Modern Family Update - with a twist

If you’ve been with me awhile, you are familiar with my Modern Family blog series (the-hug-triangle.html, not-just-another-christmas-dinner.html, power-of-the-breakfast-sandwich.html, no-regrets.html, day-of-reckoning.html, summertime-vacation-wows-or-woes.html, parent-season.html).  These were originally designed to highlight cooperative and flexible co-parenting – and they still do.  By writing those posts it was my goal to show what is possible in the realm of co-parenting after divorce.  

However, I want to acknowledge that there are some parents who will never achieve this level of cooperation.  There are high conflict individuals or couples who make this type of co-parenting an impossibility.  And for those who are trying to co-parent with high-conflict people (HCP), these Modern Family blogs just hit differently.  What these parents see when they read these examples is not the sunny side of cooperation and flexibility but a much darker side of manipulation and control.  These aren’t parents trying to be thoughtful, engaged and flexible – but instead a pattern of parents trying to buck the system and get their way under the guise of kindness.  They are the charming rule-breakers acting in self-interest.

The technical name for the most extreme type of this manipulative behavior is coercive control.  It is a form of abuse and can show up as financial, emotional, social and/or parenting manipulation that can be subtle, subversive and damaging.  
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Coercive Control is defined as:
A course of conduct aimed at dominating or controlling another and which has the effect of trapping and isolating victims.
 
It may include any combination of these types of behaviors:

• Threats (explicit threats to harm the victim or children, warnings to victims about the perpetrator’s capacity to harm)
• Belittling or degradation
• Humiliation
• Menacing or intimidatory behaviors or gestures directed strategically at the victim including angry verbal outbursts, staring, silence, ignoring, withdrawal of affection.

• Monitoring
• Stalking
• Surveillance via mobile phone technologies
• Sexual coercion
• Sleep deprivation
• Jealousy
• Accusations of cheating
• Isolating the victim from friends or family
• Restrictions on leaving the residence
• Requirements to answer calls from the perpetrator for monitoring purposes
• Strangulation or choking or pinning up against a wall around the neck
• Restrictions on access to finance
• Monitoring of finances
• Restrictions on the use of the car
• Restrictions on use of a phone
• Restrictions on pursuing studies
• Restrictions and ridged rules about where the victim can eat or sleep
• Threats or warnings about the ability to cancel a spouse visa or deportation
• Threats or warnings about harm to extended family members
• Threats or warnings about telling community members sensitive information about the victim
• Threat of suicide/self-harm

 
How mediation can help:
The legal world is becoming savvy to these types of individuals and crafting solutions to deal with them. In many countries and several USA states there are laws in place recognizing it as abuse and codifying its punishment.  For mediation, that means finding a mediator trained to spot HCPs, manage them well during the process by addressing safety issues and balancing power, being open to utilizing outside support when needed (like therapy or Parenting Coordinators), crafting a Parenting Plan that are less likely to be used as a tool of manipulation and control (creating limits/deadlines),  or even declining mediation as inappropriate in extreme situations and/or terminating mediation and referring the parties for legal advocacy.  When successful, mediation with HCPs can provide victims a sense of agency and empowerment and provide families a good road map forward, as well as all the usual benefits of mediation.  
So today I’m amending my Modern Family blog series to include a trigger warning on each post for all those people out there dealing with a high conflict person (HCP), coercive control or any kind of abuse. This warning will acknowledge both the possibility and optimism of collaborative co-parenting and the reality of abuse, HCPs and coercive control.  It will underscore that these blog posts can be viewed through both lenses depending on circumstances.  And by including this explanation, both here and on those impacted blog posts, I hope to indicate that mediation isn’t always sunshine and roses with a Pollyanna outcome, that different types of parenting styles, conflict and people exist and that mediation can and should adapt to those circumstances.