Welcome back to Unapologetic Parenting, the podcast where we say the quiet parts out loud about high-conflict co-parenting, blended families, and the family court system—and then talk about what actually works.

In this episode, host Carl Knickerbocker dives into one of the most maddening (and, when you step back, genuinely hilarious) realities of dealing with high-conflict, narcissistic co-parents: if there’s anything they can mess with, they will. Big things. Small things. Completely unnecessary things. All in the name of control, attention, and feeding a very fragile narrative.

Carl walks through a real-world example involving a routine pediatrician visit that somehow turns into an Olympic-level performance of martyrdom, victimhood, and chaos—complete with dramatic exits from work, preemptive copay payments, uploaded receipts, and instant outrage over reimbursement that hasn’t even had time to process yet.

From there, the episode tackles the question so many parents ask: How do I make this stop?
Spoiler alert—you usually can’t. Courts don’t issue orders telling people to stop being ridiculous, and logic rarely works on people who aren’t operating in reality.

Instead, Carl offers a different solution: change how you relate to the behavior. Stop letting it steal your peace. Stop feeding the narrative. Stop burning emotional energy trying to fix what has never shown any capacity to change. And, when appropriate, learn to laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all.

This episode is about:

• Why pushback often makes high-conflict behavior worse
• How attention fuels the chaos
• Letting go of the need to “solve” disordered behavior
• Using humor as a form of emotional detachment and self-protection
• Preserving your time, energy, and sanity for the people who actually matter

If you’re tired of being angry, frustrated, and exhausted over nonsense that doesn’t truly matter—and want a healthier, lighter way to handle it—this episode is for you.

Sometimes the most powerful response isn’t a legal strategy or a perfectly worded message.
 Sometimes it’s paying the $25, shaking your head, and saying: Well… that was objectively funny.