Kids First Co-Parenting with Dr. Royster
The podcast for moms raising secure kids after divorce & separation, even when their ex makes everything harder.
Kids First Co-Parenting with Dr. Royster
What You Need to Know When Your Ex Manipulates Your Child's Reality
Ever wondered if your child is being gaslit by their other parent? Manipulated into questioning their own reality? You're not alone, and you're not being paranoid.
Gaslighting - that subtle psychological manipulation where someone makes you question your own perceptions and memories - can be devastating for children caught in high-conflict co-parenting situations. When a child starts doubting what they saw, heard, or felt, it undermines their entire sense of security and trust.
In this deep dive, I explain exactly what gaslighting looks like when children are involved. From denying promises ("I never said I'd take you for ice cream") to rewriting family history or undermining your rules, these manipulative tactics create confusion and anxiety for kids. The damage runs deep because it erodes their internal compass - that essential ability to trust their own experiences and feelings.
But not every disagreement or difficult moment with your ex qualifies as gaslighting. I'll help you distinguish between genuine differences in parenting approaches and true manipulation, because labeling everything as "gaslighting" only dilutes its meaning and can make it harder to address the real problem.
This episode lays the foundation for understanding this complex issue, while a future episode will focus specifically on how to protect your child from gaslighting. Because while you might not be able to change your ex's behavior, you absolutely can provide your child with the emotional safety and validation they need to stay grounded in reality.
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If you’re tired of every conversation with your ex turning into a fight, the High Conflict Communication Bootcamp for Moms is for you. In this self-paced 3 day online course, get scripts, strategies, and a workbook you can use right away, designed for moms in high-conflict co-parenting and parallel parenting. Enroll now for just $19 here.
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Welcome to the Kids First co-parenting podcast the podcast for smart, intentional, millennial moms raising resilient kids after separation and divorce. I'm Dr Carolyn Royster, a child psychologist coach and a mom. After thousands of therapy hours with kids caught in the middle of high conflict households, I'm here to help moms like you do it differently, from peaceful co-parenting to total chaos. I've got you here. We talk boundaries, regulation and how to raise a great kid, even if your ex is beyond difficult. We blend science with real life and, as always, keep the focus where it matters, on raising great kids. This is Kids First Co-Parenting. Welcome to this episode of the Kids First Co-Parenting podcast.
Speaker 1:Today we are diving deep into everyone's favorite topic gaslighting. Not really everyone's favorite topic, but a very, very common concern in difficult co-parenting dynamics is how to protect kids from gaslighting and what it is and what it isn't. It's one of those terms, y'all that is thrown around a lot and sometimes I'm like, is that what we call that? I'm not always so sure, but I do think it's really important to understand it, because it is definitely part of the dynamic when things are tense. That's what we're going to talk a little bit about today. You have heard this word. I'm sure it gets thrown around a lot in high-conflict co-parenting, but what does it actually look like when kids are involved? What does it feel like? In this episode, we're going to really focus on what gaslighting is, also what it is not. We're going to talk about what it looks like when kids are involved.
Speaker 1:In another future episode, we will dive deeper on what you need to do to protect your child from gaslighting. Okay, the reason these are separated is that they're very big topics. They're very important topics. Protecting your child from gaslighting is, you know, a very big deal, and so we need to start first with some of the basics and really make sure that's what we're talking about. So, if you're listening to this in the future and you're like, yeah, yeah, I know what it is, I still encourage you to listen, listen through it, because you may learn some parts or have a little reflection moment maybe of oh, I thought that was gaslighting and I've been thinking of it that way, but it's really not. Likewise, if you've skipped ahead and you've been like, I need to know how to protect my kid from this Great Love where your head's at, make sure you spend some time coming back and laying the foundation. In other words. You should probably listen to both the episodes. Okay, which is great. You should listen to all the episodes. They're very helpful, all right. So let's dive in my friends.
Speaker 1:Lots of times what I have experienced in this situation is that moms start to sort of wonder if their kiddo is being gaslit, manipulated or poisoned against them. You can use this phrase and you have probably heard this phrase used in grown-up relationships, as a child psychologist would say. So, in marriages or in marriage therapy, in divorce work, a lot of moms will talk about the experience of they themselves feeling as though they were gaslit, that they went through this experience with their co-parent, and so then it becomes this issue of they did it to me, why would they not do it to my kid? And we get real nervous about it, and there is good reason to be really nervous about it. You're not being paranoid, which, of course, if you have a really fun, toxic co-parent, they're going to tell you that You're being paranoid and you're making a big deal out of nothing.
Speaker 1:However, the research is very clear on how long-term emotional invalidation, rather than validation, can impact kids and how it really can be very damaging to their emotional and mental health. It is an important topic. It is an important issue to address if it's happening. Gaslighting is especially dangerous for children because it really undermines that core sense of what is true and what is safe and what is real. When kids start to question what's real, who can they trust? Who's telling them the truth? That affects their emotional security. When that gets affected, we start to see all kinds of issues glow downstream from that. On the flip side, it is really important to recognize that not every difficult moment with your co-parent is gaslighting. Not every situation is manipulation. Not every gaslighting moment reaches the bar of something like poisoning or alienation. Overlabeling, over-pathologizing, overly getting concerned can really overwhelm you and cause a lot of worry and anxiety for not very productive outcomes, but it can also really confuse your child. The point of this episode is for you to think through what's actually happening. How do I avoid these kind of common areas where moms get it wrong and how do I work towards staying really steady for my kiddo? This is kind of an observing episode where you're learning about something and then I want you to take it and observe in your own life and in your own pattern of things how it feels and how it looks. What is gaslighting. What is the broadest definition of that word? I talk about this all the time.
Speaker 1:Gaslighting comes from a film. If I was more organized I would have looked up the exact date of it. I think it's from the 50s. I could be wrong. I think it has a famous actress, ingrid Bergman, in it, and the story of the film is that it was during the time of oil or kerosene lamps. I don't know if that's a different thing or the same thing, but it was during the time of gas lamps, gas-powered lamps, the exact gas. I don't know Again. Maybe should have researched this.
Speaker 1:Anyways, it was during the time when people had these in their house and what was happening was in this marriage, every night the man would turn down the gas oil lamp thing so that it would burn slightly less bright. And when the wife in this situation would notice that and comment gosh, it seems a little more dim in here, or are you noticing something with the lights? He would say no, it's just as bright as always in here. Okay, over time the wife in this scenario starts to really question why she thinks the lights are getting dimmer when they're not, and she starts to really wonder about that experience for herself and it makes her question her own judgment and question her own thoughts and feelings and what she's literally seeing in the world. Thus, my dears, is where the definition of gaslighting comes from. If this husband had just taken and turned the lights off, it would have been, and it would have been ludicrous for the wife to start being like, yeah, it's bright in here when the lights are actually freaking off. However, when you do it slowly, it gets a little bit easier to chip away at her sense of what she knows to be true and eventually she feels crazy when she's sitting in the damn dark because she thinks it's dark. This is where the phrase gaslighting comes from, like literal gaslights, okay, y'all, and so it's.
Speaker 1:What are the important takeaways from the film? The film shows us that it's subtle, that it's often done in situations of isolation. The husband didn't have a great social support, neither did the wife. There's nobody around sitting next to her going like, yeah, it is a little bit dark in here. Like, can we turn up these lights? I can't do my stitching, or whatever they did during this time period of which I don't know. No checks and balances. Well, this is a very long way of telling you and illustrating where this phrase kind of comes from, and it is important that you know that because it tells us a little bit about how it works. Highly recommend the movie if you haven't seen it.
Speaker 1:What does this look like for children? How does this show up for kids? What does it really look like with kids? Children how does this show up for kids? What does it really look like with kids? It happens in a variety of ways, but it typically kind of falls into these categories of undermining the co -parent, in this case, undermining you. You don't need to listen to your mom's rules, or that's a silly thing to have a rule about. It's fine if you have tech until you fall asleep tonight. It can be that it can be shifting blame. You know, the reason we can't go out to dinner tonight is because I have to pay all the support to your mom. That's not actually shifting blame, that's kind of just outright blame. It's not taking accountability, or shifting blame would be. You know I'm sorry you're so upset about that, but if you hadn't been not listening I wouldn't have had to yell. So it's not taking accountability for your part in what happened.
Speaker 1:What does this look like? Mom's lying that didn't happen, denying that something was promised or suggested, making a child like question their memory. An example of that would be something like I never said I'd pick you up on Friday and the kid's like wait, yeah, you did. Like I swear you said that Rewriting family history, the divorce, was mom's fault. Basically, the move here is to make the kid feel confused. Move here is to make the kid feel confused, make them feel not sturdy in what they know to be true and to start doubting their own thoughts and feelings.
Speaker 1:Many times we see this play out very effectively, I might add, in areas that could be a mistake. The example that I gave of you know I never said I was going to pick you up on Friday. Or I never said I was going to take you out for ice cream after the soccer game. What are you talking about? And it works because you as a person, as a mom, as the partner, the former partner or the child may think to themselves huh, I must have misheard that the first few times it happens. Or yeah, I'm so silly Like I get that stuff wrong all the time, or I didn't write it down, so of course I must have just misheard. It works because it's something that's subtle enough that you're like did I? Did he say that? I don't know, maybe I missed it why? Because you're like a good person who's trying to avoid conflict and knows that we're all human and sometimes we make mistakes.
Speaker 1:That's a gaslighter's move is to take advantage of that insight and awareness that you may have. I chuckle because that's like just so sad and just really I don't know. It's just kind of like it's sad that someone would want to take advantage of somebody wanting to work collaboratively with you. The piece that's helpful about this is that it's usually not super conscious. A difficult co-parent or a toxic ex or a narcissistic person is not usually like I'm going to manipulate and exploit how forgiving she is on scheduling or how disorganized she is when she doesn't write something down. Sometimes they are. Sometimes there is that thought. Lots of times it's more this kind of unconscious or not reflected or not known to them need to have power and control. That plays out. It's sort of like they find the cracks and they're really good at finding the cracks. They intuitively know where to exploit. Okay, it's really kind of a fascinating and someday we should do a deep dive on like why do people gaslight? Like how does that happen? How do you get to a place where you're a narcissist, or how do you get to a place where you're, like, so hurtful to the people that are literally taking care of your children, or are your children, you know, as a parent, that's hard to wrap my mind around.
Speaker 1:What does this do to kids, and why are we so concerned about it? Well, the biggest thing is that it really erodes their internal compass of what is true, of what is right, of what they feel, of what they know. Take the ice cream example. They've been looking forward to that. They're excited about it. They know that you said you'd take them to ice cream. I mean trust.
Speaker 1:No child gets promised something like ice cream and then is like oh I totally forgot about it. Usually, they're really excited about it. They don't mishear. You say something exciting, excited about it. They don't mishear. You say something exciting, and so they're looking forward to it, and then it doesn't happen, and maybe once or twice yeah, I get it. Little sister got sick, we had to go home. It's not a big deal, but very soon you are going to start to hear things from kids. Yeah, you always say that, and we never do it.
Speaker 1:What it does, then, is it creates a child that doesn't believe you and doesn't trust you. What a gaslighter does is, instead of taking accountability for their own response in that situation and their own promise that they then had to break, they put it on the person and in this case, the child, instead of your sister got sick and we had to go home. Or I never intended to take you for ice cream, I just said that to get you out of the car, which is mean, by the way, they would say something like I never said that You're misremembering. That, obviously, is going to also erode trust in the parent. But what it does that's so harmful is it erodes the child's trust in themselves.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm going to say that again in a different way. It creates doubt. It creates doubt in what they heard, what they saw, what they experienced. When you create doubt like that, you create anxiety, and I'm not necessarily saying an anxiety disorder, although this is ripe, fertile ground for that to grow. You create a kid that then doesn't know what to trust, and it's especially harmful because the thing they're worried they can't trust is themselves and, as we know, that's going to cause a lot of problems down the road. It also creates a loyalty bind within your child.
Speaker 1:So it has a situation. It creates a situation in which the kid is like I don't know who's telling me the truth. I can't figure out who is being honest and who is not here, and that's a real problem for me. Of course it is, of course it is. They want to know. Dad's saying he never said we'd go to ice cream and you're saying you did say we'd go to ice cream. Who is lying to me? Who is not being honest with me? Not a position that I want you ever to be in.
Speaker 1:Let's talk a tiny bit about what is not gaslighting, and I'm not going to say that these are not hurtful or harmful things, because they are, but they are not necessarily gaslighting and so you want to be careful about, like throwing that accusation around if that's not accurately describing the situation. So what is not gaslighting? Just disagreeing with each other? You can look at the same piece of information and see it two very different ways and in fact you likely will and just having a different perspective on something is not gaslighting in itself.
Speaker 1:The difference is the gaslighting has to flow down towards the child. You can think that soccer is a great sport for them and that they need the physical movement. They're happier kids when they get to do it. They love it. You can think it's really important. Your co-parent can disagree and think, gosh, I really think that that's gonna overschedule them and it's gonna be too much and I'm not totally sure we can afford it. That's just a disagreement. One person saying I think we should do this, one person saying I don't agree. And here are my concerns. That's not trying to gaslight each other. The difference is that it's factual, it's focused on the kid and no one's trying to undermine each other's reality. Just genuine plain old. I just forgot. I just honestly I was so stressed about all the things we have to do tomorrow that I just drove home and I forgot to take you to ice cream, and I'm real sorry. That's not gaslighting.
Speaker 1:The gaslighting piece comes in when we try to go back and change the facts being difficult, refusing to compromise or stonewalling. Stonewalling is a phrase of shutting down, not saying what you mean, just not engaging. While it is frustrating and irritating as a co-parent, it is not the same as gaslighting. Again, gaslighting is messing with the facts. It's messing with someone's reality, their emotional experience of a situation. Just disagreeing or refusing to compromise and just being like I just do not agree with you. I do not see it that way and you can't make me. Is not necessarily them trying to gaslight you?
Speaker 1:If we call everything gaslighting, then we call nothing gaslighting. In other words, if you call every behavior that you don't like gaslighting, then we call nothing gaslighting. In other words, if you call every behavior that you don't like gaslighting, then you're diluting the meaning of the term and the seriousness of the issue and you can make it inadvertently a little bit harder for your kid to know what's actually going on and what does it really really mean Gaslighting of you as a parent? And if you have been in a situation where with this person, where you feel like I was really gaslighted by this person, it was really toxic, it was very manipulative, then you have a lot of reason to be watching and monitoring and making sure that your child is not also experiencing it. But you have pretty good evidence to suggest that they will or they might be at some point, and so I do think it's important for you to understand and really explore what it means, what it looks like and why we get so worried about it as folks that work with these kids in the long term, because gaslighting is very real and it can be very damaging.
Speaker 1:Not every co-parenting moment is gaslighting or qualifies as gaslighting, but if it's happening then you really need to have the tools to provide that emotional safety for your kid and that steadiness and the ability to quote, unquote protect them. And when I say protect them, I don't necessarily mean that you're going to prevent the gaslighting from happening, because, honestly, if you could get this person to stop trying to manipulate people, you probably wouldn't have separated from them. You probably would have done that already. We kind of operate under the assumption that you're going to need to work within this toxic system, which is so sad to think about.
Speaker 1:I have to send my kid into an environment that feels really toxic and yucky. I am with you in that. I know how that experience is for moms. That's, everyone in the Kids First program is experiencing that, and my job and what I do so well is help moms know how to support their kid going in and out of that environment in a way that is really very founded in what we know to be true and what I know to do to be true, as you know decades of working not decades, I'm not that old but thousands of hours of working with these kids as they go in and out of these situations and tons and tons of moms within the Kids First community having the same experience and what works and what doesn't. If you think that you could really bolster up and use a little more skills around how do I handle manipulative communication, either to me directly or through my child you need to really seriously consider the High Conflict Communication Bootcamp for Moms. It's three days. You gain a lot of confidence and skills and the legit tools that actually help you manage this. That is what I would suggest for you.
Speaker 1:Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Kids First Co-Parenting. The best way you can support the show is by following, rating and reviewing wherever you listen to podcasts and by sharing it with another mom who could use the support. You can also connect with me on Instagram and Facebook at Learn With Little House, where I share daily tips and encouragement for moms raising kids through high conflict, divorce and if you're ready to go deep and get more tools, scripts, personalized support and coaching, come join us inside the Kids First Co-Parenting Community. You'll find the details at learnwithlittlehousecom. Until next time, remember your kids don't need you to be perfect. They just need you to be steady and grounded and, as always, to put them first. Thanks for being here.