Ep.40: The Protective Parent Pivot

When you’ve escaped an abusive relationship, traditional parenting advice often no longer applies.
In this episode, I explore why protective parents must pivot the way they parent because of coercive control, post separation abuse, and family court. Whether you’re raising your children day-to-day or parenting from a distance after they’ve been turned against you, this conversation is a reminder that your love, influence, and impact don’t disappear simply because your access has changed.

You’ll learn:

● Why parenting during abuse requires a completely different mindset.
● How to stop measuring your worth by the amount of time you have with your children.
● What it means to parent from afar with intention and integrity.
● Why healing yourself is one of the greatest gifts you can give your children.
● How to model resilience, hope, and life on the other side of escape.

If you’re carrying the heartbreak of being a protective parent, this episode will remind you that while you can’t control every outcome, you can become the safe, steady, and emotionally healthy parent your children can return to, today, tomorrow, or years from now.

Ready for more support?

If you’re looking for guidance from someone who understands the unique challenges of parenting after coercive control, join The Collective, my membership for protective parents, or explore my private coaching program.

 Together, we’ll help you move from fear and overwhelm to clarity, confidence, and empowered parenting.

If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with another protective parent who needs this message today.

Visit: https://chantalcontorinescoaching.com to learn how to work with me. 

And find it all here at: https://linktr.ee/chantalcontorinescoaching

Follow me on Instagram: @chantal.contorines.coaching

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. 

Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants 0:01

Welcome everybody to the Survivor's Playbook. I'm your host, Chantal Contorines, and this is the podcast for every survivor of abuse. If abusers can have a playbook, then why can't survivors also have a playbook, so that you can learn to live lives you love despite what the abuser in your life does or doesn't do? And today, I really wanted to talk to protective parents because I want you to know that this episode is, in fact, designed specifically for you. It's for the parent who has spent years trying to protect their children from manipulation, coercive control, emotional, psychological, mental abuse, family court systems and dynamics that simply don't see what's happening. It's for the parent who is grieving the relationships they once had with their children. It's for the parent who feels like everything they've learned about parenting no longer applies. Because here's the truth: when you're parenting through abuse, you cannot parent the same way everyone else does. You have to pivot. And while that pivot can feel devastating at first, it can also become one of the most empowering shifts you'll ever make. Let's talk about what that actually looks like, because words are easy to say, but what does that actually look like? What does it mean when I say that? For many of us, parenting was always about being present, helping with homework, packing lunches, driving to sports and activities, reading bedtime stories, bath time, brushing teeth, being there to comfort them after a bad day or when they've hurt themselves, or when their emotions or feelings have been hurt. We naturally assume that good parenting means being physically present, emotionally available, and deeply involved in our children's lives. But coercive control changes the rules. Family court often changes the rules, too. Alienating behavior, the intentional fracturing of a child's bond with their parent, their loving, engaged, and present parent, also changes the rules. Suddenly, despite your best efforts, you may have limited time with your children or no time at all, and the time that you have might be dysregulated, might be filled with chaos and confusion because of the coercion and pressure your children experience. And if you continue measuring yourself against traditional ideas of parenting, you're going to believe you're failing You're not. The circumstances have changed Which means your parenting also has to change. You are not parenting the way an average parent parents. One of the biggest pivots protective parents need to make is letting go of the belief that love is only measured by access, because it isn't. Someone can block your access, they cannot erase your love. They can interfere with your time, they cannot erase the impact you've already had in the time that you have, and they cannot stop you from becoming the kind of person your children may one day need. Another pivot is understanding that your job is no longer just raising children. Your job is becoming a safe space they can turn to and return to. Notice I didn't say if, I said can, because none of us know how our children's stories will unfold. Children grow, children mature, children gain perspective, especially through distance. Many children eventually begin asking questions. Many begin noticing inconsistencies in patterns of behavior. Many start connecting dots they couldn't see before and didn't want to see before. Your job isn't to f- to force that awakening. Your job is to make sure that if and when it comes, there is something healthy waiting on the other side. That means becoming emotionally regulated, healing your own trauma. That means building boundaries, creating space. Not because it changes the other parent, not because it guarantees smooth transitions, happy fun times in your home, or necessarily reconciliation, but because it's who you want to be. It aligns with who you are. Another important pivot is shifting from trying to convince your children to s- to simply showing them. Protective parents often become desperate to explain, to defend themselves, to correct the lies, to finally tell their side. And while that's completely understandable, children rarely learn through arguments. They learn through patterns. They learn through consistency, through lived experience. You don't have to win every conversation. You have to become the person whose life consistently reflects honesty, integrity, accountability, compassion, and stability. Because healthy people don't need to advertise that they're healthy. People eventually experience it, and they come to their own conclusions themselves. Another pivot is accepting that parenting from afar is still parenting. It may not be what you hoped it would be. It may not be what you envisioned when you partnered, married, had children with this person. And I know this not only sounds strange, but it feels completely heartbreaking and the antithesis of what parenting should be if you weren't dealing with coercion, but I want you to hear me out. If your children have been turned against you, if they're refusing contact, if you're only getting tiny glimpses into their lives, you're probably wondering, how am I supposed to parent now? This is how you parent now. You parent by continuing to live your values. You parent by refusing to become who they've accused you of being. You parent by refusing revenge, by refusing bitterness to define you, by continuing to become someone worth knowing and reconnecting with because children are always watching, even from a distance. You have to keep the bridge alive between you and your children. Sometimes they're watching through social media, sometimes through extended family, sometimes through mutual friends, sometimes through memories they've tucked away because those memories are still there. Sometimes they're comparing the stories they've been told with the person they continue to observe. You don't need to perform. You simply need to become and to continue to be. Another pivot is grieving what should have been. I cannot stress how hard this is for so many protective parents. Protective parents often feel guilty for grieving, as though acknowledging their pain somehow means giving up on hope. It doesn't. Grief and hope can coexist. You can grieve birthdays you've missed, school concerts, graduations, holidays, ordinary Tuesday afternoons. You can grieve all of it and still hold hope. Healing doesn't require pretending you aren't hurting. It requires making room for both pain and for purpose. And here's another important pivot. Stop waiting for permission to build a beautiful life. I cannot tell you how many of my clients have come to me with their life suspended, on hold, not able to advance, stuck in limbo So many protective parents pause their lives. I'll travel when my children come back. I'll date when this is all over. I'll start my business after court. I'll find joy once everything is resolved. But what if court never gives you justice? What if accountability never comes? What if the apology never arrives? It won't. Does that mean your life stays on hold forever? Absolutely not. One of the most powerful things you can do, one of the greatest acts of defiance for yourself and for your children, is to build a meaningful life anyway, alongside the chaos, confusion, strife, anxiety, overwhelm. Travel, laugh, learn, start the business, volunteer, go back to school, make new friends, new community, new support systems. Take care of your health. I cannot stress how important that piece is. Create a home filled with peace, joy, happiness, love, playfulness. Not because you're forgetting your children, because you're showing them what resilience looks like despite great odds. You're demonstrating that surviving isn't the finish line, thriving is. Your children deserve to know what healing looks like, that it's actually possible. And sometimes they'll learn that not because you told them, but because you actually lived it. In fact, they'll often learn from what you model. Finally, perhaps the biggest parenting pivot of all is releasing responsibility for outcomes you cannot control. All those things that are outside of your control, release them. You are responsible for how you show up. You are not responsible for another adult's choices. You are not responsible for the narrative they create. You are not responsible for systems that fail families and protective parents and children alike. And you are not responsible for whether your child can currently see the truth. Your responsibility is to remain someone your future child, whether they're fifteen, twenty-five, or forty-five, can safely come home to anytime. Someone who didn't become consumed by hatred, someone who kept growing, someone who chose integrity over retaliation, someone who modeled what freedom looked like after surviving coercive control. That may not feel like parenting, but I promise you it is. And sometimes it's the most profound form of parenting there is Thank you for listening to The Survivor's Playbook. If today's episode helped you feel less alone, more confident, more empowered, more educated, more capable, please share it with somebody else who might also need it. And if you're ready for deeper support, you can join my monthly membership or grab free resources and tools on my website. All links are in my show notes. Remember, your clarity is your power. Your calm is your resistance. You are not crazy, you are not alone, and you are not powerless. Until next time, I see you. Keep going