Useful resources: grandparents
Websites, podcasts, articles, videos and other information that may help you with your adult child or their partner, and coping with the loss and grief in relation to your grandchild.
Below are suggested links that you may find helpful as a grandparent. It often helps knowing that you are not the only one in this situation, and that others have either found, felt or said exactly the same as you.
​
Where relevant we have linked them to our grandchild typologies so that they are more specifically helpful. Note that sometimes grandchildren fall into more than one typology.
​
Please let us know of any broken or new links here.​
​
​
DISCLAIMER: Please note that these weblinks are provided for general informational purposes only i.e. they do not form professional advice (legal, medical, or otherwise). Whilst Grandchildren First strive to ensure the weblinks and their content is safe and up-to-date, any reliance you place on it is at your own risk and we cannot make any guarantees of any kind about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, availability or suitability of the content. The views and opinions expressed in the articles are those of the authors and not necessarily reflecting the position of Grandchildren First. We are not responsible for the content or reliability of any linked external websites and do not necessarily endorse the views expressed within them.
Dr Josh Coleman
You Tube videos
Prof Josh Coleman is considered an international expert in family estrangement.
-
His substack - an internet resource or journal of a person's content or expertise - contains some free articles, some require subscription.
-
His YouTube content is free and well-worth a watch: some videos are an hour long, the snippets are a few minutes long to give you an idea behind the topic.
-
His book ‘Rules of estrangement’ is well worth a read.
https://joshuacolemanphd.substack.com/
​​
How to write a letter of amends (we recommend reading about the background to writing such a letter first - the thoughts required to write it are more than saying sorry):
​​​
​
Parent and child estrangement:
https://youtu.be/QLLk8vcAD0M?si=N4N4h-meALLMGdEQ
Rules of estrangement:
https://youtu.be/i-DmpQPXSgk?si=5O2oNgUZpdww3PUc
Dos and donts of reaching out to your estranged child:
https://youtu.be/8eNrg6aHIIs?si=HDfJRLA5F1ShuliL
Writing the letter of amends to your estranged child:
https://youtu.be/BdSsfTt1RMk?si=NLZQ7JQKiIo-_0Uu
Five most common mistakes of alienated / estranged parents:
https://youtu.be/8l9ggEKpLY0?si=pY5uQrVckBWXhBgm
Mothers with adult children with mental illness:
https://youtu.be/yQlIykmkoG8?si=Z4qhCT8-qVtnzsZN
His channel with snippet videos:
https://youtube.com/@dr.joshuacoleman4216?si=EV1ZEElnxOZ-GBw0
Julia Samuels MBE
YouTube videos
A prominent UK therapist who focuses mainly on bereavement-related grief and loss.
-
She has some useful information in her books, videos and substack transferable to coping with ambiguous grief.
-
Mainly because the principles of working through grief, whether from a living loss or a bereavement, are broadly the same.
-
Note that a major difference between the types of grief is the lack of closure in ambiguous grief that leads to healing difficulties whilst in a state of frozen confusion.
-
Julia's substack is main paid content.
​
https://juliasamuel.substack.com/
​​
The Times: I don't understand what I did wrong (Paywalled article)
‘I don’t understand what I did wrong’: the suffering of estrangement
​
The Times: Dear Julia: my niece has severed ties with her mother
Dear Julia: my niece has severed ties with her mother
​
YouTube:
The paradox of grief
https://youtu.be/P4PNNlGWq_Q?si=9PEUCRXQ_-GQbV1r
​
​
Professor Pauline Boss
Ambiguous loss and grief:
Media articles
Ambiguous grief is also known as disenfranchised grief in the UK i.e. it is unacknowledged or unentitled grief.
-
It was originally described in the 1970s by Dr Pauline Boss, an eminent American professor of psychology
-
It is experienced where a person may by physically present but psychologically absent such as e.g. a person with dementia or traumatic brain injury, or where a person is physically absent but psychologically present e.g. a soldier missing in action.
-
It is this latter category that grandchildren and grandparents who relationship is prevented, interrupted or terminated fall into.
​
It is this grief that is most concerning in relation to grandchildren: they are often handling it by themselves.
​
NB note that ambiguous grief is not the same as anticipatory grief: the latter is in relation to a pre-death period.
The Open University provide a useful summary of ambiguous loss and grief here:
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/health-sports-psychology/ambiguous-loss
Lincolnshire Partnership NHS trust’s advice article is written for those caring for relatives with dementia but the managing the grief aspects are very similar for grandparents grieving the loss of their relationship with their grandchild and / or adult children:
https://www.lpft.nhs.uk/contact-us/support/carers-support/ambiguous-grief
Missing People, a UK charity that works with families who have a missing person with them, have written this brief advice webpage:
​
A TEDxYouth presentation by an adoptee speaking about ambiguous loss and grief:
https://youtu.be/uHFq6v8AiOo?si=Rjk5ECRQK80PdHUs
​
​
Dr Pauline Boss, Emeritus Professor, University Minnesota, USA is considered the leading global expert on ambiguous loss and grief. She is interviewed in the below YouTube videos
​
Dr Josh Coleman interviews Dr Pauline Boss, the global expert on the loss and grieving for a living person ie ambiguous loss and grief
https://youtu.be/Y0hwhIle-no?feature=shared
Dr Pauline Boss interviewed on the impacts and handling of ambiguous loss and grief:
https://youtu.be/dpya1tIKFEw?si=QI3CGMxCtMgXGnRj
Dr Pauline Boss on acceptance in ambiguous loss and grief:
https://youtu.be/W6MvXxAU4dA?si=FyJIgx8FgAztLKDo
​
​
​
Media articles
Podcasts
Below are articles we have found of use.
​​
​​​British Psychological Society, 21 November 2025
Damage across the generations. A Mother/Grandmother’s perspective on family estrangement; with comment from Dr Terri Apter (University of Cambridge)
https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/damage-across-generations
​
Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian Podcast, 14 December 2024
​
Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian, 9 November 2024​
​
Responses to Gaby's article of 9 Nov 2024:
Estrangement from a child is like a never-ending bereavement | Family | The Guardian
​​
Huffington Post, Alan Cairns, 11 September 2015
Do Grandparents Have a Right to See Their Grandchildren? | HuffPost UK Parents
​
How to cope with estrangement | Gransnet, last accessed 14.01.26
BBC Radio 4, Women's Hour: Estranged Grandparents: the experience and the law, 22 April 2025 Family lawyer Vanessa Lloyd Platt and Bristol Grandparents Support Group chair Jane Jackson interview: find at 37m 40sec in (12 mins) (log in required)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002b6r4
​
BBC Radio 4. All in the Mind. Ambiguous Loss; All in the Mind Awards; Pandemic impact on memory; Corpus Callosum. Interviews including Prof Pauline Boss and Missing People. 1 Dec 2020
Find at 30sec in (11.5 mins long) (log in required)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000pxr3
​
BBC Radio 4 All in the Mind. 7 Nov 2023. Grieving when estranged, musical hallucinations and the benefits of snoozing your alarm
Find at 1.03 mins in (11min 17 secs long) (log in required)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001s5g6
​​​
BBC Radio 4: All in the Mind. 22 Apr 2016. How to manage your worries.
3 mins (Log in required)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03rwr72
​​
​