Dr. Karalynn Royster: Welcome to the Kids First Co-Parenting Podcast, the podcast for smart, intentional, millennial moms raising resilient kids after separation and divorce. I'm Dr. Karalynn Royster, a child psychologist, coach, and a mom. After thousands of therapy hours with kids caught in the middle of high conflict households, I'm here to help moms like you do it differently. From peaceful co-parenting to total chaos, I've got you. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Kids First Co-Parenting. If you found this helpful, the best way you can support the show is by following, rating, and reviewing wherever you listen to podcasts and by sharing it with another mom who could use the support. You can also connect with me on Instagram and Facebook at Learn with Little House, Probably the most common thing that I hear from moms the that they themselves have left a marriage or a relationship where they gaslit, where they had a hard time, where they know that somebody messing with their reality. And the biggest concern, the biggest, but one the biggest concerns that I hear from moms is, and now what? Because now I have a Just a quick disclaimer, this podcast is for general information and education only. It is not legal advice, it is not mental health treatment, and listening does not create a therapist-client relationship. Laws and clinical needs vary, so please consult a licensed professional in your area who can evaluate and help you with your specific situation. And if you are in a dangerous situation or feel unsafe, contact local violence resources right away. And if you're ready to go deep and get more tools, scripts, personalized support and coaching, come join us inside the Kids First co-parenting community. You'll find the details at learnwithlittlehouse.com. Here we talk boundaries, regulation, and how to raise a great kid, even if your ex is beyond difficult. We blend science with real life, and as always, keep the focus where it matters, on raising great kids. This is Kids First Co-Parenting. I'm a middle-aged elder millennial lady dealing with this. now I have a five-year-old that's also dealing with it and they don't have the skills. ⁓ don't have the development. And I'm really worried about my child being manipulated, my child being gaslit. Mom things to me like she comes home saying that I lie. She comes home saying that I'm a bad mom. She told me her dad said I don't love Or he keeps telling the kids that I'm unstable or that spend money poorly or planting these seeds that I'm not a safe person, here's the thing. When kids start questioning reality, it does hit something really primal within moms. It really isn't about your ego anymore. It isn't necessarily about, know this to be true, I know that to be true. This is wrong, this is right. And it is wrong. I mean, I'm not here to tell you it's right. It's wrong to do this to kids. It's damaging to do this to kids. But the problem is, It messes with attachment and it messes with them long-term. we're really diving deep on gaslighting today. We've talked a lot about this on the podcast, again, because it's a very common concern. And we'll continue to talk a lot about it on the podcast. This specific episode, we're going to go really deep into actual strategies that can help you. Things that you can put in place by dinner tonight to start ⁓ against manipulation and gaslighting with your children. Many you have already at my method, which is my guide, my like little cute little acronym to help you work through the steps ⁓ to really help your with that. If you have not, will still get a lot out of this episode, but I highly encourage you to check out the show notes and get document because it will help you have a tangible way to work through the steps. ⁓ it's really nice framework for you and I highly encourage you use it. ⁓ It's not just we validate, which by the way, we do. And that isn't there, but it's as step zero, right? I want you to validate and we'll talk a little more about that. And on my past episodes, you heard me talk about validation on steroids and how you really have to have this like extra level of skill when you come in around emotions and gaslighting for kids. The moms that I work with and ⁓ the moms that we spend a lot of managing, ⁓ alienation and gaslighting and manipulation by their co-parent, we have to have even more strategies. It can't just be a simple like, validate it and it gets better. It probably doesn't, we need more tools and that's what this guide is. And then this podcast meant to take those tools and go even deeper, They go hand in hand. So make sure you have both of them, Let's take a moment to just really talk about what gaslighting, what manipulation is. So manipulation I would consider lowest level. And as you get more severe, ⁓ you up to gaslighting, Manipulation and gaslighting, I will use them sort of interchangeably, but know that I consider gaslighting to be more intense, It's more pervasive, it's more problematic, It is not. ⁓ adult conflict. Just because you disagree with your co-parent about something does not mean that they're gaslighting you. Just because someone makes a mistake does not mean they're gaslighting you. ⁓ and I about this on the original gaslighting episode, but ⁓ you know, I thought soccer was at five. You thought it was at five 30. I showed up late and now you're accusing me of you because ⁓ because I said, shoot, I thought it was at five. It's just a disagreement, We just saw things differently. It ⁓ is insidious, ⁓ subtle, reality distortion. ⁓ This key, you guys. It almost has to be subtle. Because if someone just comes in and tells you something that you know to be true is not true, you're gonna immediately go to, What are you talking about? You're an idiot. You're wrong, It's chipping away. It's a process. It takes time. That's the that gaslighting is. And the problem that it does then create what psychologists call cognitive dissonance, ⁓ which is when I know to true doesn't match the information that I have. ⁓ And I have to something to make them match. It creates loyalty binds. Kids are asking who's actually telling me the truth here, because I don't know who's telling me the truth. what it that I believe is probably most harmful is it creates kids that don't trust in themselves and that doubt themselves. When a feels pressure to accept someone else's version of reality over their own lived experience, their little nervous system is going to go into survival mode, into fight or flight. And when that happens, going to see a lot of problems, Little kids are going to really struggle. Middle school and high school are going to struggle in a very different way, but they will struggle. This then brings us to what and how do we help kids? the free guide that I've given you, and there's a reason I made this available. It's because it's the number one question that I've asked and it is ⁓ area I feel most passionate about getting support into the right hands of the right people. Because this is the shit that keeps moms up at night. This is the stuff they're messaging me on Instagram. What do I do with this? How do I handle it? How do I respond to it? need more than just ignore it, which is terrible advice and them, which I give that advice. I give the validation advice and it's great advice, but then we need the next step. How do I actually teach them ⁓ to trust Now you will always start with validation after I just said you need more, but, but always validation is like, I almost don't even include it as a step because it's a given. So when they come to you and they say one of these things that you're like, ⁓ my goodness, you need to respond. Thank you so much for telling me that. That sounds really confusing. That sounds scary. That sounds hard. That sounds sad. Whatever it is that your child is bringing to you, you're gonna be right there with them. That's what validation is. coming alongside them in that feeling, letting them know they're not alone and letting them know they're not crazy. And you may not have the right words, but you might show up in your way being and in your presence. That's the part that really helps. You may also have the words, but not the presence. ⁓ if you just say something really empty like, sounds hard, a kid's gonna see through that, you have to have both. This validation piece needs to have the attunement of being present and with them as well as some of the right language, you do that first, Then what I want you to do is move into what I call the anchor ⁓ method. Anchor, get it? Because we're anchoring them in reality. We love a little handy acronym over here. They all stand, each letter stands for a step, A-N-C-H-O-R, and anchor because you wanna think about yourself. What a silly thing to imagine, but think about yourself as that like big heavy boat anchor that puts a kid into place, And you're at the bottom of the ocean and the little thing is going all the way up to the surface and they're the boat and the boat rides the waves, And the boat sways side to side, but it stays anchored. stays anchored to you. This is another way of thinking about secure attachment attachment to a safe, secure base, which is the goal, A stands for ⁓ ask. You're gonna ask ⁓ very gentle, very ⁓ questions. really want to that if you interrogate child more, if press, if you treat them like they're in a police interview, you are going to dysregulate them. and dysregulation is going to send them into fire flight. They are gonna feel threatened even though they're not and that's not your intention and I know that. You're the stage for loyalty conflicts. You're anxiety. There is a right answer here and mom wants me to give it but I don't know what it is, that anxiety is gonna naturally increase. When you ask gently, when you match that presence your words and of everything about you, ⁓ your language and the way you're asking are saying things like, I'm just ⁓ I'm here listen, then your child's system can relax a little bit and you can hear what they have to say. in some ways, you need to what is being said so you can help your child to sift through it. this is a tricky one because a lot of the moms that I work with in high conflict dynamics are taught very explicitly to just not say anything, to never speak badly about so and so, to never ⁓ ask questions because that's gonna get twisted turned, ⁓ and I really respect that. And you have to understand that this is something your child is now carrying and we can't help them carry the load if we don't understand it. And so we're just coming from a place of wanting to understand, not to document, not to write down and throw in their face later. When you hear information, a good solid response, an anchored response would be something like, what did you notice ⁓ about that felt? Or what did you notice or what feeling came with that? It would be a really good way to say it. What would not a good response would be something like, that's ridiculous. I can't believe he would say that. ⁓ my gosh, that's so wrong. Or your dad again, N is really N stands for ⁓ naming. So naming three things, facts, feelings, and opinions. you're helping your kid to what is true, what is someone's feeling or emotion or the experience of it, and then ⁓ What is an opinion? Now, obviously, as you're thinking about this, you might be thinking, well, my kid's three, doesn't know any of this stuff. That's okay. These are slow processes. These things don't happen overnight. But imagine, as your kid gets to like six, seven, six, seven, as your kid gets to like seven or eight, nine, In school, they're also starting to learn these things. What's a fact for our essay? What's an opinion statement? that tracks with their development. obviously as the kids are older, you can do this in a little bit more complex way. As kids are younger, we're being really pretty concrete ⁓ as they're younger, as to a little more abstract when they're older, ⁓ you to teach this to your child, you need to understand it too, What is a fact? What is the fact? Now, sometimes co-parents get real wrapped up in the fact ⁓ is need to decide what the fact was. You cheated and that's why we got divorced, unfortunately, that's not really a fact. That's someone's opinion of happened. The other person may say, no, we got divorced because of years of emotional neglect. And yes, I had an affair, but like, that's not really why we got divorced, there's perspective, but facts are things like dates. There was a court hearing. The judge wrote this their orders, Which of course you're not talking to kids about orders, but you are saying there was this specific court hearing that did happen. There was a hearing today. Maybe your said something, And the feeling, I ⁓ it sounds like you really nervous about what would happen at the hearing and the opinions. your dad and I have different of how today went and what was decided, but that's not for you to worry about. ⁓ Or, Your dad was very upset about what happened today. The fact is there was a hearing. The feeling for your child is that it was scary And the opinions are. different adults interpret situations differently. You're teaching them how to see what is a true statement, what is a feeling and what is their opinion ⁓ the feeling both for themselves ⁓ as they observe it in other people. We're going to take a really quick break and I'm going to talk to you a little bit about the membership. If you're realizing, wow, this is way more layered than I thought, you are right. Inside the Kids First membership, we go way deeper than this. We practice real life scripts. We troubleshoot your specific situation. We talk about what to do when your child starts repeating accusations. We work on your regulation so you don't escalate the dynamic accidentally. Because protecting your child in a high conflict system isn't about having one script. It's about changing how you show up consistently. Join us now at the link in the show notes. All right, C in the anchor system is confirming, and more specifically confirming their observations, your child's observations. this ⁓ is kids either learn ⁓ I trust myself and my body's signals, ⁓ or should override what I know to be true, because a grownup around me is telling me something. if a child says something like, that felt weird, or I didn't like that, and you say, ⁓ no, you're fine, or it's okay, it's not anything to worry about, you have just taught them to not trust their signals, This is the classic. They fall down, they hurt their knee. A parent doesn't rush over and be like, ⁓ my God, you broke your leg, and freak out, thus causing the child to freak out. nor do they go, ⁓ you're fine, get up, dust it off, walk it off, kid, I don't care that you're hurt, Both ends of that extreme are gonna be harmful to kids. What a healthy parent does do is come over to them and say, what happened? ⁓ you fell down. Are scared or are you hurt? What are the tears about, Do you see how there's a little bit of a difference there? in that it teaches kids to trust. Okay, you're not saying necessarily you're crying after you fell because you're hurt or because you're scared. You're saying, I'm noticing that you're crying. I am trying to help you clue into what does that mean for you? Are you scared? Are you hurt? Are you worried? Are you angry? Whatever it might be. But what we do not do disconfirm what they are saying. Stop crying, it doesn't matter. Or this is nothing to be sad about. We want to be saying things like, I'm really glad you noticed that. your body knows what it needs. there's a lot of ways that we can go about this, but we're confirming their observations. Now, in high conflict co-parenting, sometimes this can feel, and again, a feeling's not a fact, but it can feel as though you're bad mouthing someone by confirming observations. So they come back and they say to you, Daddy seemed really mad when I got out of the car. an unhealthy or an approach where you don't address this at all, or you're not building this up, you ⁓ may mistakenly something like, no, no, he was fine. I think he was just mad about traffic or something. Okay, ⁓ or no, face always looks like that. I guess you could say that. But what are you doing when you do that? Right, you're one telling your child that you're not a safe person to try out and think about these things with, and two, you're undermining their reality. ⁓ gets really tricky in how you respond. But if in a healthy co-parenting dynamic and you know that your co-parent actually did have a hard time in traffic and is stressed and sometimes just looks that way, you could say that. could be like, you know, ⁓ actually think like, it sounds like he's running late to his next meeting and I think he was more upset about that, but you're right. He does look upset. So you're still confirming it, In unhealthy dynamics, co-parents don't want to say anything because they don't want to be perceived as talking badly about the co-parent. But at the same time, your child needs to hear that what they're observing, you also see. ⁓ and you believe. So you don't wanna be like, no, no, he wasn't upset with you. You don't know that. What if he was, And again, people can get upset with their kids, like this is complicated, but daddy seemed really upset with me when he got out the car. You might be better opted to say something like, what did you notice that made you feel that way? gonna go back to the 'N' What are the facts of this situation? Well, he said he was mad at me. Okay, that's pretty clear fact. Or maybe the fact is we almost got hit by a car on the way here and he was really rattled by it. Different, we go back the steps. They work together. They work in tandem, We name it and we confirm it. What are the facts? What are the feelings? What are the opinions? What did you notice? ⁓ What you noticed is really interesting. Let's talk about it. What do we do with that? and it has to match the things that you're trying to communicate. You're safe to tell me this, needs to come through in the way you're speaking to your child. H for holding curiosity. being curious ⁓ is ⁓ such gift. we talk about this a lot in just general parenting, but this idea that you can be, you don't need to interrogate them, of course, of course you don't, But we do want them know that It's okay if they don't know all the answers, right? And that you're open to the discussion. We talked about how you need some information, but you can also say things like, tell me more about that if you want. Or I'm listening, or it's okay if you're not sure, this example that we were just talking about, getting out the car, transitioning, being like, dad was so mad at me. You might say like, What about that felt that way? And it's okay if you're not sure if he was mad at you or mad at something else. Do you wanna tell me a little bit more or how do we make sense of this together is really the that you're trying to go, you wanna things more like what happened next as opposed to tell me exactly what he said. Or, why didn't you tell me sooner? That's a classic one. You might wonder aloud, like, ⁓ I'm curious about why we didn't, why we weren't able to share this when it happened. But I'm so happy you're telling me now. O for offering. I would like for you to think about offering ⁓ language a way to think about things rather than scripts. When co-parents have canned responses, it helps in some ways ⁓ because helps reduce the conflict. But in another way, it tends to not help because then the parents are like, he just gave me a canned response to this and it sort of irritates people, It's no different. than it is with kids. it's good for them to practice and have some of these like rote phrases that they can say. No, I don't like that. Stop doing that. Stop touching me. Whatever it might be. Just in life, we want kids to have some of these. But as far as how do they, if they're in a tricky spot, we don't want them to be like, mom said I should say this, which children be prone to do. But we can give a lot of language and we can model a lot around how to say I don't know, or I don't wanna talk about that, or that's not how I remember it. As they start to develop, huh, why am I hearing different stories here? They might come to you and be like, why did dad say that? Or why did mom say that? And you want them to be able... to speak for themselves in regards to the language, but also for you, if a child wants to say, I don't agree with that story to your co-parent, you might be able to help them give some examples of language. well, if that feels important for you to say, and again, whenever we disagree with somebody, here's how we do it respectfully. Or if we don't have an answer to a question and someone's pushing us a lot, you can say, I don't want to talk about it or I want to think about this first. finally, the ⁓ in the anchor method really does stand for reinforcing self-trust. how do we get kids to know that what they think and believe ⁓ is and right and good and powerful, Our goal here, you guys, is not to get kids to just blindly trust adults, because that's dangerous in a lot of ways. And that includes you. Our goal here is to help them trust themselves. Let me say that again. Your goal is not to make your child believe you. It's to make your child trust themselves. over time, if a child consistently has an adult that doesn't panic and doesn't freak out and doesn't force them to choose ⁓ and lets think and disagree ⁓ and have moments, or different experiences than you, you're gonna see that bear more fruit on the self-trust tree, That looks like telling them things like, I'm so happy you noticed that. You are right. That person did look really upset. I think you might be picking up on something here. You're getting two different stories and that's really confusing, There's a lot of reinforcing with what a child sees and hears, If you're listening and you're thinking to yourself, I sure wish I had written this down, I made you something. I created a free guide that walks you through the full anchor methods step by step with scripts that you can use immediately, as well as ways of implementing some of the steps, because, you know, it's not all scripted language. It's and practical, and I designed it for moms navigating high conflict dynamics because of how often I hear about this issue. Grab it now through the link in my show notes. Now, let's go a little deeper. All right, I wanna talk just really briefly about some of the mistakes that I see when parents start to implement the anchor method The first mistake, and we talk about this a lot, but the first mistake is over-correcting. really getting very defensive, really going in hard. Like that didn't happen, that's not right, that's not the facts. What happens there is that kids feel like, I stepped in this made mom mad. I don't know what's going on here. You come off as defensive. You a stage then that you're not someone your child can talk to about these things. That for whatever reason, you don't want hear it because it's going to upset you or make you mad or whatever it is. ⁓ And the loyalty bind kind of tightens them. Kids feel a lot of pressure in that scenario. And so we really want to avoid being coming at this from a really defensive place. number two, no ⁓ is going to come me and say, well, I interrogated my child. because that's never the intention, but the truth is when walking through these things with kids, it's really easy get into interrogation ⁓ style questioning. You don't think you're doing it, but you might be. no mother is like, yes, I interrogated them when they came back. Of course not. But what you may be doing and what you're probably doing, honestly, is asking too many questions. Is pushing it too hard. Is making it seem like there's a right way and a wrong way to answer this ⁓ and getting really specific. Sometimes we have to be specific when it is a safety issue, but for the most part, you're trying to get general ideas. What did that feel like? What was the experience like? Think about it when your kid is telling you something that happened with a kid at school on the playground. I not like, okay, but where were you standing? And where were they standing? ⁓ And who threw the wood chip first? And then where did the wood chip go? Did it go in your hair? ⁓ Where was teacher in all of this? Do you see how I'm trying to maybe gather information so I could talk to the school about what happened? Maybe. But not showing up for my child in that situation. And I would be putting them in a situation where they're having to recall the facts, ⁓ AKA, it feels like an interrogation, instead of what my kid really needs from me in that moment, which might be like, whoa, your friend threw wood chips at you? What was going on? What happened? This uses the anchor method. It's curious. It's neutral. It confirms what they're bringing to me. It's me saying, tell me a little bit more. What, like, what was the story? How did this start? Feel the difference there, my friends. Mistake number three, labeling the parent. Obviously this is news, bears. I never want you doing this. You should never ever, the words narcissist should never come out of your mouth. should never come, well, you can say asshole, just not to your kid. Things like any diagnostic That doesn't really help kids, really at all. Just so we all know. We're gonna avoid labeling the other parent, certainly to our children. the last mistake is teaching your children scripted canned languages. saying things to them like, next time say this, ⁓ mom is very responsible with her money. not It pulls kids into parentified roles. We really want that for them. You wanna teach them to think. teach them how to use a variety of language when responding to this situation. Think about it like we're giving them lots of samples of ideas of things they could say, but not a script. They're not ⁓ a stage in a play reading a script, I wanna leave you with some notes about the Anchor Method. I think this is really an important strategy for you to have and to think through all these steps when these situations come up. You can write them down, you can reflect about them. In spaces, like in the Kids First membership, we will talk through each of these steps before we address something specific to everybody's dynamic because you need that level of support. And if you're dealing with this level of gaslighting and manipulation, I just really wanna encourage you to make sure you're not going at it alone because it is crazy making if you are. remember here that your kids are not blank slates. They know what's consistent. They know who is consistent. They can read your tone. They can read your words. They know where they feel good and where they don't feel good, which is a fancy way of talking about regulation. They say, you know, manipulation really thrives in chaos and your job is to anchor them back out of the chaos. That's what I'm trying to help you do. You don't need to win the argument or the narrative. ⁓ not win the argument or the narrative. You need to be the stable anchor. That's it, my friends. That's your goal. I am so grateful that you joined me today. I really hope you ⁓ got a lot out of this ⁓ if you have questions specific about Anchor system, please reach out to me. I'd love to hear them and I'd love to help you through them. Thank you so much. Take good care and I'll see you on the next one.