How Coercive Control Escapes Detection—and What Safe Adults Can Do About It

Warning Signs of Coercive Control:

For Adults Who Truly Want to Protect Children

So let’s talk about coercive control. Because children and teens—especially girls—are often raised, trained, and groomed to believe that controlling behavior is a form of love. And far too many adults allow it to continue because “he didn’t hit her” or “she’s just being dramatic.”

We reject that here. We name it for what it is. And we stand in the gap for the children and youth who need adults with courage.

What Is Coercive Control?

Coercive control is a form of abuse that doesn’t always leave physical marks—but it absolutely wounds. It’s a pattern of domination, fear, and manipulation designed to chip away at someone’s freedom and autonomy. It shows up in adult relationships, yes—but far too often, its roots are planted early, while children are still learning what love, safety, and respect are supposed to look like.

Why This Matters for Safe Adults

If you’re a teacher, coach, auntie, uncle, counselor, neighbor, parent—or anyone who claims to care about young people—you need to know these signs. Because predators and controllers don’t wait until someone’s grown to start grooming them for silence and submission.

And in this house, we don’t ignore red flags just because someone says “But I love them.”

Warning Signs of Coercive Control

These patterns may be aimed at adults, but they also show up early in teen relationships, family dynamics, and mentor-child spaces.

🚨 Isolation

• Pressuring someone to cut off friends and family

• “It’s us against the world” becomes a tool for control

• Jealousy disguised as care

“You don’t need them. You have me.”

🚨 Constant Surveillance

• Reading someone’s texts, emails, or social media messages

• Needing to know their location at all times

• Pushing them to share passwords “to prove they’re not hiding anything”

“If you’re not doing anything wrong, why won’t you let me see your phone?”

🚨 Manipulation and Gaslighting

• Making someone feel like they’re crazy or oversensitive

• Denying things that actually happened

• Shifting blame in every conflict

“That’s not what I said. You’re imagining things again.”

🚨 Controlling Decisions

• Dictating what someone wears, eats, or how they spend their time

• Forcing them to ask permission for things they once did freely

• Shaming them for having opinions or needs

“That outfit makes you look like you’re asking for attention. Change.”

🚨 Emotional Blackmail and Threats

• Threats of self-harm if you leave them

• Threats to “expose,” punish, or humiliate someone publicly

• Holding forgiveness or peace hostage until the person submits

“If you break up with me, I’ll kill myself—and it’ll be your fault.”

🚨 Destroying Confidence

• Repeated insults disguised as “jokes”

• Dismissing accomplishments, intelligence, or dreams

• Slowly eroding self-worth until dependence sets in

“You’re lucky I even want you. No one else would.”

For the Adults Who Want to Be Safe

Coercive control is often invisible to the untrained eye—especially when it’s happening to

• girls and young women,
• to disabled youth,
• to kids on the social fringes for various reasons,
• or to kids who have already survived other kinds of trauma.

But safe adults know what to look for. They pay attention. They speak up. And when a child says, “Something doesn’t feel right,” they believe them—and act.

Don’t Wait for the Bruises

The world doesn’t need more people who are shocked when things turn violent.
It needs more people who understand that coercion is already violence.
And it’s showing up in classrooms, texts, DMs, sleepovers, and youth groups right now.

 Show Up Like It Matters—Because It Does

Children and teens don’t need perfect adults. They need safe ones. Ones who will interrupt abuse, even when it’s uncomfortable. Ones who will stand between them and the people who think love and control are the same thing.

If you’re here at RosasChildren.com, you already know that.
Now let’s make sure others do too.

💡 What You Can Do:

• Host a workshop on healthy relationships for youth

• Share this post with other adults in your community

• Have a quiet, honest check-in with a young person who might be struggling

• Support girls and young people in setting real boundaries, not just “nice ones”

🕊️ Because we’re raising children who deserve to feel free. Not owned. Not broken. Not silenced.