angiEmedia

(Originally published January 15, 2009. Updated August 27, 2010.)

So you’re getting a divorce, or have already gotten one. Have any kids in the picture? You can bet they are confused about what you and your ex-spouse (or soon-to-be-ex-spouse) have done by breaking up the family. Kids need to understand what is going on from such a big family change as a divorce, and it’s not a simple thing for them. Why? Well, for starters:

• Children often blame themselves for the divorce.

• They need to know that divorce is an adult problem, not one caused by children.

• Child self-blame for divorce creates psychological problems, some of which can be long-term and severe.

• Children need to know that it’s OK to love both parents.

• They are often put in the middle and made to “pick sides” by one or both parents and don’t like this at all.

• They need to know that parents who try to make them “pick sides” and bad-mouth the other parent are doing the wrong thing so they won’t participate and may possibly help their misguided parent(s) control themselves.

Even in an amicable divorce involving children, there are going to be questions and worries. All of the books discussed in this posting can help with those, especially for the intended audience which is generally late toddler-hood to early grade school, about ages 2 to 9.

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For anyone who hasn’t read Taken into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family, I just finished it and highly recommend it. Many are familiar with Professor Stephen Baskerville’s basic theories and some have read excerpts from the book. Published in 2007, this book is a comprehensive and up-to-date description of the enormity of the problems endemic to the current tyrannical status of the judicial system as a whole, not merely family court. It is an extraordinary work.

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We sometimes get emails from our readers asking about the mix of information on our web site. Some readers wonder why we write about topics that seemingly have nothing to do with each other. Many of our readers are interested in the family law abuse and judicial corruption stories, others appreciate the coverage of health topics, and yet others find the stories about police abuse tactics match their own experiences. But what do they all have in common? The answer is they are all tied together by the involvement of government in abusing its duties to the public to uphold the law, avoiding conflicts of interest and bias, and staying away from corruption. In this article, I’ll be comparing examples of what I’ve learned about the abusive conduct of the FDA with the abusive conduct of family law courts. They are both excellent examples of how the United States has strayed a long distance down a very dark road that leads to becoming an abusive totalitarian state that views its citizens as slaves to be controlled for its own profit and power.

Violating Civil and Human Rights For Job Security, Power, and Profit

We prominently feature stories of abuse, corruption, and persecution by out of control government intent on building job security and power by crushing opponents and inventing fictional “crimes” and “crises” to “justify” their abuses and budgets. They commonly do all of this and more not only in violation of the law but also against any reasonable norm for moral and ethical behaviors for governments and government employees. While our readers may be familiar with the pattern of government abuse and corruption in their own experiences or those of family and friends who have been badly harmed by it, they may not be familiar with similar trangressions in other areas.
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We thought we would take a break from all the seriousness of the world today and bring you a little spot of lightheartedness from our collection of bathroom reading. Here are some entertaining and senseless bits of trivia for the legally minded. These idiotic laws are excerpted from Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader).

• In Providence, Rhode Island, it’s illegal to sell toothbrushes on Sundays. (Toothpaste is OK)
• It’s against the law in Washington state to pretend that your parents are rich.
• Women in Corvallis, Oregon, are not legally permitted to drink coffee after 6:00pm
• By law, Washington drivers must carry an anchor to be used as an emergency brake.

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Parental alienation is a form of emotional abuse in which a normal positive parent/child relationship is damaged or destroyed by another party using emotional manipulation, threats, false accusations, and other means. It involves at least two basic elements. The first is an alienator engaging in access blocking to keep a child from seeing a parent. The second is a pattern of denigration and destruction of reputation to make the child dislike the parent. When parental alienation becomes severe and/or extended in duration, the child may start to avoid seeing the target parent, repeat the statements of the alienator as if they were the child’s own, and even make up new “reasons” to dislike having contact with the target parent. Often these “reasons” are complete nonsense and have little to no accuracy.

If you’re suffering as a target parent and are aware of parental alienation, probably none of this is news to you. However, what may be news to you is that parental alienation isn’t limited to the most commonly discussed situation of parents involved in divorce or child custody battles. For starters, you may be alienated from your children by your spouse while married.
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Borderline Mom: A Quick & Dirty Manual of Emotional Self Defense for Children is a new title by Georgiana Wright for people dealing with a mother suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), whether formally diagnosed or simply suspected. One of the key decisions children of Borderlines eventually must make is whether the destructive relationship with their mother can be fixed by setting boundaries or whether it is better to cut off all ties and write their mother off. Author Georgianna Wright explores both choices in her new book.

Recognizing Borderline Women

Borderline women are generally abusive to those around them, particularly to their husbands, boyfriends, partners (including women partners — lesbians and bisexuals can be Borderlines just as heterosexuals can), and children. It is important to realize that many Borderlines were abused as children, some have genetic tendencies for extreme emotional behavior, and some have both characteristics. Recognizing a Borderline often depends upon noticing how they affect the people who are their close family and friends. These people often are afraid of the Borderline and can spend years being manipulated and controlled via abusive tactics, rages, and false blaming. The Borderline will often have endless complains about all of these people, seemingly justifiable unless you have actually met and seen them and therefore know that they are not the source of the problems.
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Psychology researchers Jose Canton Duarte, Rosario Cortes Arboleda, and Dolores Justicia Diaz from the University of Granada have written a book on the psychological problems caused by parental alienation during child custody conflicts entitled Conflictos entre los padres, divorcio y desarrollo de los hijos (English: Marital Conflicts, Divorce, and Children’s Development). In much of the United States and of course in countries south of the border, there are a large number of families going through difficult divorces who speak Spanish as their primary language. While there is a wealth of English-language information on the form of emotional child abuse known as parental alienation, the selection of such titles for Spanish-literate populations has been more limited. If you know of a Spanish-speaking family with intense conflict between divorced parents, this title might be helpful for their extended family to read to understand what is happening to the child who used to love them but who now avoids and even lies about them after being brainwashed by the parent who has primary custody.
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I’ve previously written a review and comparison of six divorce books for children. One of my favorites is the book Was It the Chocolate Pudding?: A Story For Little Kids About Divorce written by author Sandra Levins.
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