Going 'No Contact' is Trending -- Can the Amish Teach Us Something About It?
One study concluded that 47% of Americans are estranged from a parent or child during some period in their life. The average duration is about 44 months but that number means little because the range is so wide. Those who choose to go 'No contact' cite emotional or physical abuse as the primary reason. The secondary reason may be gaslighting / denial / minimalizing the primary reasons/behaviors and then the lack of hope for change that results from that.
Social media has not made things better (shocking but true 
) as either side may seek validation for their behavior by either publicly listing grievances or publicly denying abusive or manipulative behaviors. This can make both sides more fully commit to longterm separation as friends and family start to keep score. Asserting no contact now peaks around age 31 and this may have something to do with smaller family size, with "helicopter" parenting and with a reduction in all the ways that prior generations had to hide, however temporarily, from their parents as teens. IOW as we extend childhood we risk crises in boundary setting.
Setting and enforcing boundaries are great tools in any relationship, even healthy ones. No contact can be the result of reaching a breaking point and demanding a huge adjustment in boundaries, eg reaching a crisis point because smaller attempts or demands have not been pursued or honored. But contact or no, our parents remain our parents and children our children. There is pain on both sides but it may less visible or understandable on the side of that demanded no contact. To outsiders it may seem that the person choosing no contact got what they wanted but that isn't often the case. If what they wanted was acknowledgement and change then going no contact can delay that. Most often they seek healing but can find extended pain instead.
So what the heck does any of this have to do with the Amish??
Glad you asked. I didn't ask -- I just read what you wrote! Okay but I am answering anyway.
Many Amish communities have long ritualized a practice of children separating from their parents and their communities at age 16. "Rumspringa", literally translated as "running around", allows Amish teens and their parents to separate for a period of time without finger pointing. It acknowledges that the child is on the verge of adulthood and should be allowed to make mistakes. It allows the child to set boundaries they choose. On the downside, it ends with the child either accepting the practices of the Amish faith or being shunned. On the up side it sets an appointment and deadline for parents and their children to confront boundaries.
I'm not suggesting that the Amish have the healthiest interpersonal boundaries -- only that we might benefit as families and communities from having more discussions about boundaries, from learning boundary setting phrases and from modeling healthy boundary setting behaviors. The Amish have accepted that something like No Contact is a common dynamic and they have their way of dealing with it. We might do well to lift only what they get right and add to it with usable examples of how boundaries can be reset.
Lindsey Braman offers these thoughts and example boundaries:
...
Hard boundaries might look like:
• the person going to therapy for a year before you’ll speak again,
• being sober for 90-days before they can see you or your kids,
• calls/visits ending immediately if they do or say something abusive,
...
Estranged relationships fall into a category of loss called ambiguous loss. In ambiguous loss, the grieving process is blocked by all that is unknown and unresolved.
I know well the grief and pain that estrangement, and all that leads up to it, can bring. My heart goes out to all who are experiencing this.