That's Randi with an "i"

By Karen Woodall, Psychotherapist Identification With The Aggressor: Understanding Coercive Control in the Lives of Children of Divorce and Separation I am often asked why children align with controlling parents and reject a parent they have witnessed being abused, the answer is simple, although the dynamic which traps the child in the mind of an abuser is not. Children align with a controlling parent because they are the weaker party in an asymmetrical power dynamic and cannot leave. Therefore, when you ask why children align in this way, you are really asking, why doesn’t the child just leave? When the question is asked this way, the answer becomes obvious. Many adults take months and years to finally be able to leave a controlling relationship, whereas children really can’t leave a controlling parent – a) because they don’t have the practical resources to do so and b) because they don’t have the emotional and psychological capacity to work out how they are trapped in such a situatio