Childhood experiences of domestic violence, in the context of parental intimate partner violence, is a well-established risk factor for adverse mental health outcomes, including suicidality. However, dominant measurement approaches continue to prioritise discrete incidents of physical violence, obscuring coercive control as a pervasive and chronic pattern of harm. This narrow framing limits understanding of how children’s experiences of parental domestic abuse create risk for suicide. We reconceptualise childhood experiences of coercive control as a distinct and underexamined risk factor for suicidality. We advance the understanding of entrapment as a central mechanism through which coercive control may contribute to suicidality, and identify critical gaps in current evidence and measurement approaches. Coercive control operates across the family unit and frequently persists following parental separation, creating developmental environments characterised by chronic fear, enforced dependency, and constrained autonomy. We argue that these conditions may give rise to a sustained sense of entrapment, a risk factor for suicidality, positioning childhood experiences of coercive control as an under-recognised pathway to suicide-related outcomes among children and young people. Childhood experiences of coercive control are inadequately measured in research, with suicidality largely overlooked as an outcome, undermining the evidence base and subsequent efforts to address both coercive control and suicide prevention efforts. Failure to explicitly recognise coercive control, risks misinterpreting children’s distress and obscuring ongoing abuse which can lead to missed opportunities for early intervention and suicide prevention.