December 16, 2025

Coping Tools for Kids: What to Do With Your Child When a Narcissist Creates Chaos

24 minutes

Episode Summary

When you’re co-parenting with a narcissist, your child often absorbs stress they don’t have words for yet. Meltdowns, shutdowns, anxiety, and emotional overwhelm aren’t misbehavior — they’re nervous system responses to chaos.

In this episode, Christy shares simple coping tools you can do with your child — not lectures, not fixing, not “calm down” energy — but practical nervous-system supports that create safety, connection, and regulation for both of you.

These tools are especially helpful for parents navigating high-conflict co-parenting, post-separation abuse, or emotional manipulation from the other parent.

What You’ll Learn

Why kids feel narcissistic chaos in their bodies before they can explain it

How to help your child regulate without talking badly about the other parent

Simple nervous-system tools you can do together

Why regulating yourself first is the most powerful parenting move

How repair builds more safety than perfection ever could

Your Next Step in Healing

If you’re trying to support your child while also holding yourself together in a high-conflict co-parenting dynamic, you don’t have to do this alone.

I offer 1:1 coaching and somatic support to help you regulate your nervous system, set grounded boundaries, and show up as the calm anchor your child needs — even when the other parent creates chaos.

👉 Transformational Coaching Monthly

https://shethrives.thrivecart.com/transformational-coaching-quarterly/

Additional Support & Resources

Copy-Paste-Peace Scripts (for high-conflict communication):

00:00):

Hello, hello Queens. It's your other queen. Are we queening today? Are we full of queen energy? Good. I have got a special episode for you today that actually one of my clients asked if I would do a podcast dedicated to this. And when you guys want me to do something, I say how, hi, because I'm here for you baby. Alright. In all seriousness, if you are co-parenting with a narcissist, your child is likely absorbing stress that they do not have language for yet, maybe depending on their age, even if they're teens though, it's hard to navigate this stuff as an adult, let alone a teenager or a child, right? So in this episode, I am sharing coping tools you can do with your child, not lectures, not fixing, not calm down energy, which of course I don't want that, right? But simple nervous system tools that build safety together.

(01:01)

Have you finally broken free from that narcissist creepy crawly web, but still feel stuck in fear? Wish you could trust yourself again and take your life back. Well, you're in the right place, queen. I'm Christy wife, mom and narcissistic abuse recovery coach. I've walked the messy road, wasted money on the wrong therapist and dried ice, and had a come to Jesus moment to get me here to feel free. I had to reconnect with me, set boundaries that stuck and find healing methods that actually lasted. Now I've created a plan that's empowering, doable, and yes, even fun because I'm sparkly and fun. So of course it's going to be fun. So if you're ready to break cycles, reclaim your peace and trust yourself again, this podcast is for you. So steep, that chamomile tea, silence, all that crazy chaos out there, and let's cue your royal glow up.

(01:59)

Okay? So when a narcissist creates chaos, which they do, kids feel it in their bodies first. They may not say I'm dysregulated, but they say it with meltdowns, withdrawal, irritability, stomach aches. And here's the part I want you to hear. Clearly, your child does not need you to explain the narcissist. They need you to help their body feel safe with you. And I say this to a lot of my clients, I've said it on here, one of your best weapons against the narcissist is being an amazing role model, a calm energy, the peace for your child, no matter what the narcissist is doing, no matter how your child is acting toward you, that's another episode, right? I'm not saying you don't discipline your child and guide them and lead them and teach them, but you stay calm, peaceful energy, right? It's a hard job, but someone's got to do it and it ain't the narc.

(03:04)

So today, these are tools you can do together side by side that help your child regulate and it helps you stay grounded too. So it two birds with one stone baby. Okay? So tool number one, name what you see without fixing. So instead of you are okay, which that's such a common thing I feel like even in my own upbringing, which is fine, love you, mama, but even generationally, that's something, you're fine. You're okay. And I'm not what we're talking about, but saying, you're okay, it's not a big deal. Instead of that try, I see your shoulders are really tense or looks like something feels heavy right now, then pause. This tells your child, my experience makes sense, right? They know they're feeling off. They may not really think it through as much, but I think saying your shoulders are, you look like something's weighing on you, however you want to put that in child terms, okay?

(04:20)

So just even that, just naming what you see without fixing it. Because often as parents, we want to, and even my personality, okay? I am a fixer by nature. I want to fix everything, all the things, save the world. Actually right now, I'm waiting to see if my husband will take me to go try to find a lost dog, okay? It's story of my life. I just, whatever. I'm a problem solver, fixer. Many of you're like that. We're empaths, we're sensitive. So we want to fix problems and make everything happy. Happy. We can't, by the way, spoiler alert, we cannot save the world, but we can do the best damn job we can with our kids and ourselves. So just helping them feel like, sorry, if you're watching them on YouTube, I have this hair that's stuck. It's really pissing me off all. But if you are just naming something to the child, they are able to first feel validated and seen, which is important, especially if you have a narc other parent.

(05:29)

So that's really important. And then just so they even kind of know, oh yeah, that's true, just observing. And you're dealing with a somatic healer right here. So observation is a very big in the somatic world, we don't always have to fix everything right away, obviously we want to heal and learn those tools too. But just observing is a great start. Tool number two, orient together. I've definitely mentioned this one orienting, but it's like a visual safety. So you can say, let's look around and name three things we like seeing, right? We're keeping it very positive. And you can name colors, cozy things, palm trees, flamingos. I'm looking at a flamingo right now. Basically, I think I have a flamingo in every room. That's my happy place. The beach, all things Resorty, palmy, flamingo. Favorite objects, if you're in their room, if you could name their little bunny they sleep with, maybe the pet, the pet's nearby, right?

(06:39)

Oh my little cute little Scooby-Doo over there. Holiday lights. It's that time of year right now, something that is positive. And this brings the nervous system out of the fight or flight and back into the present moment. And you can do it with them, not as a command. So let's look around and name three things we like seeing and you can alternate or you go first and then they go, especially the first time you're giving them a little example. Tool number three, move the stress out together. So stress gets stuck in kids' bodies just like it does ours, right? So you can try shaking the arms and legs together and making it fun. Just say, let's be a shaky spider. I just made that up. Wasn't that great? The shaky spider dance, right? And just, yeah, I'm a little cuckoo, but hey, it makes for fun.

(07:43)

My daughter has a blast. I mean, we do silly things like that, especially she's getting a little older now. She's a little t twining here. So now she might look at me, roll her eyes, but she's still doing it. In another year, she's probably going to just be rolling her eyes at me jumping for 10 seconds. Again, you can make it fun. One thing I actually have done with my daughter, just as I have tools just for any nervousness before tests or she had a little perfectionism. So after tests, if she didn't get an A, oh my gosh, to kind of get rid of that energy often I would take her outside too that she said, because now she's gotten better. She goes, it really helped when I was younger, you taking me out of the house, cutting that little cycle. So that's another thing is changing your space.

(08:37)

And if you can't go outside, you just go to another room. But changing where you are, the environment. But if you can go outside, get the fresh air, maybe get those toes in the dirt, old dirty toes, that can definitely shift the mind and get you out of that. You could do for younger kids, maybe not your tweens or teens. Stretching like animals. That's always fun, right? Oh, I'm a cat. You could do cat cow, like the yoga poses. And another thing that sets off certain good chemicals in the brain is slow, exaggerated neons. It's making me on, I have a great, actually this is for you guys. You can do this with kids too. This is kind of like a side note of just how to just relax. It takes the attention away. And you'll notice. So if you are on just audio, I'm going to put my YouTube link in the description so you can watch this.

(09:43)

This is awesome, but I'll try to describe it as best I can for those who are just listening, and I can't even really do it. I'm holding my microphone. Let me see if I can put my microphone up in a sec so I don't have to. Okay? Yeah. So you put both your hands behind your head, right? You're like, dang, sex, you look good like clasp behind your head and you put your eyes to the right all the way as far as you can. You're looking at your right elbow until you yawn. It will happen. It actually will happen. See it happen. Then you look all the way to the left until you yawn. It always takes me more time on the left. I have no idea why I'm not going to wait for it. You guys might fall asleep by the time I get there.

(10:40)

No, usually it takes like three seconds if that on my right and then takes me 30 seconds on my left. Okay? It's crazy. It's crazy town work. But then your neck and everything is a little looser. It is a real thing. You can test it. So before you actually do it, you kind of slowly turn your head to the right, to the left to see how tense it is. When you notice your neck is tense, then you do that move. Look to the right, look to the left, do your yawning, and you will see the magical result that you actually, it's not as stiff proven scientific mayhem that I cannot explain because I don't like all the science stuff. Someone else who's sciencey can tell you more about it. Go look it up. I'm just kidding. I should find out so I can tell you. All right. So anyway, hey, you can do that with any child who can follow directions. So that's another thing. So getting into the physical body to move the stress out. Tool number four, give the feeling a job. I like this one. So instead of asking kids to stop feeling, give the feelings somewhere to go, okay, you can draw it, right? That's good. Old therapy 1 0 1, paint your feelings.

(12:05)

I had to draw my feelings. I remember in kindergarten, and I remember, I literally remember having to do it. I had separation anxiety with my mom. I did not want to let go of her leg when I started kindergarten, but my parents had just separated. It was a hard time. And so I would not let her go every day. And finally they took me to the school guidance counselor. And I remember, I still can remember in kindergarten, drawing my little family, and it was so sad. I drew my dad far away. We had just separated. I still saw him, but there he was all by himself in the corner. So there you go. You can draw it, draw it. You can squeeze a pillow, you can stomp it out. You can wrap up in a blanket. Maybe you could play burrito. Roll 'em up and just let 'em feel nice and cozy and safe.

(13:03)

But ask 'em what feeling you have. Maybe it's sad. You could say, Hmm, you want to draw it. You give 'em options, right? Something that is very important in my work I do with you guys, is getting you to make choices for yourself again, for you to build your confidence. Your self trust is so important. It's for most of you has been lost. If you ever had it, depending at the start in childhood, you may have never trusted yourself. And often that can come later to be people pleaser tendencies can be out of that. So this is what I build with my clients. But also if your kids have a narcissist parent, they may also get scrutinized for certain choices or words or whatever. So they may like you. Be careful, walk on eggshells. Just nervous to say or do the wrong thing. So letting them choose.

(14:10)

Here's this feeling you're saying you have anger. Would you like to scribble it out or would you like to stomp it out, or would you like to run it out? I worked with a lot of a DHD kids and we would do similar things, right? It's getting feelings, getting these energies out because they need somewhere to go. So they don't come out in unhealthy ways. I'm trying to think of another, let's say for withdrawal. That one could be along the lines of, let's wrap you up like a burrito. And just because withdrawal, they're withdrawing, they don't feel safe. So wrapping up a burrito and just letting them observe, how do you feel? What can you do When you don't feel safe, you can hug yourself. So they could give themselves a hug. They could draw something that makes them feel safe. Even when they're not feeling safe, they can draw a picture of that bunny they're sleeping with or whatever.

(15:15)

You get the vibe I'm going for. So in this work too, this is also stuff I work with you as your soul self when we work together. But I also, a lot of parents do ask for more specific tools they can work on with their kids. So it's more customized. Obviously, if we're doing one-on-one work, check the description for ways to work with me. And starting in January, which is right around the corner, we will be doing either three, six or 3, 6, 3 months, six months or 12 packages only. There will be no more monthly. So if you want to get in a one-off, get in there quick because otherwise you are committed to mid bay for three whole months. But we're having a lot of fun. In my one-on-one sessions, amazing work is happening. I'm really excited about just this upcoming year, all the things.

(16:17)

But these tools teach emotional safety without the shame. We don't want to shame anybody for having their feelings. Tool number five, regulate yourself out loud. So you can say, I notice my body feels tense, so I'm taking a slow breath. No lecture, no teaching moment, just modeling. You're just observing what you are doing. Kids learn, right? Their eyes are always watching. They're always watching us. They're sponges, right? These are sayings we have because they're true. They learn regulation by watching, not by being told what to do. Sometimes that might stick, but kids, they're observing, they're learning how to live. They're learning how to cope. They're learning, and they're learning by watching you. That's why I say you be that steady, peaceful love bubble for them as much as you can. Again, I'm not saying you coddle. You don't coddle. I'm not a big fan of the coddling. We need to teach them how to cope in healthy ways. And the world is not going to hold them in the big burrito all the time. So they need to learn how to regulate themselves. Okay? And you guys need to remember too, you don't have to be calm all the time.

(17:51)

And healing is not perfection. I'm talking for yourself, for your kids. We're always going to be healing. No one reaches as, oh, I'm totally healed. Am I like centuries past where I was even five years ago, 10 years ago? Yes. But it is a journey. It is not like, oh, I wish I was healed. And I hear that from my clients, God, it's been this long. The funny part is some people say, oh, it's been two months already. And I'm some say, oh, it's been five years, it's been 10 years. So there's this moving bar. No, just with grief. Just like with grief, there is no timeline of exactly when you're supposed to be quote over it. And we'll never be exactly over it. I'm not trying to say that to be negative. To me that's positive because it means I don't have pressure to get to a certain spot by any point.

(18:54)

But there are ways to accelerate this healing and somatic healing is one of the many ways, but somatic healing is, it is mind blowing work. The work I've been doing just today, I had a client tell me that she has been doing therapy for years. And she said, but now I'm doing the actual work like this somatic healing. We do coaching too. So with her, I generally do a half hour of coaching, talking, figuring out the narcissist mind in a way, how to navigate, how to have conversation with this person, et cetera. And then the other half is the somatic work. We go on ation. You know what I mean? You don't know what I mean. Maybe we do somatic work. If you don't know, you've come this far. Now you get a little speech at the end. No, but it's healing from the body.

(19:53)

So the mindset work is great, but without the body work, because your body remembers everything and is not always caught up, it's mostly not caught up with the mind. So it's very important to be doing both phases of healing and the somatic stuff for me and my experience. And like my client said, today it is this accelerated version of healing, but it doesn't feel overwhelming, it doesn't feel heavy. We go slowly. And she said, it's like these small steps, but then there's these big results. So it's amazing work. If you want more information, you can always email me. My email will be in the show notes as well. Alright, so if this episode did help you, it's because these tools are not just for kids. They're for who. Never had someone help their nervous system feel safe.

(20:53)

Did I hit something there? Did I hit something right? We maybe didn't get that from our parent or someone else. Generationally, a lot of us probably did not. If you were one of the lucky ones that did congratulations, good job for your parent. But when you support your child in this way, you are also healing something in yourself. And you are stopping the cycle. You're stopping this cycle so that then your child is how many steps ahead for their child that they can teach them tools, they can teach them how to cope in healthy ways. So you're doing way better than you think. I know from experience, a lot of my clients are you right? You are my clients. Think that you're not doing enough or you're maybe not parenting perfectly and you're very hard on yourselves and you're very worried. And I get it.

(21:56)

We worry about our children, but we can't give any child a perfect childhood. We can't guard them from all the things that happen in the world. What we can do is give them the tools to be able to regulate themselves, help their own minds, help their own bodies. And not only does that help them protect them, that bleeds out into the world. And I love a good domino effect. Can I get a what One? Yes. Yay. Alright, so if you like this episode so much, you want to scream it from the rooftops, go share it anywhere with anyone. I mean, really, most people could stand to use some nervous system settlers. So even if you just have a friend that has an overwhelmed kid, these tools could be helpful. So please share this episode and of course, follow the podcast if you're not already following it.

(22:58)

So you get notified whenever I post, which is two times a week. It's Tuesdays and Thursdays. So Tuesdays are the full episodes. And then we have our Thrive in five on Thursdays, which are a little somatic fun's, like a little bite-size, somatic healing tool of the week. That is always related to Tuesday's episode. So on this Thursday, I might go maybe a little more deeply into one of these tools. So if you have a favorite, join my Facebook private group. Go in there and you can post and tell me which tool you liked, and if you want me to go deeper into it to give more examples or whatever, I love to just work from your feedback, right? So thank you guys for listening. See you in the next episode. Love.

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By Christy Jade - Narcissistic Abuse Coach, Grey Rock Coach , Gaslighting Expert, No Contact Mentor

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