I have four, three still at home).

Here's the life coach's reply:

Dear Sue

I'm sorry to hear about this stressful situation. You sound terribly sad. I'm guessing that this is about a lot more than the power drill. When our children grow up and have children themselves, the whole dynamic changes. Hopefully for the better, but not always.

One lesson from this is how destructive it can be to have important conversations by text. Never get drawn into that again.

What do you want to happen here? What efforts are you making to stay in touch with your grandchildren? What does the rest of your family have to say about this? Are your other children still in touch with their sister? Could anyone else in the family help to build bridges with your daughter?

At the end of the day you cannot force your daughter if she doesn't want to stay in contact. If she does agree to see you, try to meet at neutral territory and keep it brief at first. Since the same thing has happened twice now, try to learn from this and set some new ground rules, ie no texting and no raking up past hurts.

Your daughter is an adult now, and she does have the right not to be in contact with you if that's what she chooses. Hopefully she will change her mind, or when her children are older they may want to get in touch. All you can do is keep your heart open to them and start afresh when they want to. If their mother is choosing to stay estranged from their wider family, then one day those children will need you.

There's an interesting article here about mother/daughter arguments that might give you some ideas for how to deal with this. Also I think you might find this book useful: Side by Side: The Revolutionary Mother-Daughter Program For Conflict-Free Communication by American psychiatrist Dr Charles Sophy. You cannot change your daughter's attitude, but you can change how you approach this. I really hope you find some resolution.

Good luck,

Joanne

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