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Coercive controllers weaponize children and intend to fracture attachment with the protective parent.

Despite manipulation, a child's attachment to the protective parent may remain intact, though fragile.

Therapists can help protective parents be the steady, safe presence their child can return to when ready.

This post is intended to support clinicians in understanding the lived experiences of children exposed to coercive control, describe how coercive controllers manipulate children into compliance, explain why children align with the coercive controller (predatory parent), and provide evidence-based strategies therapists can recommend to help protective parents maintain and rebuild attachment with their children.

Understanding the Intent: Weaponization of Children

When a predatory parent manipulates and conditions a child—teaching them to distrust, fear, or reject their protective parent—it is an intentional act to weaponize the child. As Dr. Evan Stark explained, the child becomes a secondary victim, not because they are less important but because the primary target is the adult victim (Stark, 2024). However, this weaponization causes profound harm to the child's psychological well-being. It is an unacknowledged child abuse.

While many refer to this dynamic as "alienation," my work as a social worker and therapist has brought me to understand that this malevolent harm being inflicted goes deeper—it systematically undermines the secure attachment a child has with a healthy, safe parent. I call this the malicious fracturing of attachment (MFA).

John Bowlby (1969/1982) explicitly stated that attachment behaviors characterize humans "from cradle to grave," and both he and Mary Ainsworth (1989) maintained that attachment processes remain relevant to personality functioning across the entire lifespan. This establishes that attachment can be maintained, disrupted, and repaired throughout life. When one (predatory) parent is weaponizing a child and their secure attachment to the other (protective) parent, therapists must support the (protective) parent in their efforts to reignite or fortify a secure attachment. This is no easy feat, since our clients are often actively living in their own trauma. It is a battle the predatory parent hopes the protective parent loses.

Clinical Recognition: When Parents Present With Concerns

When protective parents present with concerns about their child's rejection or alignment with the other parent, therapists must recognize that the parent may be describing coercive control dynamics and the fracturing of secure attachment. These (protective) parents are navigating the hardest parenting work under the most challenging circumstances—parenting children who are actively suffering coercive control, often without adequate support from systems that should protect their children.

These children often present overwhelmed, dysregulated, and "untethered"—unsure who is safe. At some level, they know the predatory parent is the unsafe parent, yet they often become conditioned to believe that their protective parent is unsafe as well. The result is a fear of expressing their authentic selves. When professionals, including therapists, do not recognize these experiences as coercive control, we diminish the concerns of the protective parent and diminish the experiences of the children. The children suffer the most.

How Coercive Controllers Manipulate Children

Coercive control is not just about dominating a partner—it is about dominating an entire family system, including children (Stark, 2007). Brassard, et al. (1988) and Stark and Hester (2018) describe trauma bonding in such situations as deliberate brainwashing that purposefully weakens the child's autonomy. This coercion often starts very early—well before the adult victim recognizes it, the predatory parent is already diminishing the protective parent in the child's eyes.

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Inadvertently, we as therapists may validate a child's narrative when the narrative is not actually theirs—it is the predatory parent's narrative.

Marie, the mother of two teens, loved her work as an accountant. Yet when she received accolades from her boss and even when she was promoted, the response from the family, led by her husband, was that accounting is not a "tough" job anyway. Confusingly for Marie, her husband would sometimes brag about her success in public. This was one example among many of her own feelings of confusion—systematically diminished in the family system, yet at other times elevated. Since the children experienced this diminishing of her career, they came to perceive accounting as a "dumb" career and Marie's hobbies as unimportant—not through their own assessment, but through systematic devaluation by the coercive controller. Marie's family and friends would describe her teens as "typical," yet she knew it was more than that. A well-informed therapist might recognize the pattern of diminishing and conditioning behaviors and the impact on the children.

Children in Survival Mode

Children living under coercive control operate in constant survival mode—their nervous system scanning for danger, adjusting to unpredictable moods, doing whatever it takes to stay safe. Although it may not always appear evident to observers—even the protective parent—they are accommodating the needs of the predatory parent to survive. Research demonstrates that children exposed to coercive control face increased risk of both internalizing and externalizing problems (Xyrakis et al., 2024).

Coercive control intensifies post-separation. The conditioning that occurred early on intensifies with the children. Sometimes children acquiesce to the false narrative and may even appear to align. Often, they are simply going along with it because they feel they have no choice. All the while, they are living in fear. Sometimes safety does mean alignment, even if they know fully that the predatory parent's actions are wrong and their narrative is untrue.

Subsequently, the children learn that who they are is not acceptable, that their needs come second to the predatory parent's demands, and that compliance equals safety. This is not conscious—it is instinct. Their brain is protecting them.

The Tactics of a Coercive Controller

A predatory parent uses psychological warfare to make the child dependent on them and distrustful of the protective parent. The most prevalent experience is that the child learns the love from the predatory parent is not unconditional and that they are unable to be their authentic selves. These two key experiences lead to "disconnection" and trauma (Mate, 2022). Research confirms that coercive control is at the heart of turning a child away from a safe, protective parent, in what I have termed malicious fracturing of (secure) attachment, creating reality distortions and compromised reality-testing for children (Matthewson et al., 2023).

The Attachment Can Never Be Entirely Broken

No matter how much the coercive controller manipulates them, the attachment between a child and their protective parent cannot be erased. It may be buried or fragile, but it is still there. Research on adult alienated children who later reunited with their protective parents confirms this. Even after years of separation, when given the opportunity and support, many adult children were able to recognize the manipulation they experienced and voluntarily pursue reunification with the parent they had been taught to reject (Matthewson et al., 2023).

How Therapists Can Support Protective Parents

Our therapeutic role involves supporting protective parents to be the steady, safe presence their child can return to when ready. We must support protective parents to:

Name behaviors, not people: Instead of, "That is not true, your father/mother is lying," guide them toward, "Sometimes people say things that are not fair or kind. What do you think?"

Validate their child's feelings: "I see that you are upset. I'm here when and if you would like to talk about it."

Give their child language for manipulation: Teaching terms like "agency," "boundaries," "gaslighting," "fairness," "respect," and "trust" helps children recognize when those things are missing.

A predatory parent's influence is based on fear, obligation, and guilt (FOG). The protective parent's influence must come from predictability, empathy, and unconditional love. Secure attachment allows a child to feel safe and to be their authentic selves, knowing they are loved unconditionally. These experiences of safety will lead a child toward having agency and understanding their conditioned experiences.

Some children see the truth early. Others take more time. The protective parent's role must remain the same: stay steady, stay open, and stay connected. The predatory parent's grip may be strong, but it is not absolute. The more secure a child feels with the protective parent, the more likely they are to break free from the manipulation.

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Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1989). Attachments beyond infancy. American Psychologist, 44(4), 709–716. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.44.4.709

Bowlby, J. (1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment (2nd ed.). Basic Books. (Original work published 1969)

Brassard, M.R., Hart, S.N., Hardy, D.B. (2000). Psychological and Emotional Abuse of Children. In: Ammerman, R.T., Hersen, M. (eds) Case Studies in Family Violence. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4171-4_14

Maté, G., & Maté, D. (2022). The myth of normal: Trauma, illness, & healing in a toxic culture. Avery/Penguin Random House.

Matthewson, M. L., Bowring, J., Hickey, J., Ward, S., Diercke, P., & Van Niekerk, L. (2023). A qualitative exploration of reunification post alienation from the perspective of adult alienated children and targeted parents. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, Article 1189840. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1189840.

Stark, E. (2024). Children of coercive control. Oxford University Press.

Stark, E., & Hester, M. (2019). Coercive control: Update and review. Violence Against Women, 25(1), 81–104. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801218816191

Xyrakis, N., Aquilina, B., McNiece, E., Tran, T., Waddell, C., Suomi, A., & Pasalich, D. (2024). Interparental coercive control and child and family outcomes: A systematic review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 25(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380221139243

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