Coercive Control Field Check / CHI
Category 09
Children as Instruments of Control
Children are drawn into the control regime as monitors, messengers, hostages, and grounds for litigation. They are direct targets and co-survivors, not mere witnesses. An abuser uses children to maintain domination after separation, to attack the target's most valued relationship, and to keep the target under continuous emotional, logistical, and legal pressure.
Callaghan et al. 2018; Katz 2016, 2022; Spearman et al. 2025; Stark 2007; Sullivan et al. 2024.
CHI-1
Undermining the Target's Parenting
Countermanding the target's decisions, denigrating the target to the children, and positioning the target as the "bad," inadequate, or uncaring parent, either directly to the children or to third-party providers, e.g., therapists, household help, family, school personnel, and others involved in the child's care.
CHI-2
Using Children as Monitors, Messengers, or Leverage
Recruiting or relying on children to report on the target, involving children in adult process or logistical decisions, triangulating a child into parental conflict, or conditioning access and compliance on children's reported statements.
CHI-3
Custody and Child-welfare Threats as Ongoing Control
Invoking family court, custody modification, or child-protective reporting as a standing threat to enforce compliance or punish resistance.
CHI-4
Obstructing Joint Decision-making
Withholding consent, significantly delaying, or refusing to finalize a decision the parties are required to make jointly (medical treatment, mental health care, school enrollment/placement, extracurricular commitments) by demanding open-ended additional information, further discussion, or repeated re-litigation of an already-settled point, such that the decision never actually gets made.
CHI-5
Gatekeeping Access to the Child's Providers, Records, and Information
Controlling or restricting the other parent's independent access to the child's medical, mental-health, educational, or extracurricular providers, records, or related information channels, such that the gatekeeping parent becomes the obligatory intermediary. This may occur through instructions to third parties, unilateral rules imposed on the co-parent, or both.
CHI-6
Unilaterally Changing, Withholding or Delaying Time-Critical Child-Logistics Information
Withholding, delaying, or drip-feeding exchange information, authorizations, itineraries, addresses, or pickup details the other parent needs for a safe handoff or for the child's needs, so the abuser remains the only person with the relevant information.
CHI-7
Using a Child's Alleged Fear, Safety, or Welfare as Pretext to Control the Target
Attributing fear, unsafety, or a welfare emergency to the child and using that attribution to justify surveillance, stalking, harassment, investigation, or other control of the target, including recruitment of private investigators, attorneys, evaluators, or other third parties.
Literature this family is drawn from
- Stark, E. (2007). Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Oxford University Press.
- Katz, E. (2016). Beyond the physical incident model: How children living with domestic violence are harmed by and resist regimes of coercive control. Child Abuse Review, 25(1), 46-59.
- Douglas, H. (2018). Legal systems abuse and coercive control. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 18(1), 84-99.
- Miller, S. L., & Smolter, N. L. (2011). “Paper abuse”: When all else fails, batterers use procedural stalking. Violence Against Women, 17(5), 637-650.
- Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018.
Carlton, C. (2026). Coercive Control Field Check: CHI Children as Instruments of Control. Coercive Control Observatory. Last reviewed August 31, 2026.