This article shows how domestic violence perpetrators can use coercive control against their children after their ex-partner has separated from them. Coercive control can include violence, threats, intimidation, stalking, monitoring, emotional abuse and manipulation, interwoven with periods of seemingly 'caring' and 'indulgent' behaviour as part of the overall abuse. Crucially, what this article provides is knowledge, hitherto largely missing, about how children and young people can experience coercive control post-separation. The article draws on two separate data sets, one from the UK and one from Finland, which together comprise qualitative interviews with 29 children who had coercive control perpetrating fathers/father-figures. The data sets were separately thematically analysed, then combined using a qualitative interpretative meta-synthesis. This produced three themes regarding children's experiences: (1) dangerous fathering that frightened children and made them feel unsafe; (2) 'admirable' fathering, where fathers/father-figures appeared as 'caring', 'concerned', 'indulgent' and/or 'vulnerablevictims'; and (3) omnipresent fathering that continually constrained children's lives. Dangerous and 'admirable' fathering describe the behaviours of coercive controlperpetrating fathers/father-figures, while omnipresent fathering occurred in children as a fearful mental and emotional state. Perpetrators could also direct performances of 'admirable' fathering at professionals and communities in ways that obscured their coercive control. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

This qualitative study discusses post separation stalking and its implications in children's everyday lives. Based on narratives of 13 Finnish children and 20 women, the research fills a gap in the knowledge regarding the psychosocial, emotional, and physical impacts of stalking on children when their mothers are stalked by a former partner. It identifies four forms of impact: (a) an atmosphere of fear and feelings of insecurity; (b) disguised acts of stalking and the father's performance of care, love, and longing; (c) exploitation of children in stalking; and (d) physical abuse, acts of violence, and threats of death. The findings indicate that stalking severely constrains children's everyday lives and strengthens, yet often distorts, the mother-child bond. The study concludes that in cases where mothers are stalked, professionals in the social and health services, law enforcement, and criminal justice should view the children, too, as victims and construct supportive social relationships for women and children facing threatening life situations.

The study explores how women victims of post-separation stalking perceive the positions ascribed to them in the help-seeking process by social workers and other professionals. Applying positioning theory, the research identifies 'critical' positionings, namely, those hindering the women in seeking help. The ultimate aim of the inquiry is to inform professional practices by identifying how professionals position victims of stalking and the risks of misinterpretation this process entails. The data comprise narratives of 15 Finnish female victims of stalking, who were interviewed either individually or together with a professional (social worker, shelter worker or therapist) who had worked with them. A total of five such professionals participated in conducting the interviews. The analysis of the women's perceptions posits four critical positionings: Professionals viewed them as (1) alienating parents, (2) unprotective mothers, (3) overcautious women and/or (4) implausible victims. These determinations are seen as rooted in considerations of morality, accountability, rationality and agency. The findings indicate that the complex nature of stalking, women's reactions to it and the ambivalent appearance of their strategies for dealing with stalking may pose obstacles to professionals in positioning them as help-seekers. This in turn may hinder women in their efforts to receive adequate help or even victimise them further. The study highlights that client-professional interaction in the context of post-separation stalking needs to be more victim-sensitive. It suggests that when analysing women's situations and providing help, professionals should be more mindful of women's own understandings and valorise their sensitive experiences.

Knowledge of technology-facilitated abuse and stalking has increased in recent decades, but research on how children and young people are exposed to these behaviours by their parent is still lacking. This article examines how technology-facilitated parental stalking manifests in children’s and young people’s everyday lives in contexts where parents have separated and fathers/father-figures have stalked mothers as part of post-separation coercive control. The article analyses materials from 131 stalking cases dealt with by district courts in Finland from 2014 to 2017 in cases that involved a relationship (dating, cohabitation or marriage), separation/divorce, and one or more children. Analysis of these court decisions identified that children and young people were exposed to three manifestations of technology-facilitated parental stalking: (1) Threats of violence and death; (2) Intrusive and obsessive fatherhood; and (3) Disparaging and insulting motherhood/womanhood. These findings underline the following contextual factors that are important for professionals to consider in identifying and helping children and young people exposed to parental stalking: technology enabling constant coercive and controlling abuse, technology in maintaining abusive parenthood, and technology in magnifying gendered tactics of abuse. The article argues that children’s exposure to and vulnerability to technology-facilitated parental stalking must be more widely recognised.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>Children in cases of technology-facilitated parental stalking should be seen as victims/survivors in their own right.</li><br /><li>The potential for technology-facilitated parental stalking and abuse against children and mothers should be considered in all cases of previous domestic violence/coercive control and parental separation.</li></ul>

The paper analyses children's experiences of (in)security in cases of post‐separation stalking and asks how children can be safeguarded under such circumstances. Children are at particular risk when the family is stalked by the biological father or stepfather. This qualitative study draws on data collected from 13 children using three different methods: therapeutically‐oriented group sessions, interviews with the children and a series of ten mother and child therapy sessions. Supplementing these data are insights gained from interviews with 18 women/mothers, the main targets of the stalking. The analysis of the narratives distinguishes three overlapping forms of security – eroded, lost and reconstructed – in which the degree of trust and extent of knowledge are the main elements. Children feel insecurity to different degrees and experiences of (in)security may vary even from child to child in the same family. The findings highlight the crucial importance of considering a child's relationship to his or her mother, siblings and trusted adults when intervening in stalking. Loved ones, day care and school staff, and social welfare workers have a significant role to play in reconstructing and strengthening children's security. The study suggests that this can be done through ‘safety talk’ with a mother and her children. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key Practitioner Messages In cases of post‐separation stalking of the family, children's security can appear in three forms: eroded, lost and reconstructed. Feelings of insecurity vary and can appear to differing degrees within the same family. It is important in safeguarding children to lighten the burden that they take upon themselves of reconstructing security for themselves and their loved ones. Practitioners can play a significant role by providing space for and facilitating ‘safety talk’ between children and their mothers.