How Does Legal Abuse Affect Children with Dr. Royster I Ep. 4

Children may not understand legal terminology, but they feel the emotional fallout when court battles invade everyday life.

In this episode of Legal Abuse Explained, licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Carolyn Royster joins Ingrid to explore how legal abuse and litigation abuse impact children after separation and divorce. We discuss why children are often far more aware of conflict than adults realize, how chronic stress affects development, and the warning signs parents should never ignore.

Dr. Royster explains how legal conflict can show up as anxiety, sleep disturbances, behavioral changes, school struggles, physical complaints, and emotional withdrawal. She also shares practical guidance for parents navigating high-conflict custody situations, including parallel parenting, building a strong support system, documenting concerns effectively, and knowing when professional help may be needed.

Whether you're a parent, survivor, mental health professional, or advocate, this conversation offers valuable insight into protecting children from the hidden harms of ongoing legal conflict.

In This Episode:

•  What legal abuse and litigation abuse look like through a child development lens 
•  Why children often sense conflict long before adults realize it 
•  Signs of stress and trauma in children by age group 
•  The "Frequency, Intensity, and Length" framework for assessing concerns 
•  High-conflict co-parenting vs. coercive legal tactics 
•  Parallel parenting strategies 
•  Supporting children's mental health during custody disputes 
•  Why community support matters for parents and children

Learn more about us and our work at https://afterawareness.org/. You can also connect with us on Facebook and LinkedIn @AfterAwarenessInc. Don't forget to check out our After Awareness Inc YouTube channel for more videos and insights.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Welcome to Legal Abuse Explained, the podcast that explains how the system can be weaponized and who pays a price. I'm your host, Ingrid Dutton. Today we'll be exploring how legal abuse affects children. To help guide the conversation, I'm joined by Dr. Carolyn Royster. Welcome, Dr. Royster, and thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Hi, hi. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

So before we dive in, could you please share your professional background and why you're the person that's qualified to talk about this topic?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yeah. Well, so I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and I specialize in children. So I work a lot, a lot with kids. And specifically, I specialize in children in divorce situations. Most of the time, by the time kids come to me, there's a lot of conflict. It's very litigious, it's ongoing. It's what we would call, the term is kind of out of favor, but a high conflict divorce. And so I work a lot with kids as a clinician in that role. And then I have another part of my practice where I do coaching primarily with moms, but some with dads too. For parents who are navigating these really high conflict, litigious divorces. That grew out of families that could not get their kids in therapy because they couldn't agree. Someone pulls consent, all kinds of issues. And so, how do I support parents outside of the role as a therapist? Um, and in that role, coaching is very different than than psychological treatment. Um, so I do kind of both of those things. And so I guess to answer your question directly, it's this is what I do all day, every day. This is, you know, as a psychologist, this is a huge

How Legal Abuse Reaches Kids

SPEAKER_00 2:15

part of my my work and my passion.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Right. So with with legal abuse, how do you see that in terms of clients or people you've known personally? How how does that what does that look like when it's happening with children specifically?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yeah. So I think I think what you're kind of asking is, how does it affect kids? And I think the biggest misconception is that it does affect kids. So a lot of parents will say to me, like, well, they know nothing about what's happening in court, or we don't talk at all about our court dates, or, you know, they don't have any idea what's happening behind the scenes. And I call BS on that. Um, because of course they do. Kids may not know all the details. They may not know that it's a motion to restrict or that it's a modifying orders or that it's an order to comply or whatever it might be, but they know that you are stressed. They know that you don't care for your co-parent. They feel and sense that tension. And of course, as parents, we know this, right? We know that kids pick up on the environment, but I think when you're in such a stressful and ongoing and kind of chronic place of legal abuse, you really want to believe that you're protecting them from it. And you absolutely can, but don't make the mistake that they aren't picking up on that chronic stress. We have a lot of research and studies around just how people pick up on like nervous system dysregulation, especially parents and children, um, children to their parents. And that's exactly what it is. That's how it affects them, right? Of course, we have some more tangible ones too. So if you're in litigation abuse, there's often a lot of financial pressure and strain. There's often, I mean, you would know better than I, but I think one of the tactics is I'm gonna bankrupt the other party, right? We're gonna go until you have no money left. If you're spending all your money on attorneys and things like that, there's like the very practical. Maybe you don't get to do summer camp that year as the kiddo, right? Or maybe we're not taking that family vacation because we're a little more strapped financially. So there's, I think, both really practical pieces and the the less obvious

Signs Your Child Needs Support

SPEAKER_00 4:50

but certainly more felt sense.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah. And what so if you're a parent who is going through this high conflict parenting situation, what is there anything that you can see in your children to where it's something that it is concerning that they maybe want to find someone like yourself, either in a clinical sense or in a coaching sense to help their children process through? Because when the legal system gets involved with these high conflict parenting situations, there's not a lot of support necessarily that the victimized parent can receive. And it's you don't want to depend on the legal system to fix everything for you. So you can only it won't. You and I know it won't. Exactly. Exactly. So you can only arm yourself with having the right people in the right positions to help advocate for your children. So what are some signs that a parent may need to start looking at, you know, building up an army to help their kids?

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Well, kids, it depends on the age of the kiddo, right? You know, I tend to think about teenagers, if you're kind of working adulthood backwards or early adulthood backwards. Teenagers, I think, are better about telling, just outright telling us, right? And I think teenagers will often ask for support in different, a little bit different way. They may come to you and say, you know, I'd really like to see a therapist. I'm stressed at school. And it's not at all about school. They just want to have a person. Thankfully, I think therapy is a little a lot less stigmatized than it was. And it's kind of cool for teenagers in some ways to be in therapy. Um, and I think that's awesome that they're it's just it's kind of seen as like, I'm growing myself and healing myself, right? So I think teenagers kind of any request in the realm of I'd maybe like to talk to somebody, you want to honor, right? As they get younger, you're look, you might be looking for kind of less obvious signs. Things like anxiety, things like sleep issues. So I can't fall asleep, I don't want to sleep in my bed anymore, and we're like 12, right? Um, having you stay with them until they felt like separation kind of anxiety, anxiety that feels outside of the norm for the situation. So some anxiety is very normal. Anxiety helps us get things done and keep ourselves safe, right? But if we're getting really spun up about what if I forget something when I take it over there, or what if they get mad, or what if that like this kind of bigger than the situation calls for more than once, you know, ongoing repeated is helpful to think about like, oh, maybe we're not doing so great. Um the younger kids, you see it a lot more in somatic complaints, so stomach aches, headaches, tantrums, I don't want to eat, I don't want to sleep over there, like whatever it might be. But really, what I tell parents is to look for frequency. So some behavior that you're like, this isn't typical, happening a lot more than we expect. So a tantrum that's now happening five times a day, and your kids usually like a one to two times a day kind of tantrumer. The intensity, the tantrums are a great example again. So suddenly it's we're getting more, we're thrashing on the ground, we're hurting ourselves, we're scratching, like anything that you're like, whoa, my goodness, right? And then the length. So a tantrum is very normal. It's a great example. Lots of kids' tantrum, teenagers' tantrum too, adults' tantrum. Um but instead of being able to calm them down in 10 to 15 minutes now, it's taking an hour, right? These are all signs that their little nervous system's getting overwhelmed. Um, and that we need to pay attention to that.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Okay,

When Co-Parenting Becomes Weaponized

SPEAKER_01 9:08

so back to just I guess quickly to define what this high conflict parenting situation looks like, because it's the legal system certainly can be utilized as a weapon against parents. And that's all part of the whole post-separation abuse that can occur. But what does that actually look like in the high conflict parenting situation? How does that what does that look like in terms of utilizing the legal system?

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah, so I think what so first of all, the reason we don't like the term high conflict is because very often moms in my in my group, my membership, will say things like, I'm not high conflict. Like I would love nothing more than to get along with this person because I know it's good for my kids and I'm capable of it. Like I can put my shit aside and I can co-parent because it's what's best for my kid. And what often happens is that doesn't feel reciprocated. And so the felt sense of these experiences is I can't say anything to you aside from like strictly logistics and strictly what must be done, because everything I say can be weaponized against me. So I almost think of it as like a posture. That's how you kind of know you're in this situation, where instead of saying something like, hey, look, I have a big meeting tomorrow. It's gonna run a little bit late. Is there any way we can push drop off back like 15 minutes? Happy to give you 15 minutes on the back end to make up for it. Moms that are in high conflict scenarios would never say that. Never, because it would get used against them. They're already thinking about how this is gonna come back in court. They're and then they're double guess, kind of second guessing themselves of like, but I'm also gonna be accused of not wanting to co-parent with this person, even though I know that I can't say this because it'll get weaponized, right? Collaborative co-parents can do that. They can say, like, of course, Ingrid, this is a big meeting, or maybe I don't even really like you, but I can say, like, yeah, that's super that makes sense. I can make it happen. Thanks for letting me know, right? You don't have to be like best friends. But it's this posture of knowing that everything will be weaponized against you. And that uh the next motion, the next court order, the next filing is just around the corner. So these are parents that have to cut, it doesn't ever feel done. Nothing ever feels done, right? It's okay, we settled this issue, but I know they're not gonna comply, or they didn't then follow this issue. There's this tiny hole in my parenting plan and it's gonna get exploited. Um, and so it just feels very relentless and it feels exhausting. It it makes me think about what you were asking me before of like what kind of support people need. And I think one of the biggest misconceptions I see is that if there's coercive control, domestic violence, psychological, sexual, financial abuse before the divorce, that that's gonna end once you settle it. Or that they would never do anything like that to your kids. And that's just not true. It just sometimes it gets worse, but you're just in different houses and paying a lot of attorney fees. You know. And I think you can speak to that even more, even more than I can. And so I recommend people have a great attorney. I recommend they have a great therapist, and then they probably usually need someone like myself or in some other capacity who's doing coaching around how do you navigate being in this locked relationship where things aren't going to change with someone so conflictual. So, like a coach. Yeah. Um, I'm getting on like a little bit of a tangent, but when I first developed my membership model, it was designed to help people co-parent. And very quickly, it was like actually, it's about parallel parenting. And I teach the skills, you learn how to do this well. But the biggest gift in it is that you are around people that get it and you don't feel so alone. Because when we can't take away what's causing the issue, because we can't, we have to change how we relate to the issue, right? And one of the ways we do that is by building community that gets it.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Yeah, for sure. Because, like what you said, that you know this isn't the end. You know, as a parent in these situations, that it's just the next step. It's just the next step. And it's it's exhausting and it it instills in the parent the hypervigilance. So I imagine that even with the children, even though the most recent court hearing is completed, and whether they officially know that or not, they're still also anticipating what's going to happen next because it's just something that you start to learn as part of the environment that you're in.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Yeah, they are hypervigilance, it's a great word. And they're hyper-attuned. So you know for sure that they're aware of your mood after that court hearing. Like they may not know that it was the court date today. They probably do, but they may not. Um, but they sure know that it went badly for you or it went well for you by the way that you're putting the dishes in the sink and throwing the meat back in the fridge. And, you know, like these we're these kids are extremely attuned to adult moods, good and bad. Um, and so they are it's their survival strategy is being able to pick up on how everybody's doing around you all the time, so that you can do what you need to do to stay safe. It's a trauma response. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

And so you named a lot of misconceptions already, the misconception of the high conflict parenting that it's actually a two-person contribution to being high conflict when it's usually an imbalance of control. One person is being more of the abuser, I guess, for lack of better term, there's the misconception

Therapy Documentation And Self-Regulation

SPEAKER_01 15:58

that the children have no idea what's going on. And you've also already given some really good advice. Do you have any other advice for somebody who's in this situation what to do go going forward? I think therapy is very much key because again, the longevity, this is a marathon that you're you're facing.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

And this is a relationship. And so you do have to do the work to understand what was it that was attractive to me about this person? What, and this is not blaming, but like what was it that I found in them? What was I trying to heal? What was I trying to what there was something that attracted you to them? Oftentimes it's it's stuff from our past, right? Um, there's this phrase, I don't do couples therapy work, but there's this phrase in couples therapy that I hate because it makes me think about my own relationship, but um that like we marry our unfinished business, right? Which I'm like, oh shit, like that's ugh, you know? So I don't know whether that's true or not, but this idea of like, is there something unfinished that I need to heal so that I can continue to heal, right? What's the lesson here? Um so I think therapy is a beautiful thing. I think even just dealing with the ongoing stress and experience and having a place to process that and talk about how you're managing it is beautiful, right? I think very practically, I'm gonna switch way out of psychologist mode and into just like practical um documentation. And there's an art to documentation, there's a way to do it that is better in court systems, but also doesn't burn you out. So I have a lot of families that are just going crazy with documentation because they've been told to document, um, which is good, but I don't want people spending like their entire Sunday compiling forms. There are periods when you will, right? If you're in the middle of a custody evaluation, if you're just about to go to court, like you may spend a whole Sunday doing things, but ongoing every week, like in between these things, that is gonna be a lot. So, how can you kind of make it more efficient, document what you need, document it in a way that makes sense and is actually usable and keeps your sanity, right? So your whole life is not becoming this. Um, I think it's a little bit of the work in therapy and a little bit of the work in coaching, what we were talking about before. You have to find a way to regulate yourself because it will burn you out very quickly and it will, it is exhausting and it is relentless. Um, we think about trauma as psychologists, we think about it as too much too often and too intense, right? That's one aspect of trauma. And so you have to find a way to think about how do I swim in this yucky, murky, toxic water and still be able to swim, right? And still have a good life and have things that bring me joy, and that takes a lot of time. So figuring out what actually regulates you and then how I relate to the pain. That's the difference, right? It may not go away, but how do I connect with it in a way that that I can still keep myself? Right. Um, and so I think that all takes a lot of work. Um, the documentation piece, and part of that work is figuring out what you can disengage from and what you can't, right? And having people with you be like, you don't need to respond to that. You don't need to say that, like, actually, that's something you vent about with your best friend, or that's something you vent about with your coach, but it doesn't really need to be said to your ex, right? Um, and so those are some tips as well. It's hard to give tips for something so complicated, but that's the truth of it, you know?

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Right. Well, and I think that's incredible advice. So before

Resources Community And Closing

SPEAKER_01 20:15

we conclude, can you share? You have a lot of information that I think would be helpful for people to be get more information from you instead of this short little excerpt. So, do you mind just sharing some of your contact information?

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Not at all. So, my practice is called Little House Psychology. Um, and a lot of our social media is under Learn with Little House, right? Like you're learning with the anyways. Um, we have the Kids First Co-Parenting podcast. We're on a summer hiatus after season one right now, but a lot of people in both of our um camps kind of listen to a group of us, and you're in that group. This podcast is in this group, and then of course, kids first. Co-parenting is a great resource. That's I'm also on social media. And yeah, I offer therapy services for children. Uh, but for most folks, I'm doing co-parenting coaching. So high conflict coaching. There's a group that I run that's incredibly, I don't know, incredibly amazing. That's a lot of adjectives, but um, this group has been just amazing. It's a group of moms that do weekly group coaching with me, and they have lessons and workshops and templates and all the things we've talked about. Everybody in that situation is in litigation abuse. Everybody there. Um, and that's what I hear over and over is like it's just so nice to be in a room of people that get it. Right. And then for some folks, I do like custody evaluation, um, audits and like helping people through that process because it's very intense, and we look at all your evidence and things like that, or individual coaching, whatever folks kind of reach out to me and we find the best fit for where they're at and what they need. Um yeah, I'm I'm kind of all over.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

And if people aren't ready to take the plunge to get into the the full coaching and everything, you have incredibly helpful reels that you share on social media that are just little snippets that it's at least it's relatable. You can you can see those and you can think, oh, okay, it's not just me.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

That is often the case. Yes. Um, yeah, I'm doing the social media thing. I think it's, you know, it's you know, it's one of those things where I sometimes wonder, like, why am I doing this? What what is people are people really seeing it? And then I'll get a message from somebody that's like, this is exactly how I feel. And I'm like, oh, this is why we're doing it, right? Um, so yeah, it's fun. It's a fun time. It is.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Well, thank you again, Dr. Royster, for sharing your time and your expertise. I'm so happy to do it. Oh, when we love having you. And so you can find more about Dr. Royster's information and other valuable resources on afterawareness.org. And we at After Awareness hope that today's conversation has been valuable and informative. Please be sure to join us next time on Legal Abuse Explained.