Health
Imagine a child, Sam, who spends weekdays with his mom and weekends with his dad. Every exchange feels like walking a tightrope. Mom pointedly asks if Dad has a new girlfriend, then sighs, “I’m sure he was too busy with her to help you with homework.” Dad, on the other hand, presses Sam not to tell Mom about the fun trip they took, saying, “She’d get angry if she knew.” Caught in this silent tug-of-war, Sam feels anxious and guilty. He loves both parents, yet each one seems to want him to prove it by siding with them against the other.
For many children of divorce or high-conflict separation, this scenario is all too real. They grow up feeling like a prize to be won or a secret-keeper tiptoeing around parental landmines. Mental health professionals call these situations parental loyalty conflicts – a term that describes the painful dynamic of being torn between parents. As we’ll see, research shows that such childhood experiences can leave lasting emotional scars, affecting mental health well into emerging adulthood (the late teens and early twenties). In this post, we’ll explore what loyalty conflicts are, how they show up in everyday life, and what a recent study found about their impact on college students’ well-being. We’ll also discuss takeaways for parents, clinicians, and educators to help spare children from the harm of being caught in the middle.
What Are Parental Loyalty Conflicts?
Parental loyalty conflict refers to a situation where a child feels pressured to “choose” one parent over the other or feels caught in the middle of their parents’ disputes. This often happens in divorced or separated families – especially high-conflict ones – but it can occur in intact families with intense marital conflict as well. Essentially, the child’s love and loyalty are pulled apart by parental behavior, whether intentional or not. The term overlaps with what therapists might call triangulation or parental alienation behaviors, where the normal boundaries between adult conflict and the child’s life are broken.
How do loyalty conflicts show up? They usually involve a parent drawing the child into adult issues inappropriately. Parental loyalty conflicts can take many forms. For example, a parent might:
Badmouth or denigrate the other parent in front of the child – e.g. “Your father is selfish” or “Your mother doesn’t really care about you.”
Use the child as a messenger or go-between in parental arguments – for instance, asking the child to tell the other parent things that are hostile or sensitive (“Tell your mom she’s making us late again”).
Ask the child to keep secrets from the other parent – like concealing a new partner’s presence or hidden expenses, putting the child in a loyalty bind.
Interfere with the child’s time or communication with the other parent – such as blocking phone calls, canceling visits last-minute out of spite, or making the child feel guilty for enjoying time with the other parent.
Imply that affection for the other parent is a betrayal – the child gets the message, subtly or overtly, that loving both parents is not acceptable. In extreme cases, a child might even reject one parent altogether to appease the other, as a way to quiet the inner conflict of divided loyalties.
In all these scenarios, the child is placed in an impossible position. They may feel that showing love to one parent will hurt or anger the other. They often end up walking on eggshells, self-censoring what they say about one parent when with the other. They might also internalize negative messages (“If Mom hates Dad, maybe I should too” or “Maybe something’s wrong with me for loving Dad”). Over time, this chronic stress can take a serious toll on a child’s emotional well-being.
It’s important to note that loyalty conflicts aren’t always born of malice. Sometimes, a parent is not consciously trying to turn the child against the other parent, but their hurt and anger spill over in ways that enlist the child’s sympathy or alliance. Other times, unfortunately, one parent does deliberately try to poison the child’s relationship with the other parent – what some researchers term parental alienation. In both mild and severe forms, loyalty conflicts disrupt the family system. They make healthy co-parenting hard and put an emotional burden on the child that no young person should have to carry.
The Emotional Toll on Children and Teens
When children are forced into loyalty conflicts, the immediate emotional impact can be profound. Fear, guilt, confusion, and sadness are common. A child might worry that enjoying time with one parent will result in punishment or withdrawal of love from the other. They may feel guilty for having positive feelings toward a parent who is being vilified, or for wanting the fighting to stop. Many kids in this predicament describe feeling like they have to grow up too fast – managing adult issues and soothing a parent’s hurt feelings, rather than freely being a child.
Research has shown that these experiences can amount to a form of psychological maltreatment. Being dragged into parental battles – hearing a parent constantly criticize or reject the other parent – is deeply unsettling for a child’s sense of safety. Over time, kids may develop symptoms of anxiety and depression from this constant tension. In one study of adolescent boys, for example, those who had been caught in loyalty conflicts showed significantly higher rates of depression compared to peers not exposed to such conflicts.
Emotionally, children in high-conflict divorce situations often feel they are responsible for their parents’ emotions. This can lead to chronic stress akin to a trauma response. Mental health experts note that ongoing exposure to parental conflict can undermine a child’s sense of emotional security, making it harder for them to regulate their feelings in healthy ways. Children don’t “get used to” bitter conflict; in fact, repeated exposure tends to amplify negative reactions. Kids may become hyper-vigilant to signs of tension, always bracing for the next argument. This prolonged stress can disrupt their emotional regulation, meaning they might have more intense mood swings, difficulty calming down, or even emotional numbness as a coping mechanism. For instance, a child might learn to shut down emotionally to avoid feeling the pain of being torn between parents, which in turn can lead to problems expressing or managing emotions later on.
Behaviorally, some children act out (anger, aggression, rule-breaking) as an outlet for the turmoil, while others turn inward, becoming withdrawn or overly compliant. Neither is a sign of healthy adjustment. In short, no child escapes unscathed when they are put in the middle of adult conflicts. The damage can manifest in the near term as low self-esteem, difficulty trusting caregivers, and symptoms of mental health struggles. Unfortunately, these issues do not always vanish when the child grows up – which brings us to what happens in emerging adulthood.
Lasting Impact into Emerging Adulthood
One might hope that once children reach young adulthood – say, leave for college – the old tug-of-war between parents would fade into the background. Sometimes it does, but often the emotional imprint of those loyalty conflicts carries forward. The study “College Student Childhood Exposure to Parental Loyalty Conflicts” (Baker & Eichler, 2014) set out to examine exactly that: how common these experiences are among college students, and how they relate to the students’ mental health now that they’re young adults.
The study at a glance: Researchers surveyed 157 college students about whether, as children, they had been exposed to various parental loyalty conflict behaviors. These included roughly 20 types of behaviors (like the examples we listed earlier) as well as instances of psychological abuse by parents. The students also reported on aspects of their current well-being. The findings were eye-opening:
High prevalence of loyalty conflicts: A striking number of students recalled being caught in loyalty binds. The study found high levels of exposure to parental loyalty conflict behaviors across the group. In fact, prior research by the same lead author found that about 80% of young adults surveyed had experienced at least one form of parental alienating behavior in childhood, and 1 in 5 had a parent who actively tried to turn them against the other parent. In other words, feeling “in the middle” is not rare – it’s a disturbingly common part of growing up for children of divorce or high-conflict homes.
Worse in divorce or high-conflict families: Not surprisingly, students whose parents had divorced or separated reported more loyalty conflicts than those from intact families. Within the divorced/separated group, the degree of conflict mattered: if the students said that their parents’ relationship at its worst was “very bad,” their exposure to loyalty pressures was even higher. This aligns with broader research showing triangulation is especially likely in high-conflict divorces, though it can happen in intact families too. The study essentially confirmed that children of divorce or separation – particularly where the parental relationship remained bitter – experience loyalty conflicts at elevated rates.
“Turned against” one parent: The survey asked whether students had experienced a parent trying to turn them against the other parent. Those who did report this had markedly higher exposure to 19 specific loyalty conflict behaviors. That makes sense: in families where active alienation is happening (one parent campaigning to damage the child’s relationship with the other), the child is likely bombarded with many different loyalty tests and manipulations. These could range from subtle undermining (“I’m not sure your dad can be trusted”) to overt ultimatums (“If you go to your mom’s for Thanksgiving, don’t expect me to celebrate with you”). Sadly, these students often endured a litany of alienating behaviors throughout their upbringing.
Link to emotional abuse: The study found a significant association between exposure to loyalty conflicts and exposure to psychological maltreatment by parents. In other words, the more the child was pulled into parental disputes, the more likely they also experienced other forms of emotional abuse (such as rejection, terrorizing, or scapegoating). This finding suggests that loyalty conflicts often go hand-in-hand with a toxic parenting environment overall. It reinforces that deliberately (or carelessly) making a child choose sides is a form of emotional abuse. The message a child receives is, “Your feelings don’t matter; what matters is that you make me feel validated.” This kind of undermining of a child’s emotional needs can be deeply damaging.
Mental health in college: Perhaps most critically, research is linking childhood loyalty conflicts to mental health struggles in young adulthood. Various studies, including follow-ups by other researchers, indicate that college students or adults who remember intense loyalty conflicts tend to report more anxiety and depression symptoms than those who didn’t experience such conflicts. Even relatively low levels of loyalty conflict exposure can negatively affect a young person’s psychological functioning. Think about it: if you grew up constantly anxious about upsetting one parent or never learned healthy emotional boundaries, it’s not surprising you might carry anxiety or difficulty handling emotions into adulthood.
In the college survey by Baker & Eichler, the direct measure of anxiety/depression isn’t described in the brief abstract, but later studies have cemented this connection. For example, a 2018 study of 240 college students found that experiencing parental loyalty conflicts was significantly linked to higher anxiety and depression in those students. And a larger study in Italy showed that adults exposed to parental alienating behaviors as kids had higher rates of depression and lower quality of life in adulthood. The consensus in the literature is clear: being caught in the middle leaves lasting scars. Young adults from these backgrounds may struggle with low self-esteem, chronic depression, or anxiety in relationships. They might find it harder to trust others or to believe that relationships can be stable and loving, having seen the opposite in their family of origin.
The Developmental Cost of Being Caught in the Middle
When children are chronically caught in parental loyalty conflicts, it doesn’t just affect how they feel in the moment—it can alter how they develop. Their internal compass, the sense of who they are and how they relate to others, becomes skewed by the need to please, placate, or protect one parent from the other. In place of clear emotional boundaries, they often learn to manage others’ feelings at the expense of their own. Over time, this can impair their identity formation, a key developmental task of both adolescence and young adulthood. They may struggle to develop a solid sense of self, feeling pulled in different emotional directions or questioning their own perceptions. Many adult children of these high-conflict dynamics describe being conflict-avoidant, overly accommodating in relationships, or excessively self-critical. Others carry a pervasive sense of guilt—guilt for disappointing one parent, for not defending the other, or simply for surviving a chaotic childhood intact. These aren’t minor psychological bruises; they are structural shifts in how someone learns to love and be loved.
Emotional Scars
In emerging adulthood, the scars from loyalty conflicts can surface in subtle but powerful ways. A young person might approach intimate relationships with deep-seated mistrust, not because of betrayal from a peer, but because their earliest models of love were steeped in conditional acceptance and manipulation. Others may recreate the dynamics of loyalty conflict with romantic partners, becoming hypervigilant to disloyalty or trying to fix the emotional instability they couldn’t repair in childhood. Some avoid closeness altogether, fearing the relational turbulence they’ve come to expect. For students entering college or the workforce, the psychological residue may show up as difficulty managing stress, low emotional resilience, or even struggles with authority figures. These patterns aren’t always recognized for what they are—echoes of a childhood spent as a buffer between parents. This makes clinical awareness and trauma-informed care critical, especially in therapeutic settings where these young adults may be seeking help for anxiety, depression, or relational difficulties.
“Children should never have to carry the weight of adult pain. Reunification therapy is where we lift that weight, repair the rupture, and give them space to love without fear.” Rebecca Inman
Despite these challenges, not all outcomes are bleak. Some individuals exposed to loyalty conflicts develop extraordinary levels of insight, empathy, and emotional intelligence. In fact, many adult children from high-conflict homes emerge with a powerful sense of justice and a strong commitment to doing things differently in their own lives. They become the cycle-breakers—the ones who set boundaries, seek therapy, and reparent themselves with great intentionality. However, this kind of growth doesn’t happen automatically; it often requires intervention, support, and space to process pain that was long buried or minimized. For those who manage to heal, the experience becomes a point of strength, but that healing should never be seen as a justification for the harm that was done. Children should not have to suffer to become resilient. The real success story is not the child who survives loyalty conflict—it’s the adult who chooses to prevent it from happening in the next generation.
Prevention begins with acknowledgment. Too often, loyalty conflicts are dismissed as normal “divorce drama” or chalked up to parents simply “venting.” But when parental grievances are shared with children, they become psychological burdens the child cannot un-hear, un-know, or un-carry. The assumption that kids are naturally resilient and will “figure it out” on their own is not supported by evidence. Research increasingly shows that what children need is not perfect families—but emotionally safe ones. Parents who can validate their child’s experience, honor their attachment to the other parent, and manage their own feelings outside the child’s presence are far more likely to raise emotionally stable children, even in the face of separation or loss. In this way, emotional maturity—not marital status—becomes the strongest protective factor in the child’s life.
Beyond individual families, we need a broader public awareness that loyalty conflicts are a form of emotional harm, not just a parenting misstep. Family law professionals, mediators, educators, and community leaders must understand that these dynamics can leave long-term psychological wounds. Co-parenting education should include training on what loyalty conflicts are, how to spot them, and how to stop them. Judges need clear language and evidence-based tools to distinguish between actual abuse and alienation, between justified estrangement and manipulation. Schools can include family systems thinking in counselor training, and college mental health centers can screen for loyalty conflict history when young adults seek help for anxiety or depression. A trauma-informed society is one that knows how to spot early signs of relational harm—and doesn’t wait for a crisis to intervene.
At its heart, reunification therapy, prevention work, and the healing of loyalty conflict are all about protecting the child’s internal world. It is about saying to the child, “You are not responsible for our pain. You don’t have to choose. You are allowed to love freely.” These messages, when spoken and modeled consistently, are transformative. For a child who has spent years navigating emotional minefields, the permission to simply be—a daughter, a son, a young adult—without having to split their heart in half, is the beginning of real healing. And for the family systems that surround them, it’s a chance to rebuild on new terms—ones that honor the child’s voice, protect their emotional integrity, and give them what every child deserves: a home in which they can grow, not just survive.
I love this theme. Sometimes it’s difficult to work with some themes, because even if they are created with Elementor, you can’t edit all the things with Elementor. Is not the case of Bili. All is created with Elementor and you don’t need Elementor Pro. Definitely recommended.
They have really taken their time to work appearance of the theme, also, they have a very interactive client assistance service, I like !