The gaslighting workshop took place on April 19th, 2025. The original post for this event appears below. You can also download the poster below.
If you’re interested in attending this workshop in the future, please post in our General Discussion forum.
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The term “gaslighting” is frustrating for parents of estranged adult children.
It’s frustrating because it assumes that certain behaviors are always intentional, manipulative, and harmful. It can also feel like a dead end, especially if a response is not welcome.
While it’s important for parents to take accusations of gaslighting seriously so they can attend to the genuine relationship breaches that typically underlie them, it’s also useful to know what to discard.
In reality, many behaviors considered “techniques of gaslighting” fall within the range of normal parenting. E.g., When a small child trips and falls, and isn’t sure whether to cry about it, the parent might say, “It’s okay, you’re okay,” and thus head off a meltdown.
That response could be considered trivializing, which according to this poster is a gaslighting maneuver and therefore cruel and pathological.
And when “It’s okay, you’re okay” extends to emotional pain and deep concerns in adolescence and beyond, the repeated response can be damaging to a growing individual’s sense of self and worth. This behavior in most parents is not intentional, but it does cause harm.
Let’s stop pathologizing both estranged adult children and the parents who raised them. Let’s acknowledge accusations of gaslighting for what they are: complaints about real breaches and requests for respect for the human dignity of the complainant.
Surely we can work with that.
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Ahead of our upcoming Zoom member circle on gaslighting, download the poster produced by PESI, an education provider for mental health professionals (no affiliation). This is the kind of information your adult child might be reading:
Please know that there are effective ways to respond to hostile accusations. Even being accused of gaslighting can turn into an opportunity for connection!
Let’s talk about how to do that in our next member circle on gaslighting. See below for details.
Meanwhile, read about what to do if your estranged adult child(ren) accuse you of gaslighting them.
Date & Time
Saturday, April 19, 2025 unless otherwise specified below
USA & Canada: 2/3/4/5pm PT/MT/CT/ET
UK: 10pm BST
South Africa: 11pm SAST
India: 2:30am IST (Sun 20 Apr)
Indonesia: 4am WIB (Sun 20 Apr)
Australia: 7am AEST (Sun 20 Apr)
New Zealand: 9am NZST (Sun 20 Apr)
Corresponding UTC (GMT): Saturday, April 19, 2025 at 21:00:00
Click here for the Zoom link to join this meeting (N/A)