From a message board forum for estranged and alienated parents and grandparents-

For those adult children who have had loving, caring parents and the relationship was previously good, but you’ve taken the advice from people you hardly know and gone no contact, you really need to take a good look at yourselves and the impact you are having on your parents. Estrangement is a killer make no mistake. Parents have ended their lives or become ill and died.

■If you can sit and eat your Christmas dinner knowing your parents are facing the bleakest of days, the problem isn’t them.

■If you can ignore birthdays, Mothers and Father’s Day knowing the pain it will cause, the problem is not them.

■If you can tell your children that your parents are bad people or you simply deny they exist, or if you think you can talk your way through explaining the benefits of cutting your child off from knowing it’s own gene pool and tribal roots, the problem is not your parents.

■If you can snub, ignore, ostracise, dish out the silent treatment on an ongoing basis, sulk and then act as though you are the victim, it’s you that’s the narcissist, not your parents.

■If your parents loved you and did their best yet you can deal with knowing all these things above and yet still continue to hurt your them in this way, the problem isn’t them.