How Children are Impacted by Emotional Abuse - Emotional Abuse 101 | Part 7 [362]
Flying Free
Natalie Hoffman
5 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2026
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you've been told that staying married "for the kids" is the most loving choice you can make, this episode will challenge everything you thought you knew about protecting your children.
The truth is, emotional and spiritual abuse doesn't just harm you, it rewires your children's brains, damages their attachment systems, and poisons their relationship with God. Research shows that staying in a high-conflict, abusive marriage can be up to 10 times more damaging to children than divorce. And when abuse is wrapped in religious language, the harm multiplies. Your kids aren't just losing safety, they're losing their ability to experience God as loving and trustworthy.
🔑 Key Takeaways:
- Emotional abuse causes documented brain changes in children: Studies show literal changes in brain development, delays in developmental milestones, and difficulty processing positive feedback.
- Children don't have to be direct targets to be harmed: Simply living in an environment of coercive control, manipulation, and contempt creates lasting damage.
- Spiritual abuse acts as a multiplier: When abuse is justified with God's name or Bible verses, children develop profound guilt, anger at God, and the belief that God is punishing and untrustworthy.
- Divorce isn't the problem - conflict is: Research shows that 80% of children from divorced homes grow up healthy and successful when at least one parent provides safety and stability.
- You can be the protective factor: One safe, emotionally attuned caregiver can change everything. Your healing and presence matter more than a legal document keeping the family "intact."
📌 Relevant Links and Resources:
🎙️ Watch the rest of this Emotional Abuse 101 series (as it comes out) HERE.
🎁 I want to give you a free gift. It’s the audio version of my book, All the Scary Little Gods. It’s a spiritual memoir about healing from religious trauma and toxic programming that was not only destroying me, but also my children. You can listen to it FREE by going to scarylittlegods.com
I will also send you my weekly Hope Letters for Christian women in emotionally and spiritually abusive marriages.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Natalie Hoffman of Flying FreeNow.com, and you're listening to the Flying Free |
| 0:10.0 | Podcast, a support resource for women of faith looking for hope and healing from hidden emotional |
| 0:17.1 | and spiritual abuse. Welcome to episode 362 of the Flying Free Podcast, |
| 0:25.7 | and this is also part seven of my series called Emotional Abuse 101, Everything You Need to Know. |
| 0:32.5 | Today we're going to be talking about the impact of emotional and spiritual abuse on our kids. So we're going to be asking, |
| 0:41.3 | what is emotional and spiritual abuse in my home doing to my children? And then, of course, |
| 0:48.9 | right behind that question comes the fear of, but wouldn't divorce be worse. |
| 0:59.5 | Now, before I get into this, I just want to give a caveat. |
| 1:02.8 | I actually recorded this whole thing at one point. |
| 1:04.5 | And then I was like, you know what? |
| 1:08.0 | I really didn't give this caveat, and I think it's important. |
| 1:12.6 | Because everything I'm going to tell you, I can feel how I would think. If I was on your end listening to this podcast, listening to what the research says about what |
| 1:20.1 | emotional and spiritual abuse does and is doing to my kids. |
| 1:24.6 | But also, if I was in a position where I was not able to get out of that home or get my |
| 1:30.7 | kids out of that home half of the time I might feel terrified um knowing what's happening |
| 1:37.7 | to my kids and so I just want to say right before I get into this whole thing, I am going to share with you a bunch |
| 1:45.1 | of research about this. And it's not good. Okay. It is not good. The research shows that actually kids who |
| 1:51.4 | are living in a home all the time that is, that's dealing with emotional and spiritual abuse, |
| 1:57.2 | their outcomes are much worse than kids who are come from divorced homes, where there is one |
| 2:03.4 | home that is safe and the other home is maybe still emotionally and spiritually abusive. Okay. So I'm going to be |
| 2:10.4 | sharing that with you. However, even though that's the case, there's always exceptions to the rule, right? |
| 2:19.3 | And also, let's take into account God. If you're in a position where you absolutely cannot get out of your situation right now, |
... |
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