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Meet Monica L. Amorosi

She is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor from New York.

In the webinar held on June 6, 2024, she addressed nine questions about parenting with a narcissist.

  • Warning: The content on this page discusses narcissism and narcissistic abuse. This subject may be triggering for some people. If you find yourself feeling triggered, please click here to watch our Trigger/Flashback Protocol.

Introduction

Question 1

“My biggest question now is how to get a parenting plan agreed with the other parent. He is not reasonable with me directly, and I don’t want to have a conversation with him as it results in him talking at me and changing the topic of the discussion to why we need to co-parent with lots of contact. But he won’t go to mediation and won’t entertain a parenting app.

We have a structure which is currently not working for various reasons;

  • our child is finding the numerous handovers challenging,
  • he changes things,
  • he has blocked me on the phone, although I am currently unblocked, provided I behave myself,
  • every time I suggest a change, he suggests something completely unsuitable because he knows I won’t like it, such as week-on-week off parenting with our 3 nearly 4-year-old. He can’t commit properly at the moment to the days he is allocated, so this is nonsense and just suggested to upset me,
  • he calls me controlling and says I am a narcissist,
  • we have tried 50/50, but I don’t believe it works for our child as it has to go around his schedule, and he works full-time in theory whereas I do not.

Do I just say this is how it is going to be, and if he doesn’t like it, suggest he book mediation or proceed to family court, which would require mediation initially anyway? It just then seems I am being unreasonable, and our three-and-a-half-year-old is unable to express exactly what would work for her!”

Question 2

“How can parents educate their children about narcissistic behavior in an age-appropriate way, so they can recognize and cope with manipulative behaviors independently?”

Question 3

“How can a parent recognize and address the early signs of parental alienation, particularly when one parent is a narcissist attempting to turn the child against the other parent?”

Question 4

“What are the best practices for documenting interactions with a narcissistic co-parent, and how can this documentation be effectively used in legal settings without escalating tension?”

Question 5

“How can co-parents manage holidays and special occasions to minimize stress and conflict when a narcissistic parent is involved?”

Question 6

“Is it advised to periodically check-up with the children psychologist (to address particular issues during the parallel parenting or to make sure everything is ok with the way the child is dealing with the situation) or could it be an additional stress for the child? — Age is 6, starting school.

And some advice on how to help the child to concentrate on learning when it is not always easy at home?”

Question 7

“How do you start to mend a relationship with an alienated child?”

Question 8

“I’m currently blocked on the phone by my daughter’s father. He has her for the full weekend. I’ve asked by email when I can contact her over the weekend several times and he is ignoring my question. She’s only three so doesn’t have her own phone. Do I just document this? Is there no recourse? Do I just accept that I can’t contact her?”

Question 9

“My partner always seeks validation from other women and I notice he craves the external validation. If I give him the validation, will he stop cheating on me?”

Question 10

“Is it always necessary to have a parenting plan in place or involve court when you know this is going to create lots of conflict and violent backlash from a narcissistic ex-partner who only knows this recourse thereby putting my child’s well-being at risk?”