Parenting is hard. Parenting a child who is being coercively controlled by their other parent is on a whole different level.  The misconception that domestic violence and narcissistic abuse only harms a parent and not the children living in it is putting children in harm every day.

If you are a survivor of relationship abuse and coercive control, you will experience your own triggers as your ex-partner weaponizes your children against you and increases their attempts to destroy your agency as a parent and your relationship with your children.

In this episode, Dr. Cocchiola and I discuss the larger context of coercive control, from a micro, meso, and macro perspective.  We discuss how our children are being negatively affected by witnessing abuse and coercive control within the parental relationship and how they are negatively affected by being coercively controlled themselves.  Dr. Cocchiola shares some examples of things you can do as a protective parent to help your child build their resilience and agency including ways to help them rewire their nervous system.

Dr. Christine Marie Cocchiola, DSW, LCSW is a Coercive Control Educator, Researcher, Survivor, and Protective Parent. A college professor teaching social work for the last 20 years and has been a social justice advocate since the age of 19, volunteering for a local domestic violence/sexual assault agency. Her expertise is in the areas of coercive control and the traumatic experiences of both adult and child victims, researching and developing training on these topics both nationally and internationally.

Most importantly, through her own clinical expertise as a trauma-trained therapist, research, and personal experiences, Dr. Cocchiola understands the impact that coercive control has on children. She coaches and supports victims and survivors as they navigate parenting their harmed children. She has created programming to educate protective parents and their allies, such as clinicians, coaches, and court professionals on the experiences of children, victims of the coercive controller.

Dr. Cocchiola is a Founding Member of the International Coercive Control Conference and a Board Member of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. She has actively supported codifying coercive control, writing numerous policy briefs supporting these efforts.

Where to find Dr. Cocchiola:

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