What is Coercive Control?
Coercive Control is an act or a pattern of psychological abuse such as manipulation, threats, humiliation, intimidation, gaslighting, isolation or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten their victim. It also may include financial abuse and legal abuse which is when the court system is complicit in the coercive control. Additionally, coercive control may include sexual abuse. Coercive control can be used against anyone, but it is mostly used by men against women.
Coercive control creates invisible chains and a sense of fear that pervades all elements of a survivor’s life. It works to limit their human rights by depriving them of their liberty and reducing their ability for action. Experts like Evan Stark liken coercive control to being taken hostage. As he says: “the victim becomes captive in an unreal world created by the abuser, entrapped in a world of confusion, contradiction and fear.” (Stark, 2007).
Perhaps the worst and more heartbreaking tactic of coercive control is the use of children as weapons in multiple ways, including attempts to harm the relationships between adult victims and child victims, also known as Child and Mother Sabotage (CAMS).
What Does Coercive Control Look Like In Family Court For Victims?
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Misuse of legal or reporting processes
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Unfounded claims about drug/alcohol abuse
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Dragging out court hearings to increase financial or emotional burden
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Refusing to obey court orders with no enforcement by the court
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Counter claims of alienation after disclosures of abuse
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Suing the survivor party or anyone who helped them (friends, family, or professionals)
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Minimization or trivialization of domestic violence by the Judge
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Normalization of abusive behaviors as “family conflict” by court professionals
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Interference with Employment
What is Child and Mother Sabotage (CAMS)?
Child and Mother Sabotage (CAMS) is when an abusive father/parent intentionally undermines the other parent’s relationship with the children.
How is CAMS an example of Coercive Control?
Coercively controlling male abusers sabotage the children’s relationship with their mother in order to:
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enforce their belief that the mother and children should be obedient to them and their authority in the family. (For such abusers, children are considered a possession, beneath the mother who is also seen by the abuser as a possession).
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abuse the mother by indirectly hurting her relationship with her children. One study reported an abuser said:
“Why [attack] her mothering? It was just to assert power over her … attacking something … that probably means the most to her,” – perpetrator quoted in Heward-Belle 2017, p.8–9).
Examples of this are available globally, such as in this study from South Africa:
"He’d tell me I’m a crap mother, that someone else should be looking after my children, that I don’t know what I’m doing. He would undermine me and say this in front of my children,”
(Dekel and Abrahams, 2023, p.6).
Recognition of CAMS can also help professionals see how male abusers exploit the family courts in order to succeed in their post-separation abuse of the mother, including sabotage of mother–child relationships.
What are the tactics?
Signs To Look Out For
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Slandering the mother to the child and in front of the child
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Telling the child that their mother doesn’t love them.
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Blocking the mother’s ability to spend time with the child, and blocking communication
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Twisting events & conversations with the mother
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Making false allegations of abuse in family court
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A child’s mother appears to be missing from the child’s life
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A grandparent or someone else, instead of a child’s mother is listed as an emergency contact
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Badmouthing a mother, especially in front of the child
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Father limits a mother’s contact with their child and tries to interfere with her parenting time
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Attempt to block a mother from having access to the child or the child’s information, including grades and extra curriculum schedule and activities
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Father acts like a victim (in the situation he’s created), in order to gain your sympathy
The Effect on Children and Teens
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Learn “destructive patterns about the use of violence and power in relationships,” which may be carried into adulthood and transferred inter-generationally.
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Experience “narrower space for action” (a limitation on their freedom to say and do things), which may compromise development.
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Internalize victim-blaming attitudes and/or harmful views about unequal power relations between men and women.
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Be at higher risk of severe injury, death threats, and/or homicide.
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Experience challenges in school such as learning difficulties and disengagement
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Feel a lack of security and safety
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Low self-esteem, depression and anxiety
The Long-Term Impact
Children and Teens face many life-long challenges as a result of this form of abuse!
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Low self-esteem
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Depression
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Anxiety
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Difficulty trusting others
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Eating disorders
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Learning difficulties
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Abusive romantic relationships
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Suicidal ideation
How does CAMS relate to children taking the side of the (male) abuser post -separation, and why is this suspicious?
Post-separation, some children may seem to take the side of the abuser. If there is a backdrop of family violence, this behaviour cannot be taken at face value. Rather, it should be explored for whether it is a continuation of a child’s defence and survival strategy used during abuse, i.e.
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Children facing abuse from a parent are less likely than an adult to be able to “fight” or “flee”. They are more likely to “freeze”, “submit” and “trauma bond” or develop a coerced trauma attachment to the abuser to try to keep safe and avoid harm (Bancroft, 2022a; 2022b; Lahav et al., 2019; Santos et al. 2023).
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For a child, attempting to please an abusive father by playing, smiling, laughing, or mimicking/responding to their demands for “care” and “affection” may be a way of deflecting the abusive father’s aggression or managing it, based on the situation they are trapped in. As noted by Jenny Kitzinger (2015, p.176): ‘it is precisely the children who are most vulnerable, eager to please and easily-led who obstinately reject any idea that they have ‘rights’ and refuse to develop a ‘sense’ of their own power. Such unexpected conviction from the most vulnerable children is understandable if we accept that a ‘sense’ of powerlessness may in fact reflect their external ‘reality’. Children are sometimes hopeless because there is no hope, helpless because there is no help and compliant because there is no alternative. Powerlessness is in the food they eat, the air they breathe and the beds they sleep in. As one 9-year-old, explaining her own abuse, said simply: “He was big and I was little. I had to do what he said...”
In such cases, it is unlikely that the child will step out of this behaviour until they are safe from the perpetrator father’s harm and control. This is because:
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A child who has had an abusive father may be traumatized or at minimum frightened, having been exposed to an ever-present threat and intimidated by the abusive father. A child may therefore have seen that power and coercion ‘works’, and that it is safer not to identify with the victim-surviving mother who is under attack.
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They may also have been directly abused by that father. (Generally, false allegations of rape and abuse are rare, and children tend not to make false allegations of abuse, so any abuse report should be taken seriously and explored fully).
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Though they do not often exhibit this in court, many abusive fathers make it clear to the child victims that they hate the mother and want to destroy her relationship with her children. In this context, children know they need to fall in line with the abuser father’s goals in order to avoid risking their own safety — even if they do not really want to. Displeasing the abusive parent is too dangerous; such children may instinctively suppress their affection for their other parent to stay on the dangerous parent’s good side.
How is CAMS part of a pattern of abuse?
The idea of child-parent relationship sabotage is not new. It is long-established in academic research, particularly research in the domestic violence field, such as the power and control wheel noted above.
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McHale (1997) and Feinberg et al. (2012 p.3) studied how an abusive parent can undermine the other parent with ‘criticism, disparagement, and blame’, taking a ‘competitive approach’ against the other parent in attempting to gain ‘authority or warmth’ with a child at the other parent’s expense.
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Lamela et al (2016) studied how abusive parents make ‘disparaging communications to the child about the absent coparent, sabotaging the other co-parent’s parental authority’, and interfering in other ways in the other parent's relationship with the child.
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Researchers have identified abusive fathers stopping new mothers from looking after their babies (Buchanan, 2018), with news reports of courts denying children from receiving breastfeeding, because it was deemed as interfering with the father’s visitation. Others have reported abusive fathers stopping mothers and children from playing and having fun together (Katz, 2022).
Post Separation Abuse
Because abusers lose direct control over their adult targets after separation, their focus on the children as a vehicle for continuing their abuse of the mother increases post-separation. Spearman et al (2022, p.1225) define post-separation abuse as “the ongoing, willful pattern of intimidation of a former intimate partner including legal abuse, economic abuse, threats and endangerment to children, isolation and discrediting, and harassment and stalking.”
Spearman et al (2022) explain why post-separation abuse is likely to be male-on-female, involving male perpetrators using children, courts and litigation against female victims. They explain that ‘mothers are more vulnerable to ‘post-separation abuse’ through custody litigation for several reasons, including:
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gender differences in economic power (wage disparities between partners)
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gendered discourses of parenting that undervalue mothers’ unpaid domestic labour, and
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misogynistic norms that position mothers as obstructive or vindictive.
Additional research supports this analysis:
Harrison (2008: p.393) studied how a perpetrator-father used the children and the court-ordered supervised contact to continue abusing the mother, despite not being in contact with her. The perpetrator-father’s conduct taught the children not to respect their mother, to treat her abusively, and to feel compelled to do so for fear of the perpetrator-father:
“He’s nasty, verbally abusive. Through the children, he’ll say things to the children about me and they’ll come back and tell me what he has said about me… even though the contact centre is public.”
Several other researchers have studied how litigation abuse is a form of post-separation abuse, where the law is used to exert control over and continue abuse of victim-survivor mothers.
So, what do health and legal professionals therefore need to consider about children taking the side of the (male) abuser in CAMS?
A child’s apparent warmth towards the abusive father may be based on the defense strategy that they need in order to survive. This applies to situations when they are:
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Placed in a room with their abusive father - such as during supervised or unsupervised contact
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Asked about their abusive parent - such as during a family court evaluation
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Seen and interviewed when the child is aware their abusive father is nearby, and they may have to return to his care
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Health and legal professionals should also be aware that often perpetrators are master manipulators, influencing not just children but also adults, including professionals involved in these cases.
Impacts of Coercive Control on Children and Teens
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Higher level of anxiety, fear and reluctance to trust others
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Higher risk of bullying, both as a victim and perpetrator
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Challenges experienced in school such as learning difficulties and disengagement
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Low self-esteem, depression and anxiety
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Feel a lack of security and safety
Perpetrators harm Children
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Research evidence from multiple countries highlights that male coercive control/domestic abuse perpetrators are usually harmful fathers or father figures. (e.g. Thompson-Walsh et al, 2021; Haselschwerdt et al, 2020; Katz et al, 2020; Humphreys et al, 2019; Mohaupt et al, 2019; Smith and Humphreys, 2019; Heward-Belle, 2016; Øverlien, 2013; Bancroft et al, 2012; Harne, 2011)
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In a large-scale study involving over 6,000 people, found that half (49%) of DV perpetrating fathers frequently physically assaulted their children, compared to 7% of fathers who were not DV perpetrators (1990, cited in Bancroft et al, 2012, p.55). 20% of DV perpetrating fathers require the children to watch them as they abuse the child’s mother (Mbilinyi et al, 2007, cited in Bancroft et al, 2012, p.58).
Children experience Coercive Control too
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Children experience coercive control too. In some families, the children experience the perpetrator rigidly and malevolently controlling their daily activities, excessively controlling and limiting their contact with friends and family, hurting their beloved pets, and depriving them of access to amounts of money and resources that are normal for their age. In some families, perpetrators take a different approach and become extremely permissive with the children, encouraging the children to resent the healthy parenting of the survivor parent. (See Callaghan et al, 2018; Fellin et al, 2019; Haselschwerdt et al, 2019; Katz, 2016, 2019; 2022; Øverlien, 2013).
Sources:
Xyrakis, N., Aquilina, B., McNiece, E., Tran, T., Waddell, C., Suomi, A., & Pasalich, D. (2024). Interparental Coercive Control and Child and Family Outcomes: A Systematic Review. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 25(1), 168-183. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427889026002004
Katz, E., Nikupeteri, A., and Laitinen, M. (2020) When Coercive Control Continues to Harm Children: Post-Separation Fathering, Stalking and Domestic Violence. Child Abuse Rev., 29: 310–324. https://doi.org/10.1002/car.2611.
Arenas-Arroyo, E., Fernandez-Kranz, D., Nollenberger, N. (2021). Intimate partner violence under forced cohabitation and economic stress: Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272720302140
Stark E. (2009) ‘Rethinking Custody Evaluation in Cases Involving Domestic Violence’, Journal of Child Custody 6: 3, 287-321.
“Like adult victims/survivors, many of the children and young people were living under conditions of constraint and entrapment, and coercive control could severely harm their emotional/psychological, social and physical wellbeing and their educational achievement. Some perpetrators/fathers appeared to deploy public performances of being a ‘caring’, ‘indulgent’, ‘concerned’ and/or ‘vulnerable‐victim’ father, thereby obscuring their coercive control.”
- Katz et al. (2020)