Why A Child’s No Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Post Separation Abuse Podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Black. We started this series with a child saying no. I don't want to go, I don't want to stay, I want to come home, I don't want to see dad, I don't want to see mum. Nine episodes later, I hope we're less interested in rushing to decide what that no proves and more interested in understanding the child who's saying it. Because a child's resistance can mean different things in different families. Sometimes it reflects fear or harm. Sometimes it reflects a relationship that has never been particularly close. Sometimes a child is caught in adult conflict or has been deliberately influenced. Sometimes there are ordinary developmental preferences, anxieties, or difficulties with transitions. And sometimes several of those things are true at once. Today

Your Child’s Life Is Happening Now

SPEAKER_00 1:05

I want to zoom out from the moment of refusal and even from the question of whether a child will eventually have a relationship with both parents. Because there's something bigger happening while everybody is trying to resolve the parenting arrangements. Your child is having a childhood. Not waiting for one to begin when the litigation ends. Not putting their development on hold until the adults agree. Not living in a holding pattern until someone decides whether the care arrangements should be three nights or five nights per fortnight with the other parent. They are growing up right now in the middle of whatever is happening. And one day the parenting orders will end. But your child doesn't get those years back. I don't say that to frighten parents who are already carrying an enormous amount. And I certainly don't say it to suggest that a protective parent should stop raising safety concerns or should accept unsafe or inappropriate arrangements in the name of keeping the peace. Sometimes court proceedings and firm protective boundaries are necessary. Sometimes the other parent creates the conflict and refuses every reasonable opportunity to reduce it. Those realities matter. Rather what I am asking us to do is keep our child in view genuinely. Not only the child who will one day turn eighteen and decide whether to visit us, the child who is eight today or eleven or fifteen. The child who has school tomorrow and a birthday party on Saturday and a new baby brother at Dad's house and a mum who gets upset when Dad's girlfriend is mentioned. The child who is learning in a thousand ordinary interactions what it feels like to be loved by these particular parents. That's what this episode is about. When you're inside a parenting dispute, the care arrangements can feel like the whole universe. I get it. I understand why. One extra overnight can have real implications for a child who is struggling. A changeover can be the point in the week when a child's distress becomes impossible to ignore. A parent who has had very little involvement in day-to-day care might be asking for a dramatic increase in time. Another parent might be doing everything they can to maintain a child's relationship with the other parent while also trying to keep them safe. Care arrangements matter. They affect routines, sleep, school, stability, opportunities for connection

Why Time Alone Misses The Point

SPEAKER_00 4:08

and exposure to both nurturing and harmful experiences. I've never believed that the amount of time a child spends with a parent is irrelevant. But a care arrangement is not a description of the child's experience. It tells us where the child sleeps on any given Tuesday. It doesn't tell us what that Tuesday feels like for our child. It doesn't tell us whether our child can say they miss the other parent without somebody taking it personally. Whether they can be proud of something that happened in the other home. Whether they feel able to ask for help. Whether they are listened to when they disagree. Whether they can make a mistake without fearing humiliation, shame, withdrawal, or an explosion. Whether they can relax into truly being themselves. Two children can spend exactly the same number of nights with a parent and have completely different experiences of that relationship. One might feel safe, known, and supported. The other might spend those nights monitoring a parent's mood, avoiding particular subjects, and carefully managing what they reveal. If we look only at the calendar, we miss all of that. And there's another reason the calendar can become such a seductive focus. It's measurable. We can count overnights, we can argue about percentages, we can point to compliance or non-compliance. Emotional safety, trust, and attunement are so much harder to put in a spreadsheet. They're also much harder to manufacture through a court order. A court can create opportunities for time together. It cannot order a child to feel emotionally safe. It cannot require a parent to be curious, responsive, or accountable. It cannot manufacture the history of being known. So while parents are arguing about the care arrangements, I want us to make space for a different question.

Emotional Safety Cannot Be Ordered

SPEAKER_00 6:28

What is it actually like to be this child in this family on any given day? Let's imagine a mother who has experienced family violence. Her former partner has hurt and frightened her. She has spent years trying to make sense of what happened and perhaps years trying to persuade other people to take it seriously. Even after separation, a mention of the former partner's name can send her nervous system into overdrive. Her child comes home and says Dad and Christie took us to the beach, it was really fun. And mum's face changes. Maybe she goes quiet. Maybe she makes a sarcastic comment. Maybe she asks a series of anxious questions that turn a happy story into an interrogation. Maybe she says, Well, I'm glad he can find the time and money for that now. The child notices. The next time something good happens at Dad's house, the child hesitates before mentioning it. Eventually they might stop mentioning it altogether. That doesn't mean mum's experience of violence was imaginary. It certainly doesn't mean Dad has become a safe parent because he organized a trip to the beach. Responsibility for his abusive behavior remains with him. But mum's understandable distress can still affect what the child feels safe to share with her. Those two truths can coexist. And this is why regulation matters so much, and why we talk about capacity building so often in coaching work. Why growing capacity is part of our three steps to protective parenting framework underpinning our post-separation parenting blueprint. Not because a victim survivor should be expected to be endlessly calm while abuse continues. Not because the answer to coercive control is to become a more agreeable co-parent. But because children need at least one relationship in which they don't have to constantly scan the adult's emotional state before deciding what they're allowed to say. The goal isn't perfection. Parents are human. We all have moments when our faces give us away, when we react before we've had time to think, when we need to come back and repair. The goal is to notice the impact and take responsibility for it. You might say, I'm glad you had a great day. I'm sorry I looked upset when you told me. I'm not sad that you had a good time, it's a bit complicated, but what's important is that it was my feeling to manage, not yours. That little repair matters. It tells the child that their happiness is not a betrayal and that the adult can carry their

When Disclosure Feels Too Costly

SPEAKER_00 9:37

own emotions. Now imagine a different situation. The child comes home upset about something that happened with Dad. Perhaps Dad yelled. Perhaps the child felt ignored or frightened. Perhaps there's a pattern of behaviour that genuinely needs attention. But the child has learned that if they tell mum anything negative about dad, mum becomes highly activated. She starts asking a whole heap of questions and gets out her phone to start recording or typing. She says things like, I knew it. She starts asking for every detail repeatedly. She calls grandma and puts the child on the phone to grandma to repeat the story. The child watches mum and perhaps other adults become frightened or furious. And suddenly the problem isn't just what happened at Dad's house, it's everything that happens after telling mum. So next time, the child says nothing. Think about the danger in that. The very parent who most wants the child to disclose concerns may inadvertently make disclosure feel far too costly. We need children to know that they can tell us something difficult without becoming responsible for the adult reactions or for deciding what happens next. We can listen carefully, ask what they need, document appropriately, seek advice, and take protective action when necessary. None of that requires turning our child into the manager of our fear or the witness to our outrage. And if a child tells us something concerning, curiosity is not the same as disbelief. We can take it seriously without leaping straight into a conclusion in front of them. We can respond protectively without asking them to carry the emotional weight of our response. And what about when joy becomes a loyalty

Joy Turns Into A Loyalty Test

SPEAKER_00 11:53

test? Consider a father who refuses to attend school events if his former partner will be there. Perhaps there are safety reasons or legal restrictions that make joint attendance inappropriate. If so, the adults need a plan that takes those realities seriously. But sometimes the issue is simply that the adults cannot tolerate one another. Or that one parent is willing to be in the same community space even at a distance, but the other parent isn't, even though there is no danger, no safety concerns in that community space. From the child's perspective, the school concert is still happening, the award is still being presented, the football final is still on Saturday, and the child has to work out who to invite, who will be upset, and whether enjoying the event is worth the awkwardness or inner turmoil that follows. Or imagine a child who is thrilled about the arrival of a new baby in one parent's household. They love being an older sibling. They want to show the other parent a photograph of them holding their new sibling. But that parent keeps making little comments about the new partner. Nothing dramatic perhaps, just enough for the child to understand that this is not a subject that is welcomed. So the child learns to make their joy smaller. They don't mention the baby. They don't share the funny stories. They keep the two parts of their life separate, not because that's what they want, but because it's easier than managing the adult reaction. And that can happen in either household. A child might avoid telling dad that mum helped them with something important because dad will make a cutting remark about her. They might stop sharing their achievements because each parent wants to know who else was involved. They might feel that saying something affectionate about one parent is a statement against the other. Children can become remarkably skilled at managing adult sensitivities. They learn which topics are safe. They learn how to change the subject. They learn to offer just enough information to keep a parent satisfied and not enough to provoke a reaction. Or they close down and suddenly can't remember what they did when they were in the care of the other parent. From the outside, that child may appear settled, cooperative, mature even. But I want us to ask what it costs a child to spend years editing themselves. What happens when you can't talk about your whole life in either home? When you can't celebrate a new sibling, ask for help with a conflict, or simply say that you miss somebody without feeling disloyal. And when we say children should be free to love both parents, let's be precise about what we mean. A child is not required to love a parent who has harmed them. They are not required to perform affection, to reassure an adult. But if they do love both parents, that love should not come with an emotional penalty. They should be allowed to have their own relationships, including relationships that are different in depth, closeness, and quality. Equal love is not something we can demand. And unequal relationships are not automatically evidence that somebody has done something wrong. The question is whether the child has room to feel what they actually feel. Something that I reflect on as a parent is what my children

Editing The Self To Keep Adults Calm

SPEAKER_00 16:02

will say if asked what it actually felt like to be them in their lives when they were children. An important question for all parents to reflect on, and one of the questions that gets lost when parents become consumed by the dispute, and that is was I able to be myself with you? Not the version of me who knew how to keep you calm? Not the version who agreed with you about the other parent. Not the version who never brought home a difficult feeling because you already had too much going on. Could I tell you I disagreed with you? Could I say I didn't want to go somewhere? Could I tell you that something you'd done had hurt me? Could I be angry without you withdrawing affection? Could I be excited about something you weren't part of? Could I change my mind? And could I be a child rather than your confidant, your emotional support, your evidence or your ally? Some children grow up with an extraordinary amount of responsibility for a parent's well being. They know when mummy's having a bad day before mum has said a word. They know not to mention dad when she's tired. They know that if they ask for more time with one parent, the other may react negatively. They know that their choices can be interpreted as rejection. Sometimes that responsibility is imposed directly. A parent says I don't know what I'd do without you or after everything that's happened, how could you want to be there? Sometimes it's communicated without a single explicit demand. The child sees or senses the reaction and adjusts. Sometimes the child is dealing with a parent who is genuinely unsafe. They may learn to comply, flatter, agree, or minimize themselves because challenging that parent has consequences. That is not simply a matter of poor communication. It may be an adaptation to coercive control or fear. We need to distinguish those situations rather than flatten them into a generic message that both parents should just behave better. But in all of them, the child's experience deserves attention. A child should not have to become smaller in order for the adults around them to remain comfortable.

Behaviour Is Not Proof They’re Okay

SPEAKER_00 18:50

This is where I keep coming back to the difference between a child who is behaving and a child who is genuinely okay. Sometimes those things overlap, sometimes they don't. Compliance can be necessary and appropriate. Children need routines and boundaries. But compliance isn't proof of connection, and silence isn't proof of emotional safety. A child who never complains might be content, or they might have learned that complaining doesn't help. A child who always agrees might trust you, or they might be frightened of your reaction. We have to be willing to look beyond the behavior and ask what it means in context. One of the most difficult things about post-separation parenting is that the adults can be living in entirely different stories from the child. A mother who has escaped coercive control may have spent years understanding the relationship, identifying patterns of abuse, gathering resources and preparing to leave. Her child hasn't necessarily been on that same journey. The child may love the other parent. They may miss them. They may be furious with mum for leaving. They may be frightened of the other parent and still want to see them. They may feel responsible for adult feelings because that is what the family system taught

Curiosity Over Blame And Theories

SPEAKER_00 20:26

them. Those reactions are not proof that mum was wrong to leave. They're not proof that the other parent is safe. They're part of the child's experience and they need to be understood on their own terms. Likewise, a father who feels he has been unfairly excluded may spend years explaining to himself and others that the other parent is responsible for his child's rejection. Perhaps there has been deliberate manipulation. Perhaps there have been false statements or inappropriate disclosures. We talked about those realities in the previous episode and I'm not going to pretend they don't happen. But that father may also have grievances to hear from his child. He may have been inattentive, he may have broken trust, he may have contributed to the child's hurt. The existence of manipulation or influence doesn't make those experiences disappear. This is where curiosity matters more than allegiance to a theory. Instead of asking only who made my child feel this way, we might also ask, What has my child actually experienced? What happens when they try to tell me? What am I doing that makes it easier or harder for them to be honest with me? Those questions are not admissions of wrongdoing. They're the questions we ask when we are. We recognize that relationships involve more than winning an argument about the past. And I want to be clear that this isn't an invitation to pressure children into explaining themselves over and over again. Children shouldn't have to perform their distress for adults, lawyers, or therapists in order to be believed. We can learn from what they say, what we observe, their developmental needs and the history of the relationship, while remaining alert to the limits of what we know. The discipline we've returned to throughout this series is to treat resistance as information, not as

You Are Raising A Person

SPEAKER_00 22:42

a diagnosis. I have said this before and I want to say it again. You are not raising a parenting arrangement. You are raising a person. That person is going to become increasingly separate from you. They'll develop opinions you don't share, and perhaps that you deeply dislike. They'll choose friends you don't know. They'll want privacy. They'll make decisions you wouldn't make. They might choose to spend Christmas with a partner's family, or travel overseas, or move to another city. They might be very close to you and still not want to tell you everything. None of that is automatically rejection. Parenting involves the gradual and sometimes uncomfortable work of relinquishing control without relinquishing relationship. We provide structure and protection when children need it, and we make room for increasing autonomy as they grow. That's why I want the word no to feel familiar in my children's mouths. Not because every no determines the outcome. Sometimes the answer is still I hear you, I see what you've been working on and how amazing it is, and you still have to stop playing Minecraft now. I want disagreement to be something our relationship can survive. I want my children to know they can love me and disagree with me, that they can disappoint me without it impacting their self-worth. That having a boundary doesn't mean they have stopped belonging, and I want them to know that I can hear difficult things without immediately making the conversation about me. That matters now when they're children, and it matters later when they become adults with their own relationships and responsibilities. Think about what happens when an adult child says I don't remember that the way you do, or there were things about my childhood that were really hard for me. A parent might feel devastated. They might remember all the sacrifices they made. They might have been trying to protect the child in circumstances that were extraordinarily difficult. They might genuinely disagree with parts of the child's account. But can they stay curious? Can they acknowledge the child's experience without immediately delivering a defense? Can they say, I didn't realise that was how it felt for you? Tell me more, even if they need time to process what they're hearing. Repair doesn't always mean agreeing on every fact. It does require making room for another person's experience. And sometimes parents need to apologize. Not for having been imperfect or for failing to prevent every difficulty, but for the things they can recognize they got wrong. That can be a much more powerful contribution to a relationship than insisting that the child finally understand

What Happens When Parenting Orders End

SPEAKER_00 26:02

how hard the parent had it. Eventually, for all families, the machinery that organized where the child spent their time comes to an end. There may be a final changeover you don't recognise as the final one. A last school holiday negotiation. A last overnight bag packed because the calendar says so. A birthday happens and suddenly the parenting orders are no longer in effect, and the arrangements that once dominated so much of family life become part of history. Of course, children don't necessarily acquire complete autonomy on their 18th birthday. Older teenagers may already have substantial influence over where they go and whom they see. As we explored in episode 7, sometimes courts recognize that compelling contact with an adamantly resistant adolescent is neither realistic nor beneficial. And adult relationships are never perfectly free of obligation, fear, financial dependence, or family pressure. But over time the legal scaffolding becomes less important and the relationship has to find its own shape. A parent who once insisted on their court-ordered time may discover that their adult child doesn't want regular contact. Another parent may find that a relationship that was difficult during their child's adolescence becomes warmer with time. A young adult might have contact with both parents but keep very firm boundaries. Someone else might maintain a relationship that is loving and complicated at the same time. None of those outcomes is a simple verdict on which parent was right in the litigation. An adult child choosing contact doesn't prove their childhood was free from harm. An adult child choosing distance doesn't establish that every allegation made during childhood was true. A parent can have been badly undermined and still need to do relational work. A parent can have offered consistent care and still face painful distance for reasons they don't fully understand. The child's history matters. The experience of being listened to, being frightened, being supported, being dismissed, being allowed to love, being required to take sides, all of that and more can shape how the relationship feels when the child is free to negotiate it differently. The relationship that remains when the orders end hasn't appeared out of nowhere. It's been developing all along. What if what's left isn't what

Leaving The Door Open Without Waiting

SPEAKER_00 29:03

you hoped for? I want to make room for the parents listening who have little or no contact with their children. I know this can be a profoundly painful place to be. You might believe your child has been manipulated. You might know there were things you did badly. You might have tried repeatedly to repair the relationship and been met with silence. You might not know whether your child will ever want to see or speak with you again. I don't have a neat answer for that uncertainty, and I won't promise that if you do all the right things your child will come back. That isn't a promise anybody can make. What I do think matters is the difference between remaining open to a relationship and organizing your whole life around waiting for one. You can leave a door open without spending every day standing in the doorway. You can respect a child's distance while still caring about them. You can make appropriate non-intrusive efforts to communicate love or willingness to reconnect where that is welcome and safe. You can seek professional support to understand your own contribution to the difficulties. You can grieve, and you can build a life. Friendships, work, interests, relationships, joy, things that have nothing to do with your former partner or the court case. People who know you as a whole person, not only as a parent who has lost contact with a child. That's not abandoning your child. It's refusing to make your child's future decisions responsible for your emotional survival. Because if they do reach out one day, they won't want a speech about how much you suffered. They may not want to hear that the other parent lied to them for years. They may not be remotely interested in revisiting every disputed event from their childhood. They might simply want to know whether they can talk to you without being corrected, interrogated, or asked to choose sides. And if your child is the one who has chosen distance from an unsafe or harmful parent, you are not required to treat reconciliation as the ultimate goal. Safety and autonomy matter. Some relationships can genuinely be repaired, some cannot. Some should not be resumed in the form a parent wants.

When Distance Is Protective Or Necessary

SPEAKER_00 31:52

I also want to acknowledge the children, including adult children, who grieve the parents they wish they'd had. You can know that a parent did their best in difficult circumstances and still feel deeply and profoundly hurt by things that happened. You can love someone and need distance. You can have compassion for a parent's trauma without becoming responsible for managing it. These aren't contradictions to be solved. They're part of the complexity of being human and belonging to a family. I've spoken during this series about my eldest child, who, at the time of recording this, is 19. And for many years his relationship with his father has been his choice. He has chosen not to have contact. There is a long history behind that choice. Serious concerns, abuse, years of experiences and professional involvement. I don't tell that story as a tidy illustration of what always happens when a parent fails to listen, because I don't believe family relationships work that way. I can't know what would have happened in some alternate version of his childhood. I can't tell you that every child who resists contact will eventually make the same choice. And I don't think my child's decision should become a lesson in which his life is reduced to proving an argument. He is a person. He has his own history and his own understanding of it. The relationship he chooses to have or not have is his to navigate as he grows further into his adulthood. What I can say is that eventually there was no arrangement that could determine the relationship for him. The previously agreed arrangement disappeared. Whatever relationship remained had to exist without it. And I think about that when I work with parents who are so focused on securing the next overnight or defending the next application that the child in front of them risks becoming secondary to the dispute. Not because those legal decisions are unimportant, sometimes they're critical, but rather because no legal outcome can give a child back a childhood spent feeling frightened, silenced, or responsible for adult

The Questions That Keep Children In View

SPEAKER_00 34:33

emotions. And equally, no court order can replace the everyday work of showing a child that they are known, valued, and safe to be themselves. When we began we asked what it means when a child says no to spending time with a parent. We've considered how attachment and caregiving history matter, how developmental needs matter, how family violence and coercive control can shape a child's experience, how a child may resist a parent for reasons that are complex, ordinary, protective or painful. We've talked about the difference between a meaningful relationship and a care schedule, about professional assessment and the limits of certainty, about the responsibilities of preferred and resisted parents, and about the line between encouragement and coercion. We've also talked about what happens when courts stop requiring contact, and about the very real possibility of manipulation, loyalty conflicts, and children being caught in adult narratives. I hope the cumulative effect hasn't been to give you a new label to apply to your child. I hope it's made you more curious, more discerning, and more willing to consider what you might not yet understand. And perhaps, just maybe, a bit less likely to keep googling parental alienation. The child who says no with their words or their behaviours isn't a problem to be categorized before we can listen to them. They're a person communicating something, even when we don't yet know exactly what it is. And the child who says yes isn't necessarily telling us that everything is fine. What do they experience when they're with each parent? What have they learned about expressing affection, anger, disagreement, and fear? Can they ask for help without triggering a crisis? Can they enjoy their whole life without hiding pieces of it? Are they physically and emotionally safe? Can they be themselves? Those questions matter no matter how many nights per fortnight a child is spending with either parent. They matter whether the adults agree or remain in conflict. They matter when the child is six and when they're sixteen.

Scrutiny In Court And Asking Better Questions

SPEAKER_00 37:18

And they matter even if the adult relationship that eventually emerges looks nothing like what anybody imagined. I know that many of you may still have many questions, like okay, I've done all the encouraging and still nothing. What now? My barrister is breathing down my neck talking about a change in primary residence if I keep, quote, failing to facilitate the changeovers. My ex is threatening a contravention application for breaching the orders. Yep, I get it. This series was never going to be able to replicate what we cover in one-to-one private coaching. What I tell my one on one clients in similar situations is that of course you are going to be scrutinized. We can't be surprised by that. The preferred parent is always going to be under the microscope. It's deeply uncomfortable. It can be frightening. That's why we need to be very intentional about how we are parenting and what we are documenting. But that's not where the assessment ends. And if all you're getting from your legal team are vague threats that aren't specifying what evidence exists to support what they are apparently so concerned about, it's not time to panic. It's time to start asking better questions. They work for you after all. Whether you are the preferred parent or the resisted parent, one-to-one coaching is available to help you better understand your own specific situation. You can learn more about working with me or another coach on our team by going to our website danielleblackcoaching.com.au There's something that I mentioned in one of the episodes in this series that I want to leave you

Belonging Is Not Ownership

SPEAKER_00 39:18

with. Our children might belong with us, at least for the time being. Belong in our care, but they do not belong to us. There is belonging in family, in attachment, in shared history, in the ordinary comfort of being known. But belonging is not ownership. Children don't owe us the relationship we pictured because we changed nappies, paid school fees, endured court proceedings or sacrificed things for them. We chose the responsibilities of parenting. They didn't incur a debt. So what does it mean to parent with that understanding? I think it means taking responsibility for safety and boundaries without treating the child as property. It means making room for their voice without handing them adult decisions. It means being willing to hear that something was hard for them, even when you had good reasons for doing what you did. It means noticing when your own hurt is becoming something they have to manage. And it means remembering that the relationship is built in the ordinary moments, not just in the outcomes recorded in court orders. One day there will be a last changeover. You might not know it at the time. A last message about pickup, a last school holiday negotiation, a last overnight bag pact. And then your child will keep living. They'll carry memories of both homes, they'll carry the ways they learned to handle disagreement, the things they felt safe to say or not say, the people who made room for them, the times they had to make themselves smaller. They'll carry experiences of care and perhaps of harm. They'll continue making sense of those experiences, sometimes differently from how they understood them as children. But before that day comes, there is today a child coming home from school, a child wanting to tell you about their weekend, a child trying to explain why they're upset, a child excited about a sibling, a child who needs you to stay steady while they say something you don't want to hear that is their childhood, not a preliminary stage before the orders end. Their life happening now in this moment this moment which is actually all that exists right now. So perhaps the most useful question isn't only what's left when the agreement or the orders end. Perhaps it's also what is it like to be my child while the agreement or the orders are still in place? Because the relationship that remains won't be built on the final day of the parenting arrangement. It's being built in all the days leading up to it. You are not raising a parenting arrangement. You are raising a person and that person deserves a childhood in which they have room to be themselves. Thank you for spending these nine episodes with me on this topic.

The Last Changeover And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_00 43:08

If you are a regular listener, thank you. If you are new, thank you also. If you think there is someone in your world who would benefit from the conversations that we have here, please let them know. I deeply value your time. I appreciate that some of what I share can be hard to hear and hard to make space for. What I hope is clear to all of our listeners is the dedication that my team and I have towards the work that we do. The tagline at Danielle Black Coaching is putting children first after separation. It's not just a tagline, it's who we are. It's what we're striving for as coaches, as mothers. If our approach resonates with you and you'd like to work with us one on one, we're here. I look forward to chatting with you again soon.