In narcissistic/psychopathic abuse, often the youngest victims carry the biggest impact from exposure to pathological adults. Just like adult survivors of these relationships, children too carry trauma and cognitive dissonance and often have attachment issues, anxiety, and depression.
Little study has been done on the effects on children from exposure to a pathological parent/caregiver or having been a witness to the pathological relational dynamics amongst adults.
While recent years have seen a rise in information and help for adult survivors of narcissistic/psychopathic abuse, we have not seen the same types of information and treatment methods designed for children who have been exposed, harmed, or impacted.
As adult survivors journey in their recovery, they often note similar problems in their children and feel helpless to help their children with the same types of assistance they have been receiving in their own recoveries. Adults watch as their children develop depression, anxiety, trauma, and ‘acting out behaviors,’ and the child’s own attachment to the protective parent deteriorates.
This important book can assist parents, caregivers, therapists, and especially survivor-parents, gain insight into the behavior and needs of their affected child. Survivor-parents will gain particular help in understanding co-dysregulation and how their untreated trauma/anxiety often triggers their child and what to do about it.
This book is a deep resource providing links to further information and education parents need about their own impact and the impact on their children. It divides the book into younger children’s and older children’s needs and includes worksheets, charts, methods, how-to’s, video links, audio links, self-care charts, links to apps, and other downloadable resources—giving parents usable tools, tips, and techniques to help their child’s emotional and cognitive dysregulation.
‘Parent pages’ give caregivers instructions on how to use these resources, how to set up the use of the materials for both age groups, how to structure a gentler environment for the condition of their child, and important insights when a parent is also a survivor.
It is educational, giving information and links to more deeply understand a child’s depression, anxiety, trauma, cognitive dissonance, attachment issues, and parental alienation/abuse by proxy while providing techniques that can be instituted quickly for the resulting child’s behavior.
This ‘go-to’ manual will help parents immediately have tools for helping their children and will provide the kids with tools they can learn for better managing their symptoms, and emotional dysregulation and to institute self-soothing and regulation.
Sandra’s other books and her pioneering work in the development of this counseling genre for this population have been considered ‘foundational’ in the recognition of this as a trauma population and for the methods developed for treating survivors of pathological relationships.