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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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/

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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

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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

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Parental Alienation and other forms of abuse seem to be handed down to our children and their children, meaning that it is generational. If every person takes a look back at their own family tree they will most likely see a pattern that was carried from their family.  For most of us we are facing or know someone who is facing parental alienation.

In my own family generational abuse has been passed down to me and it was very difficult to break the cycle. This is not the legacy we want for our children or family.  There are many stages of emotion when we really look at all the aspects not often talked about. In many situations we are forced into positions to hand a negative legacy to our children. Parental Alienation is a form of abuse and shatters any form of meaningful parenting to the child.

Education is always a key resource to understanding the parenting issues and how parental alienation is allowed to permeate into the family. In my opinion many parents look at the basics of alienation and are still confused by the mental and physical components surrounding their current situations.  There is more to be learned that goes deeper into understanding our children and their interaction with the Alienating Parent and the Target Parent. The subject before you is a revelation into the foundation of the alienator and their behavior patterns.

Parental Alienation has many factors that lead up to the outcome we have seen in our families. In my future blogs I will take this subject to a new level and also reflect back into my experience of breaking this cycle of abuse. Below is an article that shares how the abuse is carried from the parent to the child. These behaviors conforming the child to be co dependant and form habits that are considered risk factors. This is a trait that is then carried down to their children and forms criteria for generational abuse.

http://www.envf.port.ac.uk/illustration/IMAGES/vlsh/codepend/cycle.htm

Multi-generational cycle of abuse

While the roots of codependence are in the childhood experiences of abuse, it is the shame core that perpetuates the disease from generation to generation. Whenever the shame core gives its message of being ‘less than’ to a person, that person is automatically thinking, feeling and behaving as a codependent. A shame attack envelopes a parent and results in abuse to a child thus inducing the parent’s shame into the child. That child grows up and has the same problems as the parent. So the shame-based parent creates a shame-based child who grows up and begets another child who is set up to be shame-based. And the process goes on and on. And to make matters more complex and serious, when a child has two shame-based parents, he or she gets a double load. I think that’s why succeeding generations are getting more and more anxious and stressed as they experience compounded symptoms of codependence.”

Facing Codependence. Pia Mellody with Andrea Wells Miller and J. Keith Miller.Harper Collins 1989.

The initial site created used the marshmallow metaphor explored during BA and was a small interactive site effectively animating the potential behaviour these marshmallows might express in their relation to one another, and particularly the effects of the boundaries each had in relation to the others. The underlying theme was ‘rejection – protection – projection’ the cyclical phenomenon of abusive relationships and tied to the idea of ‘those have most power to hurt us that we love’

There are other components in the patterns of abuse on the site above. I have included these issues as they pertain to abuse and parental alienation. Keep in mind while reading these studies that both genders can experience abuse. I have included the definition of the Double Bind Theory below,

• A psychological impasse created when contradictory demands are made of an individual, such as a child or an employee, so that no matter which directive is followed, the response will be construed as incorrect.
• A situation in which a person must choose between equally unsatisfactory alternatives; a punishing and inescapable dilemma.Core theories which help to explain and contextualise what is happening when relationships are abusive arise from research into dysfunctional communicational patterns in the family. The main areas for research into the phenomenon of domestic violence and the abuse of power, and attempts to find a description for what is happening within the abusive relationship have yielded primarily, for the author, the Double Bind theory.

The model for Double-Bind theory was formulated during the 1950’s and published in 1956 as, ‘Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia’, by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson, Don Jackson, Jay Haley and John Weakland. The paper outlined a communicational theory on the origin and nature of schizophrenia and was based, as stated in the introduction, upon their research into ‘formulating and testing a broad systemic view of the nature, etiology and therapy of schizophrenia.’

Sluzki and Ransom write of the double bind:
“Double Bind is one of the revolutionary ideas of the twentieth century. While the notion arose originally from efforts to understand a specific problem – the etiology of schizophrenia – its scope is much wider…(it) has equally enriched psychiatry, psychology, sociology, linguistics and other related fields within the vast domain of the behavioural sciences.”

But they continue with a warning:

“Over the years the logical beauty of the concept has created an illusion of concreteness: it gives the impression of being a handy notion that can be plugged into many different models. But this under standing has led to many intellectual dead ends.”

Haley later writes that although the paper highlighted schizophrenia, it was also an argument for studying levels of communication within a broader range of human activity. He cites psychotherapy, play, humour, ritual, poetry, fiction and hypnosis.

As a model for levels of communication I would propose that Double Bind theory would apply equally well to problems people have in their communication patterns within relationships which become abusive. It will remain to be seen whether the application of this theory will lead to an intellectual dead end when applied to this phenomenon, but I would hasten to add that when applied to the visual description already posed the theory could be used fortuitously.

Reflections upon the theory and further research into the model have been undertaken. In 1975 Gina Abeles wrote a doctoral dissertation reviewing the research to date and a paper, ‘Researching the Unresearchable: Experimentation on the Double Bind’, based upon that was published in 1976

“The Double Bind theory is about relationships, and what happens when important basic relationships are chronically subjected to invalidation through paradoxical interaction.”

Researching the Unresearchable: Experimentation on the Double Bind. Gina Abeles.
Double Bind. The Foundation of the Communicational Approach to the Family. p116.
Paradoxical interaction, or the expression of two mutually exclusive messages creates ambivalence brought about by choices being available about which either or all partners have mixed feelings. The inability for either or any party to extricate themselves from the situation is central to the continuation of relationships in which there is abuse.

“Such a relationship is ‘untenable’ and would ordinarily be abandoned by both parties…this is not, however, always possible; in such cases we must recognise a quality of dependence in the relationship which, as Weakland (1960) Bateson (1969) and Wynne (1969) have emphasised, is crucial. A child is dependent for his physical and emotional survival upon his relationship with his parents” Ibid P120

Continuing from the themes of double bind and mutual stuck togetherness (Bowen) there began to emerge the theme of duality and the dyadic. Power abuse and the poles of the extremes; inferiority vs superiority, tower-cower, strong weak, big small, consciousness and subconsciousness.

The double-bind theory itself originally formulated in dyadic terms. There was a binder and there was one who was bound, although the reciprocal nature of the bind was acknowledged. The theory implicitly isolated a unit comprising two communicators, with the focus of interest the characteristic type of exchange between them.

As a result, a number of articles qualifying the original double bind theory began to emerge. Weakland was the first to break out of the dyadic mold, with a 1960 essay, ‘The double-bind Hypothesis of Schizophrenia and Three Party Interaction,’ …In 1962 the authors of the original double-bind article offered a critique that downplayed the focus on individual behaviours or single sequences in favor of the theory’s emphasis on circular systems in interpersonal relations.”

Bateson’s contribution was to offer an analogy from game theory for a type of behaviour that had been noticed frequently in families of schizophrenics. No two people could relate without a third becoming involved. This phenomenon Bateson called ‘the infinite dance of shifting coalitions.’

Foundations of family therapy. A conceptual framework for systems change, Lynn Hoffman. Basic Books Inc. 1981
To demonstrate the interaction of three or more people in a double bind Bateson called upon game theory, examining behavioural processes in situations of conflict and where the parties cannot agree.

“Game theory is a method for the study of decision making in situations of conflict. It deals with human processes in which the individual decision-unit is not in complete control of other decision-units entering into the environment. It is addressed to problems involving conflict, cooperation, or both, at many levels. The decision-unit may be an individual, a group, a formal or informal organisation, or a society. The stage may be set to reflect primarily political, psychological, sociological, economic or other aspects of human affairs….The essence of a’ game’ in this conflict is that it involves decision makers with different goals or objectives whose fates are intertwined.’
Game Theory and Related Approaches to Social Behaviour [(ed) Martin Shubik. Wiley, 1964]

The game metaphor, applied to interrelations and communicating, outlines a situation where two subjects with unhealthy boundaries (ie merged or competing) are interacting to win, to be right, (validated). – Unhealthy boundaries (of a codependent) being created by lack of validation or a feeling of being ‘less than’. So codependents playing the ‘game’ each have an interest to win. But in order for one to win the other has to lose, and in this analogy losing means being wrong (invalidated – ‘less than’) – and because there are incomplete boundaries there is no defence against the effect of losing the game. This, it appears, is in part what creates the schizophrenic. Complications occur in the game if more than two people are playing.

“Though the original double-bind described a two person arrangement, Bateson saw a way, through the game metaphor, to translate the concept into a particular kind of family organization. He argued that the untenable predicament of the schizophrenic could arise from having to participate in the interactional equivalent of Von Neumann’s game.

A robot would be insensitive to the fact that every reasonable solution he arrived at was immediately proven wrong. But human beings are not this insensitive. In fact, they have an inflexibility bestowed upon them by their greatest asset, their ability to learn – that is, their ability to acquire automatic responses to habitual problems.

Without this capacity, a person would be forever inventing solutions to each problem as if he were encountering it for the first time. This is why human beings have a commitment to the process of adaptation at the deeper level of habit. Bateson argued that in a system where adaptations are not allowed, as in Von Neumann’s unstable game, it is logical to assume that the individual involved will experience extreme disruption and pain. He will be caught in a perpetual sequence of double-binds, situations in which there is always a penalty for being right.”
Foundations of family therapy. A conceptual framework for systems change, Lynn Hoffman. Basic Books Inc. 1981

It seems viable to incorporate the notions of game theory and games into a visual language to promote healthy ways of relating, and not least because games are played for entertainment, they are fun.
A study of games for children has so far revealed a reflection of damaging values. Games still available and presumably still being played by children include Happy Families, illustrating an inaccurate and stereotyped family unit and way of life, Old Maid, again depicting fixed gender roles but where the emphasis is that men generally have the jobs, and such ‘playground games as ’stone, paper, scissors’ where there are cyclical power relations at play.

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New Research on Alienated Children
by Daniel H. Swerdlow-Freed, Ph.D.

(Daniel H. Swerdlow-Freed, Ph.D.is a Licensed Psychologist.

Several years ago, our newsletter featured an article on parental alienation, in which we summarized Richard Gardner’s proposition that parental alienation syndrome, or PAS, was a diagnosable disorder with distinct features. Over the past several years, his opinions have received much criticism and led mental health professionals to formulate research-based explanations of the dynamics that cause children to reject contact with a parent. On the basis of their research, Drs. Joan Kelly and Janet Johnston recently published a new theory of the alienated child, which we believe advances understanding of this complicated issue. Since this topic is of interest to so many of our readers, we are providing a summary of their paper. **

Kelly and Johnston define an alienated child as “…one who expresses, freely and persistently, unreasonable negative feelings and beliefs (such as anger, hatred, rejection, and/or fear) toward a parent that are significantly disproportionate to the child’s actual experience with that parent.” Their definition requires that the child’s behavior toward and relationship with the alienated parent should be the primary focus, rather than the behavior of the alienating parent, as Gardner suggested. Furthermore, they note the importance of differentiating the alienated child from other children who resist contact with a parent for realistic or developmentally appropriate reasons.

This new formulation conceptualizes a child’s relationship to each parent as falling along a continuum from positive to negative. At its most healthy end, a child enjoys a positive relationship with both parents and wants to spend approximately equal time with each of them. The next position is for children who have an affinity with one parent. These children feel closer to, and prefer to spend more time with one parent but desire substantial contact with the other parent.

Some children express a consistent preference for either their mother or father during the marriage, and have formed an alliance with that parent. Following separation or divorce, these children may desire limited contact with the non-preferred parent, although they do not completely rejecting this individual. Alliances often develop because of unhealthy dynamics that existed during the marriage, intense post-divorce conflict or children’s moral assessment of their parent’s behavior. Such alliances have the potential to become unhealthy, particularly if parental conflict continues at a high level. Two factors that distinguish allied from alienated children are that the former are willing to acknowledge positive feelings for the non-preferred parent, and they can articulate credible reasons for seeking reduced contact with that individual.

Children who have witnessed or been subjected to violence, abuse or neglect, are at increased risk to become estranged from the parent who perpetrated these acts, although their feelings about that parent may only be expressed after separation has occurred and a sense of safety has developed. A child may also become estranged from a parent who is extremely immature and self-centered, consistently unreliable or inadequate, or chronically angry, rigid or critical. While estranged children may present as if they are alienated, they differ from alienated children because their fear and anger have a basis in reality and their attitudes and behavior are in proportion to these experiences.

At the unhealthy end of the continuum is the alienated child, who completely rejects a parent without showing any guilt or ambivalence, and refuses all contact with that individual. Severe distortions and exaggerations often characterize the child’s reports about the relationship with the rejected parent. Close scrutiny reveals that these youngsters are often responding to dynamics that occurred during the divorce process, to ill-advised parental behavior and to their own psychological vulnerabilities.

Using a systems framework, Kelly and Johnston identified a series of factors and child responses that are critical to accurate diagnosis and effective intervention. They determined that while risk factors vary from one case to another, they often contain the following components: a child who has become triangulated in the parental conflict, a spouse who experienced the decision to divorce as a profound humiliation, an ongoing pattern of intense conflict and litigation, and to the involvement of new partners, extended family or other professionals who purposely or unwittingly contribute to conflict.

If a child perceives that s/he has been abandoned by a parent, that child is vulnerable to become alienated. Feelings of abandonment may occur when a parent leaves the marital home, when a child is seriously confused about the reasons for the separation or divorce, or when a parent begins a new love relationship and devotes less attention to the child. In some cases, separation followed by long periods with no contact between the nonresidential parent and the child can exacerbate the child’s sense of abandonment.

Children who were psychologically vulnerable prior to separation often lack the resiliency to cope with the pressures that accompany divorce. Some children find it easier to deal with anxiety and uncertainty by siding with one parent against the other, and thereby securing the preferred parent’s loyalty. Children who do have good reality testing may become confused by events they witness or overhear, and are vulnerable to misinterpret or misunderstand their meaning, especially if they cannot discuss these situations with a caring adult who can help them make an independent evaluation of their experience.

Through our work with divorced children and parents, we know that no single factor produces an alienated child, and that these convoluted, difficult situations threaten the psychological well being of each family member. We believe, along with Kelly and Johnston, that a comprehensive assessment is needed to clarify the multiple factors that have led a child to reject a parent with whom s/he previously enjoyed a meaningful relationship. Only with the benefit of such an evaluation, can each pertinent factor be identified and accounted for, and an effective intervention strategy planned and implemented.

** Kelly, J. B. & Johnston, J. R. The Alienated Child: A Reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome. Family Court Review. Vol. 39, Num. 3, 249-266.

 http://www.psychologyinfo.com/forensic/alienated-children.html

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Parental Alienation Syndrome Suffered By 1 Out Of 4 Children Involved In A Divorce

One out of four children involved in a divorce and custody litigation undergoes the so-called Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), consisting of the manipulation of children by the custodial parent, who incessantly tries to turn them against the other parent by arousing in them feelings of hatred and contempt for the target parent, as explained in the book Marital Conflicts, Divorce, and Children’s Development (Conflictos matrimoniales, divorcio y desarrollo de los hijos, edited by Piramide), by professors Jose Canton Duarte, Ma Rosario Cortes Arboleda, and Ma Dolores Justicia Diaz, from the Department of Evolutionary and Educational Psychology of the University of Granada

In the 1980’s, PAS was defined by scientist Richard Gardner of Columbia University. Men are usually the target parent, since in most cases the mother has custody of the child.

According to Mª Rosario Cortés, “the so-called alienating parent is the one who has custody and uses it to brainwash the child, turning him or her against the alienated parent”. In most cases, the process is very subtle the custodial parent stating such things as “if I just told you some more things about your father/mother…”, or by making the child feel sorry for “abandoning” every time he or she visits the alienated parent.

As pointed out by the group of researchers of the University of Granada, there are many other factors which influence PAS apart from the unacceptable attitude of the custodial parent, such as children’s psychological vulnerability, the character and behaviour of parents, dynamics among brothers, or the existing conflicts between the two divorced parents. Very often children not only reject their father, but also his family and close friends. Grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins, and the new partner of the non-custodial parent are also affected by this syndrome, and children undergoing PAS can even “expel them from their life.”

Symptoms

Among other symptoms, Professor Cortés points out that children tend to find continual justifications for the alienating parent’s attitude. They denigrate the target parent, relate negative feelings unambivalently towards that parent, deny being influenced by anyone (pleading responsibility for their attitude), feel no guilt for denigrating the alienated parent, or recount events which were not experienced but rather came from listening to others.

The authors of Marital Conflicts, Divorce, and Children’s Development, state that PAS is more frequent among children aged 9 to 12 than among teenagers, and that there are no relevant gender differences in PAS.

According to Mª Rosario Cortés, the Parental Alienation Syndrome occurs most frequently in cases where parents are involved in divorce litigation, while it is not usual when the decision to seek divorce is mutual. The professor of the UGR underlines that in every case of SAP, “the family must be provided with a family-mediation programme for equal treatment of all members affected by this problem, which is increasingly more frequent.”

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/94733.php

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Join me as I host Get Your Justice Live on Thursday Night at 8pm est with special Guest Kimberly Pressley from Coloring Away Pain. I’m pleased to announce a new resource for Parental Alienation for your children/grandchild ren. This is a great opportunity to share this information with your child’s school or therapist or even purchase one for your child. For more information on this new resource join us at 8 pm EST on Thursday September 17Th.

 Live Call In Number: 724-444-7444
Talk Cast Id Number: 39517 Pin 1#

FREE LIVE CHAT STARTS AT 8PM EST
http://budurl. com/liveshowtime chat

 Kimberly Pressley-Herrick is the founder of Coloring Away Pain and The Foundation for Coloring Away Pain. Kimberly is a native South Floridian, a single mother of three with a passion for writing and helping others. Kimberly’s children share in the desire to help others and are responsible for the art work featured on our line of note cards.

Coloring Away Pain is dedicated to bringing playful resources to children dealing with difficult life situations. By addressing issues such as bullying, death of a loved one, a deployed parent, or a natural disaster through the use of animal characters and easily digested stories, children often are able to open up and express themselves. The coloring books each encourage a child to explore a subject with the animal characters, answer thought provoking questions, and draw freely in addition to the standard coloring activities. Coloring Away Pain originally began in response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Now, Coloring Away Pain has over 15 titles in publication and has been translated into multiple languages. 

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Thursday night I had the pleasure of debuting as a host on Get Your Justice Live. The show was inspiring to many parents and professionals in the field of Divorce/Parental Alienation. In the past ten years there has been many resources shedding light on the topic of parental alienation.  In a country where the divorce statistics rise dramatically every year more children might be at risk for an alienation situation. The numbers are alarming and parental alienation is a hidden number in many cases. Many parents are still puzzled and don’t fully comprehend what is happening to them or that there is a term for the situation.  On this show we were able to explore the child and how parents can stay healthy as well as understand the child perspective. It was a show that covered many levels of Parental Alienation. I was pleased that this is a great example of sharing the awareness of Parental Alienation can open the eyes of professionals.  Parents often ask how can they help their children and the professionals understand the dynamics of parental alienation.  There is no easy answer for children but we have future resources on the show that can help all involved in this abuse.

Dr Caron Goode is now expanding her academy to include Parental Alienation and other High conflict issues in the near future. If you missed this episode please visit http://www.getyourjusticelive.com  and you can hear the pod cast.  This is the beginning of many new resources that I will bring forward to help parents, children, and professionals.

Dr Caron Goode is the author “Help Kids Deal With Stress and Trauma”  She is the director of the Academy of  Coaching International. She is quoted often as a parenting expert and her articles have appeared in over 300 publications globally; including Colorado Parent, Convergence, The JoyfulChild, Energy, Black Family Digest and Better Homes and Gardens and Parenting print media. Caron’s is a frequent radio show guest speaking on topics like “Parenting Outside the Box.”                                                                   http://www.academyforcoachingparents.com

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