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It is always bad when a child is manipulated by a toxic ex. As a mother, you don’t know exactly what your ex has said about you, but after the visit, you notice how angry your child is with you.

This is especially noticeable during puberty, when the child then turns away completely and, out of anger at your misdeeds (what?), breaks off contact with you and no longer comes to see you.

The older the child, the more articulate these manipulations can be expressed verbally, which is then quite hurtful. You stand stunned when your 10-year-old child suddenly insults you. Just like his father used to!

The claims that the father tells the child to get him on his side and influence him are as far from the truth as you are from the Himalayas and are full of projection.

He doesn’t pay child support? He tells the child that he can’t afford anything anymore because you destroyed the family.

He can’t take the children on a trip anymore, let alone go on vacation with them? It’s your fault, because you get all his money and there’s nothing left for him.

The child lives with him because he lied his way into custody with devious methods in court, and tells you, as a mommy, that the child can’t have contact because he’s sick. He tells the child that you don’t want to see him anymore because you have another man.

You don’t have another man, but now this claim is out there for the child to see, and since you don’t know that your Ex is telling this story, you can’t clear anything up.

However, there is a big and very important advantage if the child is older at this point:

You can be sure that you were able to build a good mother-child bond in the early years.

In the end, no toxic child father will be able to destroy that, even if he tries very hard and the child reacts confusedly in his favor.

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With toddlers, on the other hand, it looks quite different.

The smaller they are, the more innocently they repeat everything that has been drummed into them.

And we know how important an early and firm mother-child bond is for the child’s later ability to form relationships! But what can you do when the child’s father is trying to prevent this with particularly toxic behavior?

Mothers have told me that their toddlers, who had just started talking, suddenly refused to give their mom a kiss after the day of contact or said outright, “Mom’s stupid.”

If the court is dealing with a very specific custody arrangement, the toddlers will tell you after the child has been handed over – as soon as the door is closed – and after a noticeable pause for thought – that they “want to live with mommy for three days and with daddy for three days and then five days with mommy and five days with daddy again”. No one asked at the time, but obviously the sentence had to come out, like the poem you prepared for days before St. Nicholas’ Day.

If there is already a new, warm-hearted partner at her side, then this is no longer embraced either – after all, Dad has forbidden it.

They talk about the other mommy who lives with Dad, and both Next and the toxic Ex demand that the toddler address the other woman as mommy.

In one case, the little two-year-old was told some horror story about what could happen to him in the car, so that the child reacts with panic when the mother picks him up from the father’s house. Interestingly, she finds out by chance that the father secretly filmed the handovers. I don’t think it will surprise any of our readers to hear that this man is doing everything he can to get the child in court. He even accepts the risk of his child experiencing hellish fear when the mother is at the door with the car. A particularly charming specimen of a father!

Well, judge, do you need any more evidence of how psychopathic some toxic fathers can be? Do you need an expert opinion or can you take it from here?

But I digress.

How do you deal with it?

The child is not yet at an age where you could “convince” or “educate” him. He is simply repeating in all innocence what other adults have drummed into him.

If you hear such adult phrases coming out of your favorite’s mouth, you have to react immediately, provided you are in the middle of a court battle and you suspect a methodical approach behind it.

You should definitely document in writing exactly what your child said, and write a factual email to your Ex (please leave out all emotions!) asking him to refrain from such statements in the future out of respect for the relationship between you and your child.

In doing so, you are documenting his attachment intolerance, which he ultimately proves with these manipulation attempts.

The email is not intended to start a dialogue with the Ex! It mainly serves as your documentation.

What he replies to that can’t really matter to you. You leave the rest – the utilization of this information – to your legal counsel.

Of course he will deny everything! At least I have never heard of a woman whose toxic ex relented afterwards.

But he has to know that you have recognized the manipulation and that he cannot use the child for his own purposes without being noticed.

Can you prevent your toddler from being manipulated?

No.

How could you? By limiting or even preventing contact yourself?

By doing so, you will only antagonize the authorities.

Also, be careful not to do the same to the child’s father and “teach” your child a few appropriate phrases as well. Especially not if an expert is about to come to the door.

I believe that such “methods” will always be exposed and then develop a dynamic that you definitely don’t want.

Of course, he may get the impression that he is getting away with his manipulations, especially if he is listened to in the first negotiations and wants to prove your attachment intolerance (or whatever).

You absolutely have to stay with yourself and your truth, sweetheart. Only if you pay attention to that can you be firm and convincing and, above all, clear.

What is your current situation? Do you still have a toddler who is being manipulated by your Ex? Or have you been able to stop the manipulations? Please share your experiences in the comments below so that other mothers can learn from you. Merci!

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