The Unseen Parent: A Targeted Mom on the Undermining That Starts Before You Divorce

"One parent becomes the good parent, and one parent becomes the bad parent." That's how Shawna Leatherman describes the moment parental alienation actually begins, and it's almost never in a courtroom. It starts small: a "no more juice" overruled at bedtime, a rule at one house that quietly doesn't apply at the other. Thirteen years into her own experience with parental alienation, Shawna, who writes and speaks as "The Unseen Parent," walks through exactly how those tiny, seemingly insignificant moments compound into a full alienation pattern, and why almost nobody sees it happening until it's too late.

In this conversation, Shawna and Lisa break down the mechanics of undermining, exclusive alliance, and what psychologist Dr. Amy Baker calls "poisonous messages" - the subtle signals that tell a child their other parent is unsafe, unloving, or unavailable. You'll hear how something as small as a sigh before answering the phone, or asking "are you okay?" a little too often, can quietly convince a child that one home isn't safe. This is a practical, pattern-recognition-focused conversation for any co-parent who suspects something is happening but can't quite name it yet. 
 
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: 
✅ How undermining ("no, it's okay, you can have it") lays the groundwork for exclusive alliance 
✅ The difference between the "enforcer" parent and the "rescuer" parent — and why it matters 
✅ What it means to "minimize the other parent's authority," and how kids absorb it 
✅ The "Three U's" framework: how poisonous messages paint a parent as unsafe, unloving, or unavailable 
✅ Why the "are you okay?" phone call is one of the most common (and least recognized) forms of alienation 
✅ The "eye shot" rule — why body language matters even when your child can't hear you 
✅ Why most parents doing these things aren't fully aware of the damage they're causing 
✅ How to start recognizing these patterns in your own co-parenting relationship before they compound 
 
ABOUT SHAWNA LEATHERMAN: 
Shawna Leatherman is a mother, writer, and advocate who has lived through parental alienation for almost 13 years. She created "The Unseen Parent" as a resource and community for parents who feel isolated, unheard, and judged for an experience most people don't understand. She is the author of "The Unseen Parent: When Silence Hurts — Faith, Truth and Loving Through Parental Alienation," which draws on her own journal-writing as a form of therapy and offers a faith-rooted perspective on truth, forgiveness, and resilience. Shawna's work focuses on making alienation dynamics visible — not as a men-versus-women issue, but as a behavioral pattern that can happen to any parent, and one she believes needs to be discussed openly rather than in silence. 
 
🔗 CONNECT WITH SHAWNA: 
Book: "The Unseen Parent: When Silence Hurts - Faith, Truth and Loving Through Parental Alienation," available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kindle. 
Instagram, TikTok & YouTube: search "The Unseen Parent"