Ever thought to yourself, “After everything I’ve done for you!” or “What an ingrate!”? Unfortunately, many parents of adult children today are aching with these sentiments. When you feel taken for granted, it can feel pretty lousy! It hurts.
You’ve devoted years of time, money, and emotional labor to raising your children. Although every parent makes mistakes, you thought you had taught them to be respectful, loving, and caring.
So, where’s the disconnect?
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Of course, as parents, we don’t expect a thank-you card for every kindness. We certainly aren’t looking for a parade when we help out with the grandkids or watch their dog when they travel. We simply want to be a part of their lives and feel valued.
A recent study revealed an interesting fact. According to summaries reported by Psychology Today, studies show that hearing “thank you” from our children meaningfully reduces parental stress and increases well-being. Gratitude doesn’t just warm your heart; it biologically soothes your nervous system.
So why does it feel so absent once children reach adulthood?
Let’s begin by exploring the deeper reasons adult children often seem ungrateful (hint, hint: it’s rarely about entitlement).
What’s really going on?
Related reading: "How to Effectively Deal with Disrespectful Grown Children."
What you think you’re seeing … and what’s actually happening underneath are often very different.
Before jumping into solutions, it’s important to understand what’s driving the relationship dynamic. Otherwise, you’ll be trying to fix the wrong problem.
Here are four common reasons (supported by research) that adult children can appear ungrateful.
Parents of adult children often experience gratitude through behaviors like:
Adult children, however, tend to express appreciation less overtly. Their gratitude might look more like independence, confidence, or living values you instilled in them.
However, many parents feel emotionally depleted when those “thank you” moments are absent. They often need more explicit appreciation than adult children naturally offer.
Related reading: "5 Parenting Tips to Successfully Deal with Disrespectful Adult Children."
Your adult child is navigating work and a social life, balancing exercise and self-care while trying to establish their career, and perhaps juggling marriage and parenting. On top of everything else, building financial stability is challenging in this economy. Many young people are having difficulty finding affordable housing; they say that it’s nearly impossible to save and buy a house.
And with all of these demands, they may also feel a little guilt for not communicating with you! They may even feel like they’re failing.
Developmentally, their primary task is to establish autonomy, not maintain your sense of well-being. Your adult child may not even realize the distance gap. They’re just busy living their lives.
This stage naturally diverts energy away from their parents and toward basic survival and identity formation.
Relationship experts and research on adult parent–child estrangement underscore that parents often interpret this normal life load as distance or ingratitude, even when the child feels affection and appreciation. The misinterpretation can create a painful gap on both sides.
(If your child is still living at home, check out our blog for ways to ignite financial independence.)
When parents feel a lack of gratitude or reciprocation from their grown children, it’s easy to lay blame on their children.
However, my experience is that parenting styles significantly impact a child’s feelings, beliefs, and behavior as they grow up. By the time they’re adults, children may feel like they need to pull away for autonomy rather than know how to set healthy boundaries.
In Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them, Dr. Karl Pillemer points to several challenges. His multi-year family estrangement research found that:
Gratitude doesn’t thrive in a relationship where one party feels indebted. Appreciation grows in freedom, not obligation.
Autonomy often kicks in adulthood; adult children can assert their values, preferences, and choices that they were unable to as children. They now have the power to withhold what is demanded of them.
In the parent-child relationship, gratitude blossoms when parental efforts and sacrifices are given without complaint or resentment and never used as leverage for any kind of reciprocation.
Giving freely without expectation is required for the best
Related reading: "Win Back Respect from Your Grown Children."
Sometimes the issue isn’t about a withholding of gratitude—it’s about unresolved hurt.
Parents can be completely unaware of the profound hurt that occurred long ago, but may still be raw for the adult child. Some adult children opt to live a long distance from parents as an indirect boundary; others are involved in resolving their hurts and need the space from parents to do so.
One client told me that she had run away from home at a very early age. Her parents discovered her hiking down their country road, suitcase in hand. Instead of empathizing with her hurt feelings of neglect, they laughed hysterically.
Her dramatic effort to showcase her pain became family lore, a joke repeated throughout her childhood. She never shared with her parents how excruciating it was for her.
The research outlined in Parent–Child Ties Across the Life Span: The Psychology of Intergenerational Relationships by Karen Fingerman and Emily Bermann highlights that adult parent-child ambivalence, distance, or withdrawal can stem from the following:
For the adult child, stepping back may feel like protective self-care. To the parent, it often looks like rejection and ingratitude.
Grown children often struggle to articulate their needs or convey hurtful experiences in their childhood until they feel safe enough to do so.
The good news?
Nearly every parent-adult child relationship can be repaired through intentional change on either side.
And that brings us to the next section.
Before diving into the three key fixes, take a breath and remember: Your child’s gratitude—or lack of gratitude—does not measure your worth as a parent. It doesn’t even mean anything necessarily about you at all. Yet, the role of a parent calls on us to be curious rather than to expect or demand something from our children.
However, what is most often needed is for parents of adult children to shift the way they relate with their children today.
As adults, your relationship is different; the same responses you used when they were young will not work.
Below are three research- and experience-backed approaches that can dramatically transform your connection and naturally invite genuine gratitude (not forced or guilt-driven).
These are relationally intelligent strategies that create a healthier dynamic—without guilt, shame, or blame on either side. You can begin improving your relationship with your adult child right away.
Related reading: “When to Give Up on Your Grown Child—Never!”
This change in mindset is the most transformative—and the hardest.
It often begins with an uncomfortable question: “Do I expect gratitude because of my past sacrifices, or because I want emotional connection now?”
There’s nothing wrong with wanting gratitude. It’s human. But when gratitude becomes an expectation, the relationship becomes subtly transactional.
Psychologists note that transactional dynamics reduce warmth and increase resentment—on both sides. Adult children feel pressure; parents feel disappointed. No one wins.
Rewriting the narrative looks like this:
Research highlighted by the American Psychological Association shows that gratitude is primarily learned through modeling, not lecturing. If you want more warmth and appreciation, one of the most powerful moves you can make is demonstrating it first.
Notice when you feel it, then use emotional regulation to resolve any emotional conflict.
For example, “I’m proud of the life you’re building” or “Wow, it’s so fulfilling seeing you so passionate about your career.”
That’s good news! It means we raised them to be independent and self-reliant.”
Yet, it can be lonesome because we don’t spend as much time with them as we would like. Acknowledge your sadness and redefine outdated beliefs.
When you shift out of rigid expectations and the need to be needed or appreciated, something remarkable happens. Your interactions and emotional energy become less demanding and more inviting. Gratitude grows in that safety.
Many parents never actually tell their adult child, “I feel unappreciated,” because they fear sounding needy or provoking conflict.
But without communication, resentment festers and widens the distance and disconnection.
Research on adult family relationships consistently shows two things predict closeness:
According to the Gottman Institute, “Nondefensive listening and validation are essential behaviors that build trust and emotional safety in long-term relationships.” This ability to be open and curious as a parent is equally vital.
Collective studies show that open, direct communication about needs, expectations, and tensions predicts higher emotional closeness and lower ambivalence between parents and their adult children.
How to communicate effectively without blame:
Use “I” statements instead of “you” accusations.
This small change shifts the emotional tone from accusation to invitation.
Ask open-ended, relationship-building questions:
Then, and this part is critical: listen without defending yourself.
Adult children often shut down gratitude when they feel they can’t express their needs without being corrected, contradicted, or guilted.
What open and nondefensive listening communicates:
And safety usually precedes expressed appreciation.
This relationship strategy often surprises many parents.
Sometimes ungrateful behavior stems not from emotional distance but from over-dependence and allowing disrespectful behaviors from your adult children. When parents do too much for their children, the child may not develop the executive functioning or confidence required to feel gratitude. And whatever behavior we allow in our relationship, will continue.
When parents enable their grown children and consistently rescue or over-help, their children often experience:
Why?
Because receiving inordinate help without encouragement to carve their own autonomy and maturity doesn’t feel good—it feels crippling and inequitable. Adult children may unconsciously withhold gratitude to avoid their ill feelings toward a parent.
Of course, rescuing might feel really nice at the time because it relieves the immediacy of pressure, stress, and anxiety. However, in the long term, it is disempowering because the adult child doesn’t learn to care for themselves. The parental intervention chains them to a pattern of dependency on others.
You might be amazed at how quickly gratitude increases when an adult child takes responsibility for their life.
Boundaries can seem hard-hearted or uncaring, so it can be bewildering how they build greater connection in your relationship. Here’s why:
When you set healthy boundaries for your grown children, you get a huge dividend, too. You will reclaim your emotional, financial, mental, and physical independence, becoming a free agent in your own life. There will no longer be the drain of fret, worry, or continual resentment.
If you’ve felt unseen, unappreciated, or taken for granted by your adult child, it’s time to create something different, beautiful, and lasting.
What looks like ingratitude is usually only a symptom—not the root problem. We’ve discussed several challenges and three relationship fixes. Pick a strategy that resonates most with you and try it on.
When you shift your approach, shifting expectations and communicating courageously and lovingly, the change will be tangible. Plus, while you set healthy boundaries for your adult children, you’ll create a relational environment where gratitude flows more freely and naturally.
Not forced.
Not guilt-driven, but authentic.
Relationships with adult children are beautifully imperfect, constantly evolving. It’s never too late to repair and heal the relationship. You can change the dynamic with your responses and actions.
And gratitude?
It will grow through mutual respect and love that is courageously open and honest.
For customized support and parent coaching, reach out to Heartmanity. Build parenting skills and greater emotional intelligence to strengthen your parent-child relationship!