Last Thursday on Parent Coach Radio our special guest was Jill Egizzi, author of “The Look of Love.” Jill shares her insight about her new book and her passion to bring awareness to the term Parental Alienation. The Look of Love is a novel that gives an accurate account of Parental Alienation and how it affects the family unit and the identity of the children involved. The compelling new book pulls the curtain back on the tragedy of the family court system while giving you a front row seat illustrating how the parent -child relationship can be shattered at the hands of the other parent.

Jill is politically active and was appointed to the Illinois Family Law Study committee. Their vision is to give the family courts an overhaul in the state of Illinois. Jill also serves as a board member for Children Need Both Parents and Parental Alienation Awareness Organization. The mother of four also holds the position of advisor for The Institute for the American Family.

 

 Parent Coach Radio: Parental Alienation Author Jill Egizii: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Here is your chance to listen to the show that you missed where we tackled the topic of parental alienation. Some of the issues we discussed- what to do if you suspect parental alienation, the emotions you face, and how to make change just to name a few.

What others are saying about the book

“The Look of Love is a godsend for parents who have been alienated from their children after a bitter divorce. Candidly describing the pain and frustration of parents and children who are torn asunder, Egizii offers readers a poignant view of parental alienation at its worst. Disheartened parents will feel heard and understood after reading this heartfelt novel.”

 —Dr. Linda Nielsen, author of Between Fathers and Daughters
Professor of Education Professor of Adolescent and Educational Psychology,
Wake Forest University

“The Look of Love clearly demonstrates how quickly and easily parental alienation can occur and the harm these behaviors do to children and the rejected parent. Ms. Egizii does a fantastic job of walking us through the effects of alienation, including the aha light bulb moment when a parent realizes that the child’s pain
is paramount to their own. A riveting read.”

 —Sarvy Emo, founder, Parental Alienation Awareness Day, April 25th
Founder, Parental Alienation Awareness Organization (PAAO) 

Parenting a child does not come with a manual when they are born, but in most cases our parenting style is learned from our own parents.  The latest topic we covered on the premier episode of Parent Coach Radio was “Toxic Parenting”.   This is a parenting style that reflects where a parent’s negative and destructive behavior harms the child’s sense of self and even the bond of parent and child.

 

 EPISODE500 - Parent Coach Radio- Chrissy -n- Lary +Expert Brigitte Wangberg [1:20:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The behaviors include but are not limited to verbal, physical, or sexual abuse.  Many of these parents will ignore emotional needs and only indulge in their own selfish desires. Unfortunately these patterns become repetition and stay consistent into adulthood.  Children and adults take blame for their parent’s aberrant morals and conduct. Their world is surrounded by emotions of guilt and often too many times becomes the legacy in their own parenting styles.  

Sometimes when we are parenting our children it becomes transparent that we learn what we live. It becomes hard to distinguish between our emotional pain and parenting.  During the show a resource we talked about and shared was a book Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life by Susan Forward

If you have sat down as an adult with your parent to confront them on your emotions about their past actions and you hear these answers you are not crazy or alone.                                    

  “How can you do this to me?”                                                            

“It never happened.”

“It was your fault.”

“I said I was sorry what more do you want?”

“We did the best we could.”

“Look what we did for you.”

“How can you do this to me?”

To hear the reasoning of these answers and more about the subject of toxic parenting listen to the audio recording of Parent Coach Radio with Chrissy, Lary and special guest Brigitte Weinberg from My Life Instruction.com

As an advocate of parental alienation I walk a fine line with gender issues between father’s rights and also mother’s rights. The real issue at hand is parental rights but people are so wrapped up in the who or what to blame they forget that people come from different walks of life and various circumstances.  How does one woman tell the story of her life to help true victims without it crossing the lines of offense? The story of truth sets some free while others use it as a line of defense for blame. I have wanted to share a story for years but have been silent, love me or hate me there is a story that walks outside of the boundaries the movement sets in stone. How do we become stronger without tying some of these issues together? Many women and men make up lies to win a battle but what happens to the individual that falls in the cracks and has a truthful story of abuse.

In 1991 at the age of 16 I married a young 18 yr old man. In my own mind I believed this would be forever and a life that I dreamed of with happiness. My years prior were filled with abuse and I fell captive to the illusion of love that my husband professed. The silent beginning that only few know about is that the abuse had already occurred prior to our wedding date. The incidents were forgiven quickly because at least he would tell me he was sorry or that he couldn’t live without me. Those words were more than my father would tell me so I believed the words streaming out of his mouth to my ears.

The first two years of our marriage I wore a blindfold to truth and allowed the punching bag sessions to continue. The emptiness I felt as a person was clear to others who knew me. In this time period he was also indulging himself with another woman that he never laid a hand on. I found out I was pregnant with my son and thought this would be a stepping stone for change. It was defiantly a stepping stone because his mistress was also pregnant.  I can remember wondering if I did everything he asked would it all change.

The years went on and the progression of abuse became a ritual in my everyday life. The fighting was constant and I left on several occasions to only return after the charm of change was lingering in my ears. His words became harsher and the restrictions were like a half way house. Cell phones were a convince many people delighted in but to me it was a constant communication of “Where are you, what are you doing?” 

My daughter was a new addition and I was often baffled when I was hit during my pregnancy. More time had passed and the physical abuse was less but another abuse was occurring to take its place. I would almost find myself wishing the physical and mental abuse was the only aspects I had to experience.  The pain of being raped by a person who tells you they love you is a confusing time. The battle of self confidence became a major contention in my mind. It broke me emotionally on several occasions and only after the act would I hear the apologizes then the excuse, you can’t rape a spouse.  I spent time trying to understand what was wrong with me.

I can recollect a time during a family graduation in the past three years where I went to the event and he decided to stay home. I was with his family members and because there was a lie band I did not hear my phone ring. He came all the way out there around midnight because he wanted me to be home to tend to him. He was angry because I didn’t answer my  cell phone and I paid for that one.  I walked on egg shells even with his own family events.

Our children were a negotiation tool for his selfish needs.  He rarely ever carried out the duties of a father unless he was in the mood. He would have more interest of looking me in the bedroom than having a catch with his son or baking with his daughter. I longed for participation with us as a family instead I believed an illusion of what I thought it should be.

This is only a small fragment of the 18 yrs of abuse that I survived. I fell for a life of self imposed illusions to live day to day.  My illusion fractured a healthy mind set to realize that he wouldn’t change I had to.  I allowed myself to believe this distorted fairytale for 18 years. His negative terminology generated raw emotion of pain and the lack of worth as a person. I have struggled to find who I am without him telling me who I should be.  I have been beaten down in many ways but have found the strength to stand back up and find myself.  Dan still continues to hold my son at ransom; he allows negative behavior to continue with complete disrespect to me. I’m told it’s between you and him, meanwhile my sons screaming at me in his father’s presence. He sits our daughter down for a five hour “chat” to tell her not to listen to me. He cries in front of her using guilt and saying how I left them all, my children are used as a ransom in his ploy to win them over after years of his neglect.

 Dan Chrzanowski  stole my dignity and years of my life but now I have taken my life back to leave a greater legacy to my children.  A legacy of what love should be

^{Corinthians 13}

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The price that an alienated parent pays when leaving a harmful situation is often times a much higher one than is ever expected. The complex positioning of abusers and the effects to our children are detrimental to our society and their futures. I know many parents that come to the same conclusions when they sit back and try to cherish their own memories of their sons and daughters after separating from a dysfunctional spouse or partner.

In my personal experience, growing up with parental alienation, I strongly believe that children are not who they were destined to be in their life because they are often forced to side with one parent to the detriment of the other and are robbed of their childhood by a selfish parent. The child loses the benefit of both parents.  A child learns from the adults they are surrounded by and they learn to share their values and thinking patterns to what is right or wrong, likewise when surrounded by dysfunction they are more likely to develop dysfunctional patterns. In adolescents, their minds are fragile and can be transformed into an alienator’s dream because the children are taught to share in the hatred and lie their way through life. The fragile minds are tricked into believing that there is fear and they have to maintain a loyalty to the alienating parent.

My perspective on the effects of parental alienation is becoming a fear of what we are creating for our inheriting generation. Main factors that we deal with are the behavior patterns of the alienator that are dysfunctional and that by itself has many components of abuse or other anomalies that are being passed on to our children as being “normal.” The foundation of parental alienation goes far beyond our immediate comprehension, because all behaviors and their results are so complicated and intertwined, very much like the movie “The Butterfly Effect,” where the effects of the changes and actions are not fully understood. There is a very intense book called “Abuse Excuse” and while reading this book I saw society and parental alienation in an expanded light. Everything in society is becoming based more on emotion and then logic.The base knowledge that there is a cause and effect for ones actions is now a rarity.  In society we look at media and feel the emotion for missing children or even feel sympathy when a victim kills their abuser in self-defense. In some cases these “victims” go free because they have a sympathetic jury. What is it that we are teaching our children about self-responsibility, coping, and their own futures?

How do we retain the basics for children that form ethics and positive outcomes for our children’s futures when dysfunction is being poised as the new normal?  The legacies children are receiving are filled with pain and turmoil that is handed down from generations. Parental Alienation is only a small portion of the problem; it is a branch that grows off a bigger root. Due to circumstances in our lives we believe that narcissism and border line personality disorder is the normal everyday occurrence as frequency of the disorders increase.  As we have seen within the children that positive and negative traits are inherited or taught through interaction and their environment. In most cases these children have no middle ground to understand but they gain the wisdom to be unique in getting what they want while struggling with both sides of extreme behavior.

One parent might be the disciplinarian and the other parent might not be consistent with any rules. This is a perfect analogy where there is no middle ground and in time the child learns to just ask the inconsistent parent for their needs.  The pain children experienced infused with an alienator’s hatred and anger progresses into a state of mind muddied with the survivor skills that are acquired and carried for the rest of their lives. The very skills that parents have been taught and now being taught to the next generation.

We have learned that in many cases of parental alienation that even our ex-spouses most likely have a narcissistic personality disorder. This is a beginning to understanding the nature of the beast when negative behaviors are being passed onto our children. But how had these skills been introduced to this person to act on, which clearly demonstrates several generations of parental authority being undermined by someone and other generational dysfunction that is being handed down to children. They have a fear of abandonment or abuse that has occurred in their past, there is always a negative that has consumed them. In society we have framed a foundation based on these negatives and accepted it as a positive explanation. The hard cold truth is this will never go away until the base foundation is corrected and bad logic being corrected.

We want to enlighten our children to see the truth of whom and what we are; parents spend more time trying to prove they are the opposite of the lies when it comes to being targeted by an alienator.  This strategy is time consuming and in my opinion just proving to the child that the alienator is correct. Be the parent you are, we use excuses that the children do not know better that is why they act like this.. Until recently I even believed that course of action but where does that line become reality of children being responsible for their actions. Yes they might have confused the facts with help but at a certain point a child should not be allowed to disrespect you despite being encouraged or validated by the alienating parent. In our longing to have interaction with our children we are silently teaching them it’s ok to behave in this manner.

The principles of positive parenting are becoming desolate as these circumstances become part of the pattern of behavior. I have seen the outcome of generations in my family burdened with these various patterns. This is the legacy I was left and now I’m living as an alienated parent. This journey is never finished especially since my daughter’s is just beginning. This vicious cycle is about to be broken with my daughter, but first I had to take a look at myself to see the flaws in my foundation to make a new cycle of love rather than abuse.

The holiday season has arrived as it does every year. The season is one that is recognized for family celebrations and children opening presents with food and laughter. In some houses there will be a silence that will remind of us of the term parental alienation. These homes will be reminded of memories past and the old traditions that brought smiles and warm fuzzy emotions that are affiliated with Christmas.

During these weeks the pain threshold is increased to unlimited reminders of the time you don’t have with your children. While we are hiding from the holidays we are constantly prompted by the visions of lights, commercials, and children in our midst.  We have friends and family that understand to a limit and we feel alone in a whirlwind of tears that we alone cry. It is painful to be a non custodial parent and while it is healthy to grieve there needs to come a time when we say life goes on. There is nothing selfish in this thought process.

Below are some helpful suggestions that might make your holiday season more manageable and easier to cope with. It will be an easier process if you plan ahead and know this is a task that needs your assistance to help others.

• Open your home to other non custodial parents
• Don’t be home alone spend it with family and friends if possible
• Spend some time at a homeless shelter and help serve their needs
• Help under privileged children
• Put together an outing with others so no one is an “orphan” for the holidays.
• Take a vacation with a friend
• Plan a new project

These are not easy transitions to acquire and will take time. You will still have emotions of sadness but they will not be over cumbering to you.  Sometimes we isolate ourselves in our own misery and we make it harder to climb out of the trenches of our pain.  We must remember in divorce children also have mixed emotions about the holidays. 

On Thanksgiving night Parental Alienation Hurts and Get Your Justice Live will have our annual Holiday Support Call. Many of us come together to share memories, tears, and yes even a few laughs in the process.  The call is takes place from 8pm EST: To call in live during the show dial 724-898-1660

 Join us via the computer FREE LIVE CHAT STARTS AT 8PM EST  http://budurl.com/liveshowtimechat

I hope to see some of you there to know you’re not alone this holiday.

Today is a day that I look back seventeen years and remember your first breathe.  I can easily remember you moving inside me and when you wanted into this world it was when you wanted.  Every year was and is a milestone of laughter and fond memories.  Your first year of life was hard because of you being born a preemie but you and I were glued together from the very beginning.

Your first birthday was decorated with Mickey Mouse and mommy like normal went all out for my dudda bugs special occasion. You were fascinated by your animated Barney and water tether.  You grew so fast and then fell head over heels with the Lion King.  Simba was a trademark I will never forget and you slept with that bear every night.  I look back on these memories and cherish them as every parent does.  Your birthday was always a great celebration, even on your third birthday when we had a huge party at Chuckie Cheese and you and I played in the ball pit for hours.  Your fourth birthday in Wisconsin and I made your beautiful bear cake but Aladdin was the theme and you were nervous because you had girls there from your Pre K class.

I have a memory of every birthday while you were growing up even your birthdays when you were older and we had 15 boys over playing football in the dark until we all were frozen pop cycles.  These are the memories we both share.  You are becoming a man and the time has gone by so fast.

I know in my heart you love me despite what you say or do.  I want you to have a wonderful birthday as I have given you every year.  You are not forgotten and no matter what everyone says I’m still your biggest fan and mother.  My door is always open to you to talk o to even lie in my lap as you always did, I miss watching you play video games or even our battles in Guitar Hero. 

I pray today that you find love and hope.

 Justin my love is always here and has never gone away.  You are my son and nobody will take that from me.  In time I know we will be together again.  Enjoy your day and when you close your eyes to blow out your candles that I’m there in your mind, heart, and spirit. Mommy loves her dudda bug.

In this article there is another example of alienation. We can all agree that if the case is high profile or a local divorce, child custody can turn into an ugly arena of turmoil.  I chose this article because it touches on the rights of parents and grandparents. We see the dialogue between Johnston and the Palin’s and most people not educated on this would have a variety of reactions.

The mixed emotions will spread gossip across the media outlets and destroy a family but most important a child and their future. Sarah has the right to be a grandparent but most importantly Johnston has the right to be a father.  This is becoming a common story that is neglected in the eyes of many professionals and family units across the nation.  There is a public spotlight on Sarah Palin that can destroy her political career; one can only hope for the child’s sake that this is resolved in a Collaborative Law setting.

Sarah Palin Accused of Alienating Grandson

Posted by Lisa in Child Custody with the tags , celebrities, custody, single dad on November 2, 2009

Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin could be heading into an ugly court battle. Levi Johnston, father of Palin’s grandson is threatening with legal steps to allow him access to his son Tripp. The 19-year old may have made not so helpful headlines as the date of Bristol an almost son-in-law of the Palins, but a public legal fight may be even less desirable for Sarah Palin, especially if Johnston can provide evidence supporting his alienation allegations.

Johnston and the Palins have been in a heated debate over the access to Tripp and Johnston now claims that the situation is bad enough that a court battle cannot be avoided. In a recent interview he stated that Sarah Palin is preventing him from seeing his child: “I’m up to the point where I can’t see my kid again. I’m done. I’m sure we’ll end up in court. We’re definitely going to court,” he said.

He recently started paying child support, but his calls asking for the child are not being returned, Johnston claims. Palin, on the other side, says that Johnston is lying. Her lawyer stated that Johnston is always welcome to see Tripp. At this point, it seems too early to judge who is playing what game,  whether Palin in fact is preventing Johnston to see his child and whether she is engaging in alienation, which is a serious charge that can have a major impact on child custody.

Legally, grandparents are considered “significant others” in child custody cases and while courts generally tend to grant grandparents access to their grandchildren, there can also be the question whether grandparents have an adverse influence, intended or not, on a child. The Palin’s situation is an interesting one, as 18-year-old daughter Bristol – as far as we know – still lives at home and a much closer relationship between the child and the grandparents is a given.

Often, such grandparent cases try to paint a “poisonous” relationship to a child. However, in this case, the custody evaluation may focus on determining whether the grandparents are overly attached and become too controlling, which seems what Johnston is indicating: “Bristol listens to her mom. Sarah says something, Bristol is going to follow,” he told The Guardian.

Most states usually try to figure out a way that a parent remains the primary care giver and that both parents take precedence over the grandparents as far asparenting time is concerned. Many psychologists go a step further and suggest that grandparents should only step in if asked: Controlling grandparents can shake the parenting confidence of their children and create unnecessary tension. Typically, grandparents are expected to leave as much parenting responsibility to the biological parents as possible.

If we look at the current case and the fact that Sarah Palin and her lawyer do most of the talking in this case, it seems that that Johnston has at least a foundation to launch his claims from.

It will be interesting to see how the Johnston-vs.-Palin case will work out, if Sarah Palin in fact will be risking a court battle that may interfere with a presidential campaign in 2012.

http://www.singleparentgossip.com/986/child-custody/sarah-palin-accused-of-alienating-grandson/

Parental Alienation: A Mental Diagnosis?

Some experts say the extreme hatred some kids feel toward a parent in a divorce is a mental illness

From an early age, Anne was taught by her mother to fear her father. Behind his back, her mom warned that he was an unpredictable and dangerous; any time he’d invite her to do anything—a walk in the woods, a trip to the art store—she would craft an excuse not to go. “I was under the impression that he was crazy, that at any moment he could just pop and do something violent to hurt me,” says Anne, who prefers that only her middle name be used to guard her family’s privacy. Typical of a phenomenon some mental-health experts now label “parental alienation,” her view of him became so negative, she says, that her mother persuaded her to lie during a custody hearing when the couple divorced. Then 14, she told the judge that her dad was physically abusive. Was he? “No,” she says. “But I was convinced that he would [be].” After her mother won custody, Anne all but severed contact with her father for years.

If a growing faction of the mental-health community has its way, Anne’s experience will one day soon be an actual diagnosis. The concept of parental alienation, which is highly controversial, is being described as one in which children strongly attach to one parent and reject the other in the false belief that he or she is bad or dangerous. “It’s heartbreaking,” says William Bernet, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, “to have your 10-year-old suddenly, in a matter of weeks, go from loving you and hiking with you…to saying you’re a horrible, ugly person.” These aren’t kids who simply prefer one parent over the other, he says. That’s normal. These kids doggedly resist contact with a parent, sometimes permanently, out of an irrational hate or fear.

Bernet is leading an effort to add “parental alienation” to the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the American Psychiatric Association’s “bible” of diagnoses, scheduled for 2012. He and some 50 contributing authors from 10 countries will make their case in the American Journal of Family Therapy early next year. Inclusion, says Bernet, would spur insurance coverage, stimulate more systematic research, lend credence to a charge of parental alienation in court, and raise the odds that children would get timely treatment.

But many experts balk at labeling the phenomenon an official disorder. “I really get concerned about spreading the definition of mental illness too wide,” says Elissa Benedek, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Ann Arbor, Mich., and a past president of the APA. There’s no question in her mind that kids become alienated from a loving parent in many divorces with little or no justification, and she’s seen plenty of kids kick and scream all the way to the car when visitation is enforced. But, she says, “this is not a mentally ill child.”

The phenomenon has been described for many decades, but it became a cause célèbre in 1985, when Richard Gardner, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, coined the term “parental alienation syndrome.” As more dads fought fiercely for joint custody, he observed a surge in the number of children suffering from a distinct cluster of symptoms, including a “campaign of denigration” against one parent that sometimes included a false sex-abuse accusation and automatic parroting of the other parent’s views.

But sound research supporting a medical label is scant, critics say. The American Psychological Association has issued a statement that “there is no evidence within the psychological literature of a diagnosable parental alienation syndrome.” What’s more, concern has grown that “PAS” could be invoked by an abusive parent to gain rights to a child who has good reason to refuse contact, says Janet Johnston, a clinical sociologist and justice studies professor at San Jose State University who has studied parental alienation. In teens, she notes, parental rejection might be a developmentally normal response. Anecdotal reports have surfaced that some kids labeled as “alienated” have become suicidal when courts have ordered a change of custody to the “hated” parent, she says.

In any case, divorcing parents should be aware that hostilities may seriously harm the kids. Sometimes manipulation is blatant, as with parents who conceal phone calls, gifts, or letters, then use the “lack of contact” as proof that the other parent doesn’t love the child. Sometimes the influence is more subtle (“I’m sure nothing bad will happen to you at Mommy’s house”) or even unintentional (“I’ve put a cellphone in your suitcase. Call when everyone’s asleep to tell me you’re OK”). It’s important to shield kids from harmful communication, says Richard Warshak, a clinical professor of psychology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and author of Divorce Poison. If something potentially upsetting about an ex must be conveyed, he advises imagining how you would have handled the conversation while happily married; how would you have explained Mom’s depression, say?

“The long-term implications [of alienation] are pretty severe,” says Amy Baker, director of research at the Vincent J. Fontana Center forChild Protection in New York and a contributing author of Bernet’s proposal. In a study culminating in a 2007 book, Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome, she interviewed 40 “survivors” and found that many were depressed, guilt ridden, and filled with self-loathing. Kids develop identity through relationships with both theirparents, she says. When they are told one is no good, they believe, “I’m half no good.”

Now 23, divorced, and a parent herself, Anne has recognized only recently that she was manipulated, that her long-held view of her father isn’t accurate. They live 2,000 miles apart but now try to speak daily. “I’ve missed out on a great friendship with my dad,” she says. “It hurts.”

http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/childrens-health/2009/10/29/parental-alienation-a-mental-diagnosis.html?PageNr=1

Today is Non Custodial Mothers Day. You will not find this on any calendar or even really talked about unless you are going through this yourself. This is a day that no one wants to celebrate but the facts are there are many parents that are ripped out of their child’s life.  I support both parents but I will say this all cases are unique.  In various cases where moms are non custodial it is not by choice but by force.  Abuse does happen in homes and some stories are fabricated but good mothers are losing their children to abusive spouses.

I understand all too well from my past that these situations happen. We are at a loss on how to overcome the pain and obstacles always in the way to reunification.  Today is not a day we want to celebrate but is a solid start to awareness.  You are not alone and many mothers are going through this. We were crushed on every side to get out of the relationship and then made out to be the “abuser”. 

In no way am I saying that this is truth in all cases and I support fathers as well, but I don’t support any abusive behavior. I always find it odd that we have feminists that are very detailed on their stance about abuse. I’m often in awe of their view that parental alienation does not exist, just because one case has a certain outcome does not mean every case is the same way. Today is a day to start a conversation with someone who does not know about alienation.  Just start with “Today is Non Custodial Mother’s Day”

I have written a poem that i would like to share

A Mom Without Her Children