(Click here for more coverage on parental alienation.)
Psychologists Dr. Amy J. L. Baker and Dr. Katherine Andre have written a new book entitled “I Don’t Want to Choose: How Middle School Kids Can Avoid Choosing One Parent Over the Other”. This work is targeted for an audience of middle school children who want to keep both parents involved in their lives. It teaches children to use their critical thinking skills to avoid being duped or pressured into picking one parent over another.
What is Parental Alienation?
Parental alienation involves the systematic and frequently repeated denigration of one parent by the other and blocking of access to the parent who is the target of denigration. This is not just a simple and occasional comment such as “mommy can be so annoying sometimes” or “it is frustrating that daddy doesn’t keep his schedule”. While those comments are inappropriate in front of children as they tend to make children anxious and feel like they might have to take sides, infrequent comments like these probably do not constitute parental alienation. Read more…
Massachusetts family law courts routinely violate the state’s laws requiring the state to pay for Guardian Ad Litem (GAL) representation for children. The position of GAL is much like so-called “minor’s counsel” in many other states. Parties filling these roles are to look out for the interest of minor children by such actions as investigating abuse claims, working with psychotherapists to ensure that parents and children will receive treatment necessary for the well-being of the children, and other such tasks. Read more…
(Click here for more coverage on parental alienation.)
Parental alienation involves the persistent behavior of an alienating parent making a strong effort to cause the children to hate the target parent. Bad-mouthing the target parent in the presence of the children is nearly always involved. But it is not just occasional — it is a consistent pattern. Often the alienating parent will recruit other people to join in bad-mouthing the target parent. What these people likely fail to realize is that they are committing emotional child abuse.
Parental alienation is a huge problem, especially in divorce cases involving personality disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. When parental alienation is involved in personality disordered divorce cases, it can often include the alienating parent fabricating child abuse allegations and training the children to repeat them. Even if it doesn’t succeed at making the children hate the target parent, such tactics can literally land the target parent in jail and bankrupt him or her with legal fees mounting a defense against false allegations.
We stumbled across the web site mentioned below in this posting that offers literally dozens of links to very good information on parental alienation (also known as “Hostile Aggressive Parenting”) and PAS (Parental Alienation Synrome). If you’re interesting in learning more about these topics, the reading could keep you busy learning for hours.
(Click here for more coverage on parental alienation.)
The Fourth Annual Parental Alienation and Hostile Aggressive Parenting Awareness Day is coming up on April 25, 2009. Visit the Parental Alienation Awareness Day web site for more information.
Spreading Awareness of Parental Alienation
We think it’s really important to the well-being of our children and future generations to spread awareness of parental alienation and its destructive effects. Below is a brief explanation of what parental alienation involves, the harm it can cause, and steps that may be taken to help recover from it. We’ve also included links to books that may help you understand and deal with the problems it causes. Read more…
Toni Valentin, mother of a 5-year-old daughter, was unhappy with the child custody arrangement she had with her ex-husband. On February 17, 2009, she and her boyfriend Dante Quezada allegedly took the daughter to her father’s brother’s home in the 300 block of West 47th Street in Los Angeles, where she believed the father was located at the time, in a minivan allegedly driven by their friend Felipe Carias. Quezada then allegedly proceeded to shoot out the windows of the home with a semi-automatic pistol, in the process shooting the daughter’s 7-year-old cousin in the chest and arm as she was doing her homework. Apparently they were hoping to kill the 5-year-old’s father while she watched. Fortunately, her cousin is expected to fully recover. Read more…
Melinda Stratton of Sydney, Australia, has abducted her 4 year old son Andrew Thompson and fled Australia to go into hiding. She was unhappy her son was seeing his father at all even in supervised visitation because she claimed he was an unfit parent. She made allegations against him that were investigated and dismissed, making this look like yet another case of a parental alienator bent on using any means to prevent a child from having contact with the other parent.
Stratton fled to Germany with Andrew in April 2008. Her current whereabouts are unknown.
On January 15, 2009, she recently wrote a letter stating that she claims “the appalling failure of the Family Law Court and Child Protection Services” is why she’s run away with the child. She claims that he’s an unfit father because of depression and anxiety. He denies that he suffers from these mental illnesses. Even if he did, depression and anxiety are very common especially during divorce and hardly justify a parent being judged as unfit unless they are unusually severe.
If so, you’re in quite a bit of company. 86% of parents swear in front of children according to a recent poll of 3,000 kids aged 11 years. And they do it on average 6 times per week.
Biological parents are not likely to sexually abuse their own children. But in recent decades, there has been an epidemic of false sexual abuse claims against biological parents. This epidemic started in earnest along with changes in laws and policies to allow fathers to have partial or full custody of children after a divorce.
The false claims of sexual abuse may be made by either parent. However, they are more common coming from mothers trying any method they can to prevent the children’s fathers from having contact, custody, and/or visitation with the children. This is a despicable strategy related to parental alienation. It is also particularly effective because of societal taboos and the difficulty of proving innocence of a crime which according to the false accuser was seen by nobody but the alleged perpetrator and a small child (who may not even be able to talk!) and of which there is frequently no physical evidence because the false reports are made about false incidents which supposedly occurred weeks or months earlier.
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