Parent Abuse
When love, fear, and harm
live under the same roof
When your child is abusive, you're not just navigating behavior; you're navigating trauma, silence, stigma, and shame within systems that often do not recognize, acknowledge, or help to resolve your parent abuse experiences. These experiences can force parents to live in secret fear of their children.
Abuse from a child can take many forms, such as physical, emotional, psychological, sexual, financial, and through technology. It’s also not something most people understand, even the parents who experience it. That’s why parent abuse counseling services are offered at Indigo Path Collective. This program is not focused on how to "parent better." It focuses on you, your safety, your values, and your path forward. You deserve support that sees the whole picture and helps you reclaim control.
When your child becomes the source of fear, manipulation, or harm, it can feel like no one understands. Parent abuse is real, and you are not alone.
What is Parent Abuse?
Parent abuse occurs when a minor child uses physical violence, emotional manipulation, financial control, verbal threats, or other behaviors to harm, intimidate, or dominate their parent or caregiver.
It is a form of domestic abuse that is often misunderstood, dismissed, or hidden due to stigma and a lack of awareness. Parent abuse can happen in any family and is not limited to any one race or ethnicity, sex assigned at birth, gender identity, income level, or parenting style.
Many abused parents are afraid to speak up, fearing judgment, disbelief, or consequences for themselves and their child. But this abuse is real, and it deserves to be addressed with compassion and clarity.
Types of Parent Abuse
Parent abuse may involve one or more of these forms. Emotional and psychological abuse are the most common, often escalating into other types over time. Across all categories of parent abuse, the underlying factor is the child’s exertion of power and control over the parent.
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Physical abuse involves the perpetrator's power over and control of the victim’s body through actual or threatened physical harm and can often take the form of hitting, scratching, pushing, pinching, burning, kicking, pulling, poisoning, forced ingestion, biting, choking, weapon use, throwing items, forced restraint, and denying medical care.
When it comes to parent abuse, this often looks like the child uses hitting, kicking, biting, pushing, throwing objects to exert power and control over the parent.
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Emotional abuse involves the perpetrator’s power over and control of the victim’s self-worth and emotional regulation through sustained harmful verbalizations and can often take the non-physical form of name-calling, fault-finding, insults, belittling, emotional withholding, humiliation, yelling, blaming, gaslighting, and vilification.
When it comes to parent abuse, this often looks like the child uses Insults, threats, gaslighting, and blame-shifting to exert power and control over the parent.
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Psychological abuse involves the perpetrator’s power and control over the victim’s psychological safety and can often take the form of intimidation, threats targeted at family or friends or self, harming pets, unwarranted accusations, pressure to isolate from friends and family members, or withdrawal from work and school, and stalking.
When it comes to parent abuse, this often looks like the child uses manipulation, intimidation, and coercive control to exert power and control over the parent.
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Sexual abuse involves the perpetrator’s power over and control of the victims’s right to consent to sexual activity and can often take the form of coercion, rape, unwanted kissing or touching, or aggression, ignoring feelings about sexual interaction, shaming, forcing reproductive health choices, and inviting unwelcomed others to participate sexually.
When it comes to parent abuse, this often looks like the child uses Inappropriate contact and sexualized threats (rare, but real) to exert power and control over the parent.
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Financial abuse involves the perpetrator’s power and control over the victim’s financial security and autonomy and can often take the form of control over spending and savings, withholding access to money or credit or financial information, identity theft or fraud, creating financial dependency, forbidding education or employment, stealing, using unapproved funds, power of attorney exploitation, and irresponsible fiscal guardianship or conservatorship irresponsibility.
When it comes to parent abuse, this often looks like the child uses stealing, coercing money, and damaging property to exert power and control over the parent.
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Technical abuse, also called digital abuse, involves the perpetrator’s power and control over the victim’s use of technology and digital safety and can often take the form of online emotional abuse, harassment or bullying, mobile tracking or stalking, profile impersonation or deception, exploitation or extortion, denying the use of technology or engaging with others via technology, requiring real-time responses and password sharing, and monitoring the use of the Internet, social media, email, text, and mobile devices.
When it comes to parent abuse, this often looks like the child uses harassment via phone or social media, or surveillance apps to exert power and control over the parent.
Parent Abuse Recovery Includes
A trauma-informed, values-centered process rooted in real-world strategy
Stabilize Safety First
Identify immediate risks and protective steps
Plan for safety at home, work, and across your community
Coordinate with child protective services or other systems when needed
Reconnect to Your Parenting Purpose
Identify what matters most to you
Realign your decisions around your internal compass, not fear or guilt
Create boundaries that guide your choices
Activate Strategies & Systems
Build a step-by-step action plan (including how to: call the police, work with juvenile detectives, file a report)
Learn how to document incidents, protect assets, and establish boundaries
Navigate hard conversations with clarity and support
Not sure if what you're experiencing is abuse?
This quick, anonymous quiz can help you reflect on your situation and consider your next steps.
Parent abuse is real.
You do not have to go through it alone.
let’s talk about the right team to support your parent abuse recovery plan
Medical & Mental Health Support
Understand how trauma impacts your health
Learn to talk to providers about parent abuse
Strategies to find trauma-informed doctors and counselors
Legal Navigation
Communicate with attorneys or the court system
Prepare documentation and letters for legal use
Gather support from juvenile detectives, filing police reports, or seeking protective orders
Government & Community Referrals
Get connected to state and local programs
Understand what services are available to you and how to access them without shame
Long-Term Recovery Tools
Get social support from friends and family
Access to a parent-only support forum (coming soon)
Optional in-person or virtual retreats for deep recovery and peer connection (coming soon)
Still not sure if this is abuse?
Start with our anonymous Parent Abuse Quiz. It’s not a diagnostic tool, but it may help you name what’s happening. And naming it is the first step to stopping it. By starting the parent abuse quiz you will be taken to a survey designed to help you reflect on your experiences. Upon completion, an email will be sent to you to help you reflect on your responses.
You deserve safety& support
Schedule a 15-minute consultation to discuss your experience and determine if virtual therapy is right for you.
You’ll be met with empathy, clarity, and zero judgment.