The road to reunification includes a critical stage that many parents fail to recognize: taking responsibility.
For alienated parents, this can seem like a hard pill to swallow. You know what your children are going through when they have been led to believe their normal-range parent is unfit to parent them. You know that their other parent is the driving force behind it.
That can be true while simultaneously you dig deep into understanding your role as well.
As humans, we have to take responsibility 100% of the time. You can be responsible for attracting the kind of parent who is alienating you for your child, while also recognizing that their behaviors are causing harm. This allows us to learn from the past.
You can be upset that your child has specific, outlandish accusations, while taking responsibility for what is true. If the accusation is you never went to sporting events, even though you have a myriad of evidence to support you went to a significant account, you can take responsibility for times you may have missed. Getting your child to a place of critical thinking, understanding the difference between 'never went to games' vs missed a few (all or nothing thinking). Getting them to that trusting point that you can acknowledge where they may have been hurt, while not taking responsibility for the accusation that you were never at games. This is just one mere example.
You can take responsibility for how you show up and respond to the rejecting behaviors as well. When a child rejects a parent and it manifests into how they communicate and act towards said parent, how the alienated parent shows up in response to that behavior can either keep the child at bay or allow them to fold back in.
Taking [some] responsibility for something you do not feel responsible for, can be a challenging task. I promise it is worth understanding and digging deeper. No parent is ever all good or all bad. That is the reality of parenting, in any family dynamic, and it is no different here.
To see just how taking the responsibility pledge can aid in the reunification process, get started with our powerful cheatsheet, right here.
why should I be responsible for what my toxic narc coparent is doing?
Great question. Because if you don’t, they will never change and your children are left with no one to help them. It is not about taking responsibility for their behavior, rather taking charge of your situation because their behavior will not change unless they want it to.