Each of my four grown children expresses love for me in very different ways.

One hugs me hard without many words. Another asks at every opportunity about a health concern I’ve had. A third shares only very limited aspects of his life, while professing his love for me. And the fourth often ignores me, but slips in an almost one-word “love-you-guys” at the end of phone conversations with her dad and me.

I’ve been thinking about this, so I decided to do some Internet research regarding the different ways that adult children show love toward their parents.

When I did a Google search for “Adult Children’s Love of Parents,” these were the top three websites that came up:

“5 Reasons Why Adult Children Estrange from their Parents”

“Mistakes Parents Make that Push Adult Children Away”

“The 6 Things You Shouldn’t Say to your Adult Child”

So I typed in, “Parents’ Love of their Adult Children.” Up popped the same three websites, among others with a similar bent.

I too have written about family estrangement in prior blog posts. Our family has had its share in the past. What family hasn’t?

But really? Is information on rampant estrangement what we want when we enter search terms to learn more about love between family members?

What does this tell us about our society’s focus? What does this say about my focus, and the focus of other writers in this and other publications?

It seems that the more we write about a topic like family estrangement and send it out into the vast worldwide web, the more accessible the topic becomes to us and to our readers, which in turn, probably makes us all think and write about it even more.

Scientists tell us that our brains operate in a similar self-reinforcing manner. Each of us has a brain that is open to influence. It shapes and reshapes itself based on where we focus our attention. So the more I focus on the shame, embarrassment or regrets of family estrangement, the more likely it is that these negative feelings and thoughts will shape my brain, making me even more likely to notice every negative thing about my family.

On the other hand, if I focus on what is positive about my family, my brain will strengthen the neural connections around positive emotions like joy and gratitude.

My Google search today to learn more about how love gets expressed among family members resulted in a massive vomit of negativism about estrangement.

The experience has taught me an important lesson.

If I’m not deliberate in shaping what I write in a way that stimulates positive pathways on the huge worldwide web and in my tiny brain, other people’s writings and experiences will take over and leave lasting traces that you and I may not find healthy or beneficial.

So I’m grateful for the daughter who hugs me hard without many words. For the son who asks about my health. For the other son who shares very little, but who regularly says he loves me. And for the daughter who slides in the almost one-word “love-you-guys” at the end of a phone conversation.

They’re all working on creating their own positive neural pathways the best way they know how. And for now, that’s good enough for me.