The 5-Minute Reset to Protect Your Kids From a Narcissistic Parent (Without Escalating Anything)
Episode Summary

In this Thrive in 5, Christy Jade guides you through a simple five-minute process that helps you protect your child’s emotional safety when dealing with a narcissistic parent. Instead of reacting from fear, conditioning, or pressure to “keep things smooth,” you’ll learn how to regulate your body, detach from the narcissist’s hooks, and model calm authority your child can immediately feel.

This micro-training focuses on one small but powerful shift: stabilizing your own nervous system so your child learns emotional safety, discernment, and self-trust — even when the other parent continues their chaos. These five minutes will change how you show up in high-conflict moments.

What You’ll Learn

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  How to identify your body’s early alarm signals during narcissistic tension

  
  


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  A simple three-breath pattern to instantly calm your nervous system

  
  


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  How to shift out of emotional reactivity and into factual, steady communication

  
  


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  One-sentence boundary responses that model calm authority for your child

  
  


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  A grounding tool your child can use after visits, calls, or stressful interactions

  
  


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  How to reinforce safety without escalating the conflict or feeding the drama

  
  

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TRANSCRIPT

Speaker 1 (00:03 ):

Welcome to your Thursday, thrive in five, your five minute pause from the chaos, the gaslighting, and that text you knew better than to reply to take a breath Queen. This one's for you. Today's Thrive in five is all about your energy and moments when the narcissistic parent creates tension because your kids absorb your state more than the actual words that are spoken, right? They're little sponges. So you're going to teach your child safety by regulating yourself first, right in the moment. So we're going to give you this advice. You can save this if you're feeling it right now. You can use it now, but you can listen to know what to do. And then definitely save this episode. So in the moment you can refer to it and maybe you can even take little notes. But this is definitely a saver episode. Alright, so you're going to set your timer for five minutes, okay?

(01:06 )

Get yourself a little timer. It can be on your phone. One of those cute ones you have in the kitchen, the little kitchen timers. I have one that's a little mushroom. It's so cute. Alright, squirrel. Okay, so five minutes. Minute one, you're going to notice your body's alarm system. So think of that last text demand or surprise request from the narcissistic parent, right? And your body probably does one of these things. The chest tightens, the stomach drop. I know that one. The shoulders rise all the way up to your ears and your breath gets shallow, right? One of those two of those, all of those. So first, in that first minute, notice it name the sensation out loud like my chest feels tight. Naming it out loud equals calming it. Okay? True, true facts, only true facts here on the Queen's show. Alright, minute two, you're going to then slow the pace for your child.

(02:11 )

Kids mirror your nervous system. Okay? Remember that? So you can repeat this three breath pattern and you can do it silently or with your child if they're present to teach them, right? We're role modeling and teaching our children what to do when stress comes about. So one, you're going to inhale through your nose. Two, you're going to hold it for two seconds, and three, you're going to exhale a little longer than that. Inhale. And this tells your child and yourself, we handle intensity with calm, not chaos. Opposite of the lovely narc, right? We want to be opposite. So we handle intensity with calm, not chaos. Minute three, detach from that narcs hook. Okay? Ask yourself, what is the fact here? Not the feeling. I get it. We are all up in our feelings. We're empaths. We're good hearted people, we've been mind ed, right? I get it.

(03:22 )

But we need to role model and give ourselves peace. So what is the fact? So what's an example of that? The feeling is he's trying to control me again and getting triggered. The fact is pickup is at four. That's all I need to address. Whatever he's trying to do, we don't need to worry about. It's good to know that, right? That's very helpful when you're learning about the narcissist. But we know that already now at this point. Yeah, but our focus is the fact, whatever the deal is, pickup, set for whatever facts are safe, that's our safety feelings. That is the narcissist playground, right? They want to see and feel and hear all your feelings. That's you taking their bait. So this reduces your reactivity and models discernment for your kid, no matter how old they are, if they're two or they are 18. Alright, minute four, we're going to choose one sentence of calm authority.

(04:32 )

So pick one neutral boundaried line, like per the order pickup remains at four o'clock. Or I'll refer to the agreement or I'm not available for additional changes. Short and steady to the point. I always say, don't take the bait, don't get emotional, keep it short. And that equals emotional safety for your child too. Okay? So this is the piece that those kids internalize for life. How are you responding? Calm and authoritative, right? Per the order. Pickup remains at four. It's just the facts. People. We're queens. We don't have time for all these big emotions. Okay? Number five, we're minute five. Sorry. Teach your children one mini skill, okay? And again, refer back to Tuesday's episode. If you have not listened to that, please go listen to that. That's going to really dig into the best ways to deal with the entire situation with a narcissist, dealing with the kids and all of the toxic things you don't want to do yourself.

(05:52 )

And how to keep the peace, but in a way that isn't what you normally would do with someone who's not toxic. So please watch. Listen to that episode if you haven't. So right after contact with the narcissistic parent, you're not going to trash talk them, right? You're going to do the mature adult thing that will keep peace for you and your child. You can't control the narc, okay? Do this one grounding micro practice with your child. And this one, you get to even call it a fun little cute child thing. The butterfly hug. And it's 30 seconds and anyone can learn this and it is good for you. It's good for a 2-year-old. It's good for that 15-year-old who's going to roll their I. So you just cross your arms over your chest. You tap the left side right on the top of your arm tap.

(06:46 )

I'm doing it right now if you can hear, I'm giving myself a good old butterfly hug. And then tap the right, tap the left. Tap the right while you are slowing your breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth. Tap left, tap right. Okay. So cross arms over chest tap left tap right, tap left, tap right. Slow breathing until you feel your nervous system calm. But 30 seconds is a good amount of time and you can say your body knows how to keep you safe. So this teaches them to trust the intuition that therapists, some therapists tell them to ignore that. Tell them to push through and to keep the peace. That's the keeping the peace that I'm not here for. We're not bypassing feelings. We are honoring our intuition, their intuition and teaching them your body knows how to keep you safe. And doing the butterfly hugs.

(07:54 )

There's other examples too, but that's a good one is very important to me. So you don't change a narcissist, you're not going to change the narcissist, but you can change the energetic environment that your child