Your kids’ father puts on a charming, successful face to the world, but he sees them as parts of himself instead of people with their own feelings and needs.
You’ve seen him ignore your child’s feelings because they are inconvenient, use guilt and manipulation to control their behavior, or switch between giving them a lot of attention when it helps him and ignoring them when they really need it.
He might talk badly about you in front of the kids, undermine your parenting, or use them as spies and messengers. Maybe he acts like the fun, easygoing parent, while you look like the bad guy who enforces rules and discipline.
You are now divorced or getting divorced, and you are very worried about keeping your kids safe from his manipulative and emotionally damaging behavior when they are with him and you can’t do anything about it.
Schedule a confidential consultation now or call (714) 909-2561 to discuss your situation with the experienced family law attorneys at Moshtael Family Law.
Understanding How Narcissistic Fathers Harm Children
Fathers with narcissistic personality traits inflict psychological harm on their children by engaging in behaviors that prioritize the father’s needs, image, and emotional gratification over the children’s healthy development. By recognizing these patterns, you can determine which actions to take and what to report to the police.
One of the worst patterns is emotional manipulation. Your children’s father may use guilt to control their behavior by making them feel responsible for his happiness or emotional state.
He may also switch between praise and criticism to keep them seeking his approval, use affection as a reward for compliance rather than giving them consistent emotional support, or punish them for showing their feelings by calling their feelings excessive, dramatic, or manipulative.
Kids who grow up in these kinds of homes learn that their feelings don’t matter, their needs are a burden, and love depends on meeting their father’s expectations.
Using children as extensions of himself, rather than seeing them as separate people with their own identities, can hurt their development in a big way. Your children’s father may force them to do things or be interested in things that make him look good, even if they don’t want to.
He may get angry or reject them when they say or do something that he doesn’t like, take credit for their successes while blaming them for their failures, or pressure them to show false images of happiness, success, or family harmony. This stops kids from developing a healthy sense of self that isn’t based on their father’s needs.
When you undermine your parenting and the co-parenting relationship, it hurts your kids by making them feel torn between their loyalty to both parents and making them unsure of what to expect. He might purposely go against your rules or discipline, talk badly about you to the kids, ask them questions about your life and relationships, use them as messengers instead of talking to you directly, or act like the fun, easy-going parent while making you the strict one.
These strategies make kids have to deal with conflicting expectations and feel like they are betraying one parent no matter who they please.
In our experience at Moshtael Family Law, fathers with these traits often care more about winning and staying in charge than about what is best for their children. He might say you’re pushing the kids away when you bring up his behavior, twist things around to make you look unreasonable, or use the court system to control and manipulate you. This makes it both necessary and legally difficult to protect your children.
Using kids as weapons in divorce and custody fights is especially bad behavior. He might ask the kids questions about your money, relationships, or legal strategies, tell them things about the divorce or legal proceedings that aren’t appropriate, make promises he won’t keep to make himself look good, threaten to take them away from you, or set up situations where the kids have to choose between parents.
According to Family Code Section 3011, courts must look at each parent’s ability to help the child get along with the other parent. However, narcissistic fathers say they are helping the relationship when they are actually hurting it.
Call (714) 909-2561 to discuss your situation with the experienced family law attorneys at Moshtael Family Law.
California Legal Framework for Protecting Children
California family law offers significant safeguards for children when parents exhibit harmful conduct; however, these safeguards are effective solely when appropriately enacted with clear evidence.
You can come up with better strategies if you know the law instead of just telling the judge “he’s a narcissist,” which doesn’t mean anything in court.
Family Code Section 3011 lists the things that courts must think about when making custody and visitation decisions that are best for the child.
These factors include:
- The child’s health, safety, and welfare;
- Any history of abuse by either parent against the child or the other parent;
- The nature and amount of contact with both parents;
- Habitual or continual substance abuse; and
- Importantly, “the capacity of each parent to facilitate and encourage a close and continuing relationship between the child and the other parent.”
This last factor talks about parental alienation issues, but it also includes the ways that narcissistic parents try to control their children.
Family Code Section 3020 establishes California’s policy that children benefit from frequent and continuing contact with both parents. Courts assume that children are better off when they have ongoing relationships with both parents.
This presumption can work against protective parents who appear to be limiting the other parent’s access, which is why documenting legitimate concerns with specific evidence becomes critical.
Family Code Section 3044 establishes a rebuttable presumption that granting custody to a parent who has committed domestic violence in the preceding five years is contrary to the child’s best interests.
California law says that domestic violence is not just physical abuse. It also includes behavior that “disturbs the peace” of the other person, which can include emotional abuse, harassment, and controlling behavior. To get around this presumption, the parent who was found to have committed domestic violence must show that giving them custody is in the child’s best interests.
Section 3200.5 of the Family Code lets courts order supervised visitation when it is needed to keep children safe from abuse, neglect, or other harm. Depending on how worried and what evidence is presented, supervision can be done by professionals at visitation centers or by family members who have agreed to do so.
According to Evidence Code Section 730, courts can hire expert evaluators to look into issues of custody and visitation. These full evaluations include psychological tests, interviews with parents and kids, watching how parents and kids interact, and looking over records. Qualified evaluators can spot bad parenting habits and suggest custody arrangements that keep kids safe while still following California’s policy of favoring both parents.
If you have concerns about your children’s emotional safety with their father and need guidance on documenting problems and pursuing legal protections, schedule a consultation on our secure online form to discuss your situation with attorneys experienced in these sensitive custody matters.
Pursuing Custody Evaluations to Identify Manipulation
When your children’s father does well in short court appearances but uses harmful manipulation in everyday life, thorough custody evaluations under Evidence Code Section 730 give qualified professionals the chance to find worrying patterns through thorough assessment.
Licensed mental health professionals, such as psychologists, psychiatrists, licensed clinical social workers (LCSWs), or Licensed marriage and family therapists (LMFTs), who have received extra training in child development, family dynamics, and forensic evaluation, are custody evaluators.
The California Rules of Court 5.220 set standards that these evaluators must follow. For example, they must treat both parents equally, interview them separately, watch them with their children, interview children in a way that is appropriate for their age, do psychological testing when necessary, look at relevant records, and write reports that include their findings and recommendations.
Ask your lawyer for an evaluation if brief court hearings can’t deal with complicated situations, your kids are acting in ways that worry you that might be related to manipulation, their father acts very differently in public than in private, you can’t settle custody and parenting time disputes through negotiation, or there is evidence that harmful parenting practices need to be looked into by an expert.
Evaluations To Settle Custody Disputes
When there is proof that evaluations would help settle custody disputes in the best interests of the children, judges grant requests for them.
Evaluations usually take three to six months and include a lot of testing. Parents fill out questionnaires about themselves, their marriage, their kids, and their preferences for custody. Individual interviews look into parenting styles, how well each parent understands their child’s needs, how they discipline their child, and how they see the other parent.
Parent-child observations look at how well the two people get along, how emotionally close they are, and whether the relationship is appropriate. Children are asked about their feelings, experiences, and relationships in a way that is appropriate for their age.
Collateral contacts, such as educators, therapists, or relatives, offer external viewpoints. Tests like the MMPI-2 that look at personality and emotional functioning are examples of psychological tests.
Competent evaluators can discern manipulation strategies that are challenging to substantiate through alternative means.
Get ready for the evaluation by:
- Gathering evidence of troubling behaviors
- Giving the evaluator your journal of incidents
- Naming collateral contacts who have useful observations
- Being completely honest during the interview
- Focusing on the children’s needs and well-being instead of attacking your ex, and
- Showing that you can help the father have a good relationship with the children.
Evaluators look at both parents’ credibility and their ability to be good parents, so how you act during the evaluation is very important.
What NOT to Do: Avoiding Parental Alienation Claims
To protect your kids from emotional manipulation, you need to stay away from actions that courts see as parental alienation, which could hurt your chances of getting custody. Knowing this limit keeps your kids safe and your custody rights safe.
No matter how he acts or how you feel, never talk badly about their father to them. Saying things like “Your father is a narcissist who only cares about himself” or “He’s trying to hurt me by hurting you” makes people feel loyal to one person and alienates them from the other, even if they are true.
When kids talk about their worries about their dad, you should agree with their feelings without agreeing with their bad thoughts: “I hear that you were upset.” “Your feelings are important” instead of “Your father shouldn’t treat you that way.”
Except in real emergencies that threaten immediate safety, don’t mess with court-ordered parenting time. If you keep saying no to exchanges, making excuses for why the kids can’t go, or telling them to avoid seeing their father, you are breaking court orders and suggesting alienation.
Legitimate Protection vs. Interference
Based on evidence and a pattern of behavior, courts can tell the difference between legitimate protection and interference.
Don’t ask kids a lot of questions about their time with their dad. When kids ask things like “What did Dad say about me?” or “Did he introduce you to his girlfriend?” they are stuck in the middle. It is okay to write down information that children voluntarily share, but it is not okay to question them or make them feel like they are being alienated.
Never tell kids that they should live with you or spend less time with their dad. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to” or “Would you rather stay here with me?” are examples of things that put pressure on kids and make them feel alone.
Courts can take into account what children want, but those wants must come from the child and not from their parents.
When orders say you have to make decisions together, don’t make big life decisions without talking to their father first. Even if you think his input is manipulative or inappropriate, following court-ordered procedures protects you from claims that you’re excluding him and shows that you’re co-parenting correctly while his failure to engage appropriately is recorded.
Understand that keeping kids safe from bad behavior is not the same as keeping them away from their father. Protection means setting appropriate limits, keeping records of worrying behaviors, going to court to get legal help, and helping kids grow up healthy.
Alienation means hurting the relationship between parents and children, pushing them to reject each other, causing loyalty conflicts, and getting in the way of court-ordered visits. Courts punish alienating behavior very harshly, including the possibility of giving custody to the parent who has been alienated.
Enforcement and Modification When He Violates Orders
Only when custody orders are followed do they protect kids. Narcissistic fathers frequently transgress boundaries and disregard directives, operating under the assumption that regulations are inapplicable to them, prioritizing their desires over judicial mandates, and presuming that enforcement will not be sought.
Consistent enforcement shows that breaking the rules has consequences and keeps kids safe from harmful behavior that happens over and over again.
Make a record of every violation, including the date and time, the specific order that was broken, the exact behavior that caused the violation, the effect on the children or parenting schedule, any witnesses, and your response. This record backs up enforcement actions and shows that people often don’t follow court orders.
If violations are willful and serious, file contempt proceedings under Family Code Section 1218. To prove contempt, you have to show that he knew about the order, could have followed it, and chose not to.
If you are found in contempt, you could be fined, go to jail for serious violations, have to pay your attorney’s fees to enforce the order, and other things.
Establishing A Pattern of Contempt Findings
Even if judges don’t punish first-time offenders harshly, establishing a pattern of contempt findings makes it easier to enforce and change future requests.
If he keeps breaking the rules or doing things that worry you, you can ask for changes to the orders under Family Code Section 3087. To get a modification, you have to show that the circumstances affecting the children’s welfare have changed since the last order.
Patterns of violations, proof of manipulation that causes harm to children that can be seen, or new information about worrying behaviors can all help requests for changes.
Under Family Code Section 271, ask for attorney’s fees for enforcement actions. This law lets courts make people pay for their lawyers’ fees if their actions make it harder to settle and raise the cost of litigation.
Repeatedly breaking orders, refusing to communicate properly, or using manipulation tactics that require legal action are all examples of behavior that can lead to fee awards.
You might want to ask for specific ways to enforce modified orders, such as counseling requirements to change behavior patterns, graduated consequences for certain violations, requirements to finish parenting classes, or supervised visitation if violations keep happening. Courts can come up with creative solutions to specific problems that come up during enforcement proceedings.
How Moshtael Family Law Protects Children in High-Conflict Custody Cases
It’s very upsetting and frustrating to see your children’s father use emotional manipulation, undermine your parenting, and put his own needs ahead of their growth.
You want to keep them from getting hurt mentally, but the law says that both parents should stay involved, which makes you feel stuck. It’s normal to feel this way, and it’s okay to worry about your children’s health.
California family law gives parents the tools they need to protect their kids from emotionally harmful parenting when they can show that their concerns are valid and within the law.
Courts can order therapy, set up custody arrangements that limit manipulation, enforce boundaries through detailed orders, and change arrangements when there are still problems that need to be fixed. These protections work when you go after them in a smart way with the help of a lawyer who knows what they’re doing.
You need a lawyer who knows how narcissistic parents act and how the law works in custody cases. Someone who can help you write down your concerns correctly, get the right evaluations and interventions, make custody orders that protect you while following California’s rules, and enforce those protections when they are broken.
Schedule a confidential consultation now or call (714) 909-2561 to discuss your situation with the family law attorneys at Moshtael Family Law.
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