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.

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