"You Can See Your Child When You Behave Better"

When people in power, a Guardian ad Litem, a therapist, a coordinator, or sometimes even a judge say, “You Can See Your Child When You Behave Better.” On the surface, it sounds like logic. “We just want you to be appropriate.”

But underneath, it’s coercive control disguised as therapy and one of the The Most Subtle and Sanctioned Form of Psychological Control in Family Court.

What that sentence really means is:

“Your access to your child depends on your compliance with our narrative.”

It’s not about safety. It’s not about therapy. It’s about control, emotional, psychological, and procedural. When a system decides that a parent must perform the “right” emotions, beliefs, or tone before being allowed to love their child, it’s no longer protecting children. It’s conditioning parents.

This tactic mirrors the same cycle used by abusers: Withhold affection or access. Set impossible standards. Move the goalposts. Blame the victim for the pain they’re feeling.

When used by professionals, it becomes a state-sanctioned form of gaslighting. They tell you that if you just “take accountability,” “agree with the process,” or “change your behavior,” you’ll be reunited. But what they really mean is:

“Agree with our version of the truth, or stay separated.”

This tactic also keeps the case alive, and profitable. Every delayed visit, every “clarification session,” every forced “progress report” creates billable hours.

Parents are ordered into “Reunification therapy” that should take weeks, drags on for years, not because of resistance from the parent, but because the professionals running it have no incentive to end it.

They profit from the illusion of progress.

And when you speak out, they call it “noncompliance.”

To a child, this dynamic is devastating. They learn that love is conditional. They learn that their own voice doesn’t matter, because “adults know best.” And worst of all, they learn that the system rewards the parent who controls, not the parent who protects.

When a child is told, “You can see your dad when he behaves better,” what they hear is,

“Your dad is the problem.” “Your love is a privilege, not a right.” “You are safer away from him.” That is psychological manipulation, not protection.

No professional, no GAL, and no therapist has the right to impose moral conditions on constitutional rights. Parental rights are not rewards for good behavior, they are fundamental liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.

The government cannot withhold your child to enforce your obedience. Yet family courts allow exactly that, through private contractors, therapists, and “court-appointed” gatekeepers acting under color of law.

A parent’s relationship with their child cannot ethically or legally be conditioned on “good behavior,” “agreement with therapy,” or “narrative compliance.” That’s not justice, that’s coercion. And coercion is abuse, no matter who carries it out.

When family court professionals tell a parent,

“You can see your child when you behave better,” they reveal exactly what’s wrong with the system: It’s not built to heal families, it’s built to control them.

The moment access to a child becomes a bargaining chip, the court has stopped protecting children and started protecting itself.