Parental Alienation Syndrome in Court Referred Custody Cases by Janelle Burrill

Childrens Rights, due process rights, family civil rights, Family Court Reform, Family Rights, fathers rights, mothers rights, parental alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome, parental rights

Parental Alienation Syndrome in Court Referred Custody Cases by Janelle Burrill In Best Interest of the Child, Child Custody, Family Rights, Non-custodial fathers, Non-custodial mothers, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Parental Kidnapping, Parental Rights Amendment, fatherlessness, fathers rights, kidnapped children, mothers rights, parental alienation on May 31, 2009 at 3:13 pm

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This dissertation summarizes the research of 30 court referred, custody dispute cases assessing the behaviors of the parents and their children to determine the presence or absence of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS). The criteria to determine the parent and their children’s behaviors is Dr. Gardner’s definition of Parental Alienation Syndrome.

The parents were placed in three categories (mild, moderate or severe) based on their symptoms and behaviors. Their children (59) were then categorized into three groups (mild, moderate, severe). This investigation seeks to determine additional information regarding the presence or absence of PAS.Reluctance by the courts and mental health community to accept the validity of PAS probably contributes to the perpetuation of the disruption of parent-child relations in custody disputes. Findings and Conclusions:

It appears the data from this study corroborates observations and definitions of Parental Alienation Syndrome. The data from this study indicates that the parents in the mild PAS category have children who exhibit fewer negative behaviors toward the alienated parents whereas children whose parents are in the severe category exhibit more negative behaviors towards the alienated parents.

This study found that the more negative behaviors a child exhibits towards an alienated parent, the more severe their parent’s symptoms and behaviors. Consequently, there is more severe alienation from the alienated parent and the more disruption to that parent-child relation.

PAS is a distinctive form of child abuse generally found in intractable custody disputes.

NEW CAMPAIGN: Ask DSM to Include Parental Alienation in Upcoming Edition

NEW CAMPAIGN: Ask DSM to Include Parental Alienation in Upcoming Edition

A group of 50 mental health experts from 10 countries are part of an effort to add Parental Alienation to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V), the American Psychiatric Association’s “bible” of diagnoses. According to psychiatrist William Bernet, adding PA “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.”

Few family law cases are as heartbreaking as those involving Parental Alienation. In PA cases, one parent has turned his or her children against the other parent, destroying the loving bonds the children and the target parent once enjoyed.

Fathers & Families wants to ensure that the DSM-V Task Force is aware of the scope and severity of Parental Alienation. To this end, we are asking our members and supporters to write DSM. If you or someone you love has been the victim of Parental Alienation, we want you to tell your story to the DSM-V Task Force. To do so, simply fill in our form by clicking here.

Once you have filled out our form, Fathers & Families will print out your letter and send it by regular US mail to the three relevant figures in DSM-V: David J. Kupfer, M.D., the chair of the DSM-V Task Force; Darrel A. Regier, M.D., vice-chair of the DSM-V Task Force; and Daniel S. Pine, M.D., chair of the DSM-V Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence Work Group.

DSM V is struggling with many weighty matters and as things currently stand, Parental Alienation might not get much notice or attention. By having our supporters write to leading DSM figures, we hope to draw attention to the issue.

Again, to tell your story, click here.

Supporters can send letters to DSM until the middle of 2010. In 2011, DSM will be considering the issue. In 2012, DSM V will be written, and in 2013 DSM V will be published. When you write your letter, please:

1) Keep the focus on your child(ren) and how the Parental Alienation has harmed them.
2) Stick to the facts related to the Parental Alienation.
3) Be succinct.
4) Fill in all fields on our form.
5) Be civil and credible, and avoid any profanity or use of insulting language

Again, to write the DSM Committee about your story, click here.

Running these campaigns takes time and money–the postage and supplies alone on this campaign will be several thousand dollars. To make a tax-deductible contribution to support this effort, click here.

Together with you in the love of our children,

Glenn Sacks, MA
Executive Director, Fathers & Families

Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S.
Founder, Chairman of the Board, Fathers & Families

Frequently Asked Questions about Parental Alienation

1) What is Parental Alienation?

Parental Alienation is a disorder that arises primarily in the context of divorce/separation and/or child-custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child’s campaign of denigration against a parent, a campaign that has no justification. It results from the combination of a programming (brainwashing) of a parent’s indoctrinations and the child’s own contributions to the vilification of the targeted parent. Parental Alienation is also sometimes referred to as “Parental Alienation Disorder” or “Parental Alienation Syndrome.” To learn more, click here.

2) Most claims of Parental Alienation are made by divorced or separated fathers. When fathers have custody of their children, do they sometimes alienate them from the noncustodial mothers?

Yes, both genders can be perpetrators and victims of Parental Alienation, but those hurt the worst are always the children, who lose one of the two people in the world who love them the most.

3) Do fathers (or mothers) sometimes make false claims of Parental Alienation against mothers (or fathers)?

Yes. There are parents who have alienated their own children through their abuse or personality defects, and who attempt to shift the blame to their former spouses or partners by falsely claiming the other parent alienated the children from them.

4) How common is Parental Alienation?

Parental Alienation is a common, well-documented phenomenon that is the subject of numerous studies and articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. A longitudinal study published by the American Bar Association in 2003 followed 700 “high conflict” divorce cases over a 12 year period and found that elements of PA were present in the vast majority of the cases studied. Some experts estimate that there are roughly 200,000 children in the U.S. who have PAD, similar to the number of children with autism. To learn more, click here.

5) Opponents of recognizing Parental Alienation claim that abusive fathers often employ Parental Alienation as a way to wrest custody from protective mothers in family court. They’ve promoted several cause celebre cases in recent years as a way to garner public sympathy and political support for their agenda. Is their portrayal of these cases accurate?

No–most of these cases are being misrepresented by opponents of recognizing Parental Alienation. Examples include: Genia Shockome (publicized by Newsweek magazine and others); Sadia Loeliger (one of the alleged heroines of a 2005 PBS documentary called Breaking the Silence: Children’s Stories; and Holly Collins (publicized by Fox News, Inside Edition and others.) In each of these three cases, opponents of recognizing Parental Alienation badly misrepresented the cases, turning reality on its head. To learn more about these cases, click here and here.

Despite this, opponents of recognizing Parental Alienation push for reforms which will make it easier to deny parents shared custody or visitation rights based on unsubstantiated abuse claims. They also push for laws to exclude evidence of Parental Alienation in family law proceedings. One example is California AB 612, a bill that a bill that would have prevented target parents of Parental Alienation from raising PA as an issue in their cases. In 2007 and 2009, Fathers & Families’ legislative representative Michael Robinson helped build a professional coalition to scuttle AB 612.

6) Opponents of recognizing Parental Alienation, as well as some mental health professionals, claim that Parental Alienation should not be recognized by DSM as a mental disorder. What’s Fathers & Families’ position on this aspect of the issue?

Many intelligent, accomplished mental health authorities do believe that Parental Alienation Disorder should be considered a mental disorder, but there are also credible experts who do not. DSM has accepted several relational disorders, such as Separation Anxiety Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and PAD is a typical relational disorder. Any target parent of Parental Alienation would certainly believe that his or her child’s sudden, irrational hatred constitutes some sort of a mental disorder. In Parental Alienation Disorder and DSM-V, numerous mental health authorities make the case for including PAD–to learn more, click here.

Dr. Richard A. Warshak explains:

PAS fits a basic pattern of many psychiatric syndromes. Such syndromes denote conditions in which people who are exposed to a designated stimulus develop a certain cluster of symptoms.

Nonetheless, Fathers & Families’ emphasis is not on these technical aspects of the issue, but instead on the harm Parental Alienation does to children. The malignant behavior of alienating a child from his or her mother or father after a divorce or separation is a widespread social problem which merits a much more vigorous judicial and legislative response.

7) How will children caught in Parental Alienation be helped if Parental Alienation is included in DSM V?

Inclusion of Parental Alienation in DSM V will increase PA’s recognition and legitimacy in the eyes of family court judges, mediators, custody evaluators, family law attorneys, and the legal and mental health community in general. Psychiatrist William Bernet says that adding PA “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.” To learn more, click here.

8) What is the child’s part in PAS?

The child denigrates the alienated parent with foul language and severe oppositional behavior. The child offers weak, absurd, or frivolous reasons for his or her anger. The child is sure of him or herself and doesn’t demonstrate ambivalence, i.e. love and hate for the alienated parent, only hate. The child exhorts that he or she alone came up with ideas of denigration. The “independent-thinker” phenomenon is where the child asserts that no one told him to do this. The child supports and feels a need to protect the alienating parent. The child does not demonstrate guilt over cruelty towards the alienated parent. The child uses borrowed scenarios, or vividly describes situations that he or she could not have experienced. Animosity is spread to the friends and/or extended family of the alienated parent.

In severe cases of parent alienation, the child is utterly brain-washed against the alienated parent. The alienator can truthfully say that the child doesn’t want to spend any time with this parent, even though he or she has told him that he has to, it is a court order, etc. The alienator typically responds, “There isn’t anything that I can do about it. I’m not telling him that he can’t see you.” (excerpted from Dr. Jayne A. Major’s Parents Who Have Successfully Fought Parental Alienation Syndrome).

9) Are there varying degrees of Parental Alienation?

Yes. Dr. Douglas Darnall, in his book Divorce Casualties: Protecting Your Children from Parental Alienation, describes three categories of PA.

The mild category he calls the naïve alienators. They are ignorant of what they are doing and are willing to be educated and change.

The moderate category is the active alienators. When they are triggered, they lose control of appropriate boundaries.

In the severe category are the obsessed alienators or those who are involved in PAS. They are committed to destroying the other parent’s relationship with the child. In the latter case, Dr. Darnall notes that we don’t have an effective protocol for treating an obsessed alienator other than removing the child from their influence.

An important point is that in PAS there is no true parental abuse and/or neglect on the part of the alienated parent. If this were the case, the child’s animosity would be justified. (excerpted from Dr. Jayne A. Major’s Parents Who Have Successfully Fought Parental Alienation Syndrome).

The Case for Including Parental Alienation Disorder in DSM V

Parental Alienation Disorder and DSM-V was written by psychiatrist William Bernet, M.D., Wilfrid v. Boch-Galhau, M.D., Joseph Kenan, M.D., Joan Kinlan, M.D., Demosthenes Lorandos, Ph.D., J.D., Richard Sauber, Ph.D., Bela Sood, M.D., and James S. Walker, Ph.D. In it, they make the case for including Parental Alienation Disorder in DSM V.

Their proposal was submitted to the Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence Work Group for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition in August of 2008. Below are some excerpts from their paper.

Bernet & Co. write:

Although parental alienation disorder has been described in the psychiatric literature for at least 60 years, it has never been considered for inclusion in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). When DSM-IV was being developed, nobody formally proposed that parental alienation disorder be included in that edition. Since the publication of DSM-IV in 1994, there have been hundreds of publications (articles, chapters, books, court opinions) regarding parental alienation in peer reviewed mental health journals, legal literature, and the popular press. There has been controversy among mental health and legal professionals regarding parental alienation…

Regarding our proposed diagnostic criteria, we say that the essential feature of parental alienation disorder is that a child – usually one whose parents are engaged in a hostile divorce – allies himself or herself strongly with one parent (the preferred parent) and rejects a relationship with the other parent (the alienated parent) without legitimate justification. The primary behavioral symptom is the child’s resistance or refusal to visit or have parenting time with the alienated parent…

For purposes of this proposal, we are referring to the mental condition under consideration as parental alienation disorder (PAD). Depending on the context, we sometimes refer to parental alienation syndrome (PAS). Our primary criteria for PAD are the attitudes and behavior of the child, that is, the child essentially has a false belief that the alienated parent is a dangerous person and must be avoided. We reserve the word alienation for individuals with this false belief, whether the false belief was brought about by the alienating parent or by other circumstances, such as the child who avoids being caught between warring parents by gravitating to one side and avoiding the other side of the battle…

Bernet & Co. believe that PAD should be included in DSM-V for the following reasons:

Relational disorders are being considered for DSM-V, and PAD is an exemplar of this type of mental disorder.

Despite controversies regarding terminology and etiology, the phenomenon of PAD is almost universally accepted by mental health and legal professionals. Research indicates that PAD is a valid and reliable construct.

Establishing diagnostic criteria will make it possible to study PAD in a more systematic manner.

Establishing diagnostic criteria will reduce the opportunities for abusive parents and unethical attorneys to misuse the concept of PAD in child custody disputes.

Establishing diagnostic criteria will be helpful for: clinicians who work with divorced families; divorced parents, who are trying to do what is best for their children; and children of divorce, who desperately need appropriate treatment that is based on a correct diagnosis.

One of the important points that Bernet & Co. make is that PA is not new. They write:

The phenomenon of PAD has been described in the mental health literature for at least 60 years and the concept is almost universally accepted by psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers who evaluate and treat these children. Also, the concept of parental alienation is generally understood and accepted by legal professionals. The symptoms of PAD were described in the mental health literature long before Richard Gardner coined the term “parental alienation syndrome” (in 1985).

In 1949, Wilhelm Reich wrote in his classic book, Character Analysis, that some divorced parents defend themselves against narcissistic injury by fighting for custody of their child and defaming their former spouse. These parents seek “revenge on the partner through robbing him or her of the pleasure in the child. … In order to alienate the child from the partner, it is told that the partner is an alcoholic or psychotic, without there being any truth to such statements”.

In 1952, Louise Despert referred in her book, Children of Divorce, to the temptation for one parent “to break down” their child’s love for the other parent.

In 1980, Judith Wallerstein and Joan Kelly referred to an alliance between a narcissistically enraged parent and a particularly vulnerable older child or adolescent, who “were faithful and valuable battle allies in efforts to hurt and punish the other parent. Not infrequently, they turned on the parent they had loved and been very close to prior to the marital separation”.

Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee later discussed how court-ordered visitation can “be entangled with Medea-like rage.” They said, “A woman betrayed by her husband is deeply opposed to the fact that her children must visit him every other weekend. … She cannot stop the visit, but she can plant seeds of doubt – ‘Do not trust your father’ – in the children’s minds and thus punish her ex-husband via the children. She does this consciously or unconsciously, casting the seeds of doubt by the way she acts and the questions she asks…”

Bernet & Co. write:

In 1994, the American Psychological Association published “Guidelines for Child Custody Evaluations in Divorce Proceedings”…the authors of the guidelines provided a bibliography of “Pertinent Literature,” which included The Parental Alienation Syndrome and two other books by Richard Gardner.

In 1997, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) published “Practice Parameters for Child Custody Evaluations.” This document, an “AACAP Official Action,” referred explicitly to “Parental Alienation” and said, “There are times during a custody dispute when a child can become extremely hostile toward one of the parents. The child finds nothing positive in his or her relationship with the parent and prefers no contact. The evaluator must assess this apparent alienation and form a hypothesis of its origins and meaning. Sometimes, negative feelings toward one parent are catalyzed and fostered by the other parent; sometimes, they are an outgrowth of serious problems in the relationship with the rejected parent”…

There has been an enormous amount of research on the psychosocial vicissitudes of children of divorced parents, including children with PAS. The most exhaustive single volume regarding PAS is The International Handbook of Parental Alienation Syndrome, published in 2006. More than 30 mental health professionals wrote chapters for this book, including authors from Australia, Canada, Czechoslovakia, England, Germany, Israel, Sweden, and the United States.

PAS was the focus of major national conferences in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, in 2002 and in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain, in 2008. A scholarly article by Warshak cited a list of references that currently numbers 213, most of which were published in peer reviewed journals (http://home.att.net/~rawars/pasarticles.html)…

We conclude that mental health professionals (taken as a group) and the general public recognize parental alienation as a real entity that deserves considerable attention.

How common is Parental Alienation, and how many cases are there nationwide? Bernet & Co. estimate that there are roughly 200,000 children in the U.S. who have PAD, similar to the number of children with autism. They write:

In general, PAD is more likely to occur in highly conflicted, custody-disputing families than in community samples of divorcing families. Even in highly conflicted divorces, only the minority of children experience PAD. The following studies indicate that approximately 25% of children involved in custody disputes develop PAD.

Johnston – in California – found that 7% of the children in one study and 27% of the children in a second study had “strong alignment” with one parent and rejection of the other parent. Kopetski – in Colorado – found that 20% of families involved in custody disputes manifested parental alienation syndrome. Nicholas reported that 33% of families involved with custody disputes manifested parental alienation syndrome, based on a survey of 21 custody evaluators. Berns reported a study of divorce judgments in Brisbane, Australia, and said parental alienation syndrome was present in 29% of cases.

The prevalence of PAD can be roughly estimated as follows. The U.S. Census Bureau says approximately 10% of children under age 18 live with divorced parents. Approximately 10% of divorces involve custody or visitation disputes. Approximately 25% of children involved in custody or visitation disputes develop PAD. Multiplying these percentages yields a prevalence of 0.25%, or about 200,000 children in the U.S. For comparison purposes, this prevalence is the same order of magnitude as the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders.

Bernet & Co. believe that “controversies related to definitions and terminology have delayed and compromised systematic research regarding [PAD]” and that “Establishing diagnostic criteria will make it possible to study parental alienation in a more methodical manner.” They write:

[Despite controversy] There is consensus among almost all mental health professionals who have written about parental alienation regarding the following: (1) PAD is a real entity, that is, there really are children and adolescents who embark on a persistent campaign of denigration against one of the parents and adamantly refuse to see that parent, and the intensity of the campaign and the refusal is far out or proportion to anything the alienated parent has done. (2) There are many causes of visitation refusal, and PAD is only one of them. (3) PAD is not the correct diagnosis when the child’s visitation refusal is caused by child maltreatment or serious problematic behavior of the alienated parent.

Dr. Richard A. Warshak makes the case for accepting PAD/PAS:

PAS fits a basic pattern of many psychiatric syndromes. Such syndromes denote conditions in which people who are exposed to a designated stimulus develop a certain cluster of symptoms. ‘Posttraumatic stress disorder’ (PTSD) refers to a particular cluster of symptoms developed in the aftermath of a traumatic event. … These diagnoses carry no implication that everyone exposed to the same stimulus develops the condition, nor that similar symptoms never develop in the absence of the designated stimulus. … Similarly, some, but not all, children develop PAS when exposed to a parent’s negative influence. Other factors, beyond the stimulus of an alienating parent, can help elucidate the etiology for any particular child.

Bernet & Co. add “We hope that the Work Group will not reject this proposal simply because of this 20- year-old argument about the concept, the terminology, and the criteria for PAD. There is no lack of controversy regarding conditions that are quite prominent in the DSM.”

Bernet & Co. also address the important issue of the misuse of PA/PAD. As we’ve often noted, claims of Parental Alienation can be used by abusive parents as a cover for their abuse, such as in the Joyce Murphy case.

More commonly, one parent may have damaged his or her relationships with his children due to his or her own personality problems, narcissism, substance abuse issues, erratic behavior, etc., but then, rather than assuming responsibility for his or her actions, instead blames the bad relationship on the other parent, under the rubric of Parental Alienation. Fathers & Families sometimes hears from parents, usually mothers, who say that they are being unfairly blamed for the deterioration of their children’s relationships with their former partners, who claim Parental Alienation. We believe that these are legitimate concerns.

However, as we’ve often noted, simply because false claims of Parental Alienation can and are made doesn’t mean that Parental Alienation doesn’t exist or isn’t a problem. Bernet & Co. believe that acceptance of PA/PAD by DSM V will “reduce the opportunities for abusive parents and unethical attorneys to misuse the concept of parental alienation in child custody disputes.” They write:

Having established criteria for the diagnosis of PAD will eliminate the Babel of conflicting terminology and definitions that currently occurs when parental alienation is mentioned in a legal setting. More important is that the entry regarding PAD in DSM-V will include a discussion of the differential diagnosis of visitation refusal. It will be clear that the clinician should consider a number of explanations for a child’s symptom of visitation refusal and not simply rush to the diagnosis of PAD. Also, it will be clear that the diagnosis of PAD should not be made if the child has a legitimate, justifiable reason for disliking and rejecting one parent, for instance, if the child was neglected or abused by that parent.

We believe that when everybody involved in the legal procedures (the parents, the child protection investigators, the mental health professionals, the attorneys, and the judge) has a clear, uniform understanding of the definition of PAD, there will be fewer opportunities for rogue expert witnesses and lawyers to misuse the concept in court. What really matters is whether PAD is a real phenomenon, a real entity. If PAD is a real clinical entity, it should be included in the DSM. If PAD is a real clinical entity, the possibility that the diagnosis will sometimes be misused should not be a primary or serious consideration.

They also note:

[T]he psychiatric diagnosis that is most misused in legal settings is posttraumatic stress disorder. In personal injury lawsuits, the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder in an alleged victim is used to prove that the individual actually sustained a severe trauma. Also, military veterans and workers’ compensation claimants sometimes malinger posttraumatic stress disorder in order to receive disability benefits. However, we are not aware that anybody has ever proposed that posttraumatic stress disorder should be deleted from the DSM because it is sometimes misused.

Recognizing PA/PAD/PAD will help children of divorce or separation. Bernet & Co. write:

Establishing diagnostic criteria will be helpful for: clinicians who work with divorced families; divorced parents, who are trying to do what is best for their children; and children of divorce, who desperately need appropriate treatment that is based on a correct diagnosis. According to Barbara-Jo Fidler, clinical observations, case reviews and qualitative comparative studies uniformly indicate that alienated children may exhibit a variety of symptoms including poor reality testing, illogical cognitive operations, simplistic and rigid information processing, inaccurate or distorted interpersonal perceptions, self-hatred, and other maladaptive attitudes and behaviors. Fidler’s survey of the short-term and long-term effects of pathological alienation on children reviewed more than 40 articles published in peer-reviewed journals between 1991 and 2007…

The authors of this proposal believe that if PAD were an official diagnosis, counselors and therapists from all disciplines will become more familiar with this condition. As a result, children with PAD will be identified earlier in the course of their illness while it is more easily treated and even cured. Also, if PAD were an official diagnosis (with clear criteria for the diagnosis and for severity of the condition), it will be possible to conduct coherent research regarding its treatment.

The Authors’ Proposed Criteria for Parental Alienation Disorder is as follows:

A. The child – usually one whose parents are engaged in a hostile divorce – allies
himself or herself strongly with one parent and rejects a relationship with the other,
alienated parent without legitimate justification. The child resists or refuses visitation or
parenting time with the alienated parent.

B. The child manifests the following behaviors:

(1) a persistent rejection or denigration of a parent that reaches the level of a
campaign
(2) weak, frivolous, and absurd rationalizations for the child’s persistent
criticism of the rejected parent

C. The child manifests two of the following six attitudes and behaviors:

(1) lack of ambivalence
(2) independent-thinker phenomenon
(3) reflexive support of one parent against the other
(4) absence of guilt over exploitation of the rejected parent
(5) presence of borrowed scenarios
(6) spread of the animosity to the extended family of the rejected parent.

D. The duration of the disturbance is at least 2 months.

E. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social,
academic (occupational), or other important areas of functioning.

F. The child’s refusal to have visitation with the rejected parent is without legitimate
justification. That is, parental alienation disorder is not diagnosed if the rejected parent
maltreated the child.

Send Your Letter to the DSM-V Task Force and Tell Them Your Story

To write your letter to the DSM-V Task Force, please fill out the form below. Fathers & Families will print out your letter and send it by regular US mail to the three relevant figures in DSM-V. When you write your letter, please:

1) Keep the focus on your child(ren) and how the Parental Alienation has harmed them.
2) Stick to the facts related to the Parental Alienation.
3) Be succinct.
4) Fill in all fields on our form.
5) Be civil and credible, and avoid any profanity or use of insulting language

Together with you in the love of our children,

Glenn Sacks, MA
Executive Director, Fathers & Families

Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S.
Founder, Chairman of the Board, Fathers & Families

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Include your Parental Alienation story below or check the box below to use our form letter. Use the form letter below as my letter Dear DSM-V Task Force: We are writing to you concerning DSM's consideration of Parental Alienation Disorder for DSM V. Few family law cases are as heartbreaking as those involving Parental Alienation. In PA cases, one parent has turned his or her children against the other parent, destroying the loving bonds the children and the target parent once enjoyed. We believe that Parental Alienation Disorder should be added to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V). Parental Alienation is a common, well-documented phenomenon that is the subject of numerous studies and articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. For example, a longitudinal study published by the American Bar Association in 2003 followed 700 "high conflict" divorce cases over a 12 year period and found that elements of PA were present in the vast majority of the cases studied. Some experts estimate that there are roughly 200,000 children in the U.S. who have PAD, similar to the number of children with autism. Both mothers and fathers can be perpetrators of Parental Alienation, but the true victims are always the children, who lose one of the two people in the world who love them the most. DSM has accepted several relational disorders, such as Separation Anxiety Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and PAD is a typical relational disorder. Any target parent of Parental Alienation would certainly believe that his or her child's sudden, irrational hatred constitutes some sort of a mental disorder. Dr. Richard A. Warshak explains: PAS fits a basic pattern of many psychiatric syndromes. Such syndromes denote conditions in which people who are exposed to a designated stimulus develop a certain cluster of symptoms. Inclusion of Parental Alienation in DSM V will increase PA's recognition and legitimacy in the eyes of family court judges, mediators, custody evaluators, family law attorneys, and the legal and mental health community in general. Children of divorce or separation--who are among society's most vulnerable--will benefit. We urge you to consider inclusion. Together with you in the love of our children, Your Name Occupation Phone number Address Email

‘Deadbeat dads’ is term unfair to caring fathers

By JOSEPH C. VAUGHN Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009

EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The general perception of child support in non-intact families is that, after divorce or other family court actions, fathers usually are expected to maintain their own household and provide payments to custodial mothers in their homes. The problem with this typical court assignment is that it often restricts a woman’s ability to work full time and, just as often, it places a hard budget burden on men who don’t enjoy enough time with their children.

Several decades after the last feminist movement, the majority of mothers do work outside the home today, either part time or full time. Economic inflation, the cost of health care and the subsequent need for day care, however, have outpaced the benefits of two-parent incomes in most families, intact or otherwise.

Feminists often complain that gender bias and wage disparities in the workplace prevent women from becoming self-sufficient and realizing their full potential as contributing members of society. The larger truth is that, if mothers were ordered to equal child placement in most family courts, they would have much more time to achieve those economic goals.

Family breakups are generally just as financially difficult for fathers as for mothers. Women’s advocates often claim that divorced or separated mothers are quickly reduced to poverty, while newly single fathers enjoy large increases in their standards of living. Once again, this is outright nonsense. The average, wage-earning father can ill afford to maintain his separate household with wage deductions of 19 percent or more, as well as a share of medical and educational expenses for his children.

Media reports refer to many fathers as “deadbeat dads.” Most single fathers are either on schedule or at least making their best efforts to pay their court-ordered obligations. Up until the recent, nationwide economic collapse, the huge majority of these noncompliant men were low-income parents who are most likely to be unreliably or irregularly employed.

It’s doubly insulting to call a man a deadbeat dad in the public arena. Those who use such angry, insensitive language don’t know the complete history of his marriage, his divorce, his health status or his employment. Like the N-word for black people or the B-word for women, this term demeans his value as a father who loves and cares about his children. It also implies that he’s a stereotype, no better than all the other dads who won’t, or can’t, support their children, especially in the current recession amid an employment market that’s been steadily outsourcing jobs to places such as China, India and Mexico for several decades.

It’s time to stop scapegoating fathers who, all too often, have lost jobs with competitive wages and benefits to business forces beyond their control. Non-intact families in the future will be much healthier economically when both parents enjoy more equal time with their children and, as a result, both mothers and fathers will have the time to pursue worthwhile, self-supporting employment.

Joseph C. Vaughn of Milton is a former board member and peer counselor for Wisconsin Fathers for Children and Families, www.wisconsinfathers.org. He can be reached by phone at (608) 580-0780; e-mail vaughnjo@yahoo.com.

Separation, Divorce and Parental Alienation Syndrome | Psychology Today

For those who missed this original article, I have reprinted it here. When it first appeared in Pyschology Today Online, the hate-children organization that actively encourages hate-speech against men, Anonymums and the Members of the Pig Pen, (as they are known to children and protective parenting advocates) began spamming the site with their lies about children and divorce, particularly Parental Alienation.

Of course, for children's and family advocates, the tactics of the hate-speech encouraged by Anonymums, is well-known. Most of the followers of these hate-sites are women that lost their children because of false allegations of abuse. Instead of placing these women in jail, most were placed on supervised visitations because of flight risk to the children.


November 23, 2009, Relationships

Splitting up shouldn’t mean splitting the kids.

The term "splitting" refers to a familiar tactic often used by children to manipulate their parents -- if Mommy says, "No.", then go ask Daddy.

For parent couples in the throes of separation or divorce, the adult version of splitting -- largely characterized by one parent vilifying the other in order to manipulate the children into choosing sides and, ultimately, alienating the other parent from them -- can be much more insidious.

The children may, at first, be only pawns -- tools for gaining some sense of leverage or perceived control -- but, in due course, they can become nothing more than weapons of vengeance, unwitting victims of ego and arrogance.

We are not alone in our relationship, nor is our partner. Establishing any relationship is an act of social co-creation in which all parties must be both responsible to, and accountable for, their actions, inactions and the consequences held therein. To that point, a relationship - any relationship -- demands cultivation; it doesn't just happen.

Should a relationship break, it is vital that both parties step back, take a moment to examine their personal role in that break, and hold onto that self-revelation. When the break is something not mutually agreed upon, the "wronged partner" - a term used quite loosely here - in denial and ignorance of their own responsibility, will often attempt to exercise some means for regaining a perceived semblance of control.

When benign, these means can appear as gestures of reconciliation, promises of change, pleas to seek counseling and all manner of self-effacing behavior. In instances more menacing, money is hidden; credit cards cancelled; documents disappear; cell phones are checked; computers scoured and private detectives hired, even when there is nothing to detect. A pattern of latent abuse [1, 2] emerges, escalating from a point somewhat removed from normal, to one that veers dangerously close to pathological.

These efforts to regain control are often fruitless; mostly because they are generally an illusion in the first place. Their abject futility, however, can foster a further, even more ominous, escalation - the co-opting of social connections. Friends, family, co-workers - anyone who will listen to the spinning of fantastical yarns that describe the evils of the other is approached, for good, ill or indifference.

Couched within this drama of social distortion, the saddest moment of all can come when an otherwise reasonable adult utters to a child fateful words that might go something like, "I don't want a divorce. This is all your mother's idea. She's just a selfish bitch." In that moment, in an ego-driven and one way war of wills, the child becomes so much collateral damage.

The mechanism of parental alienation is fueled by a gross failure of emotional intelligence, and further compelled by the anger and resentment of ego. It is roundly destructive to everyone involved; disrupting or destroying familial connections, rending the fabric of the post-marital relationship and effectively compromising any chance at successful co-parenting.

Indeed, the most oppressive aspect of parental alienation is that it creates a false issue -- or set of false issues -- for children whom it is very likely do not have the social or emotional intelligence to discriminate between fact and fancy. The inaccuracies and misinformation proffered by one parent in service of discrediting the other shakes the very foundations of a child's model of the world, leaving them stranded outside the bounds of the very structure and consistency upon which they thrive.

Children caught up in this system of abuse [1, 2] are subject to a campaign of unjustified and unjustifiable denigration focused on one parent and perpetrated by the other. In mild cases, there is some programming fostered on the part of the alienating parent, but, all in all, relationships remain intact.

In moderate cases of parental alienation , the level of programming escalates, introducing two artifacts - firstly, the relationship with the targeted parent is more disrupted, created anxiety for the kids and, second, the children become co-opted into the alienating parent's system of unjustified accusation and begin to believe it, causing a whole separate set of psychosocial issues for them.

In severe cases, the programming has taken hold and the child/children come to develop an irrational and unfounded hatred of the targeted parent, often disrupting the parent/child bond to the point of breaking.

While this all sounds like a horribly Machiavellian system of social pathology - and, at its worst, it is -- some space needs to be held for the unintentional or naïve alienation fostered by simple resentment and frustration. Snarky remarks about financial matters, living arrangements or general behavior not personally directed at the other parent constitute a sort of indirect and somewhat unintentional alienation that a child may or may not take to heart.

A more active, and destructive, form of this is compassed by critical comments that remind a child about past disappointments or situations that had negative outcomes. It might also include more personal attacks on character, or descriptions of alleged (and typically false) activities that would reflect on character.

In severe cases, attempts at alienation are obsessive and irrational. The alienating parent literally subjugates the child, enmeshing them in their own irrational belief system and making it virtually impossible for them to think for themselves. The child is interjected into the social reality of the targeted parent as the mouthpiece of hatred for the alienating parent and, objectified in this way, becomes nothing more - and nothing less - than a weapon of social and emotional destruction.

The take away here is fairly straightforward -- if we can't figure out how to be married, fine, but, with children involved, we need to figure out how to be divorced; and certainly not at the expense of the children's state of mind simply for our own small, petty and vindictive satisfactions.

So, play nice -- and if you see this happening or catch yourself doing it, either speak up, or knock it off. In the end, it serves no one and the only ones who suffer are the kids.

References

Gardner, R.A. (1998). The Parental Alienation Syndrome, Second Edition, Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.

© 2009 Michael J. Formica , All Rights Reserved

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Fathers 4 Justice to protest at cathedral - Children Without Dads at Christmas

Fathers 4 Justice to protest at cathedral

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A Fathers for Justice group will be demonstrating at Canterbury Cathedral as part of their campaign to change family law.

New Fathers for Justice are urging all dads who will not be able to see their children this Christmas to join them at 10am on Saturday, December 12 to support their campaign.

The group will be dressed in Santa costumes to put pressure on the church to help them “put the father back into Christmas”.

A spokesman for the group said: “New Fathers for Justice will yet again attempt to get our message across to the church which, like this arrogant Labour government, had ignored the plight of fathers since they have been in office.

“We are urging the church to support us in our fight to change family law and plug dads back into families in time for Christmas.

“We see this as a great necessity as we are now potentially only six months away from the general election. We hope that the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will help us with the plight of dads in Britain this Christmas.”

The group has urged dads to come along with banners and wearing Father Christmas outfits.

Campaigners from father’s rights groups have made a name for themselves using direct action campaigning methods to fight for better rights for fathers who want to see their children.

High profile demonstrations include a campaigner dressed as Batman staging a five-hour protest on a Buckingham Palace ledge and a father dressed as Spiderman protesting on the London Eye for 18 hours, causing it to close.

http://www.yourcanterbury.co.uk/kent-news/Fathers-4-Justice-to-protest-at-cathedral-newsinkent30341.aspx

Ninth Circuit Gives Big Victory to Non-Custodial Father

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

By Robert Franklin, Esq.

A case decided November 10, 2009 by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals could have an enormous impact on fathers' rights to their children. (Note: The case is not yet published, so I can't provide a link to it.) It holds that even a divorced father with no right of physical custody must be given the opportunity to have custody of his child before a child protective agency can place it in foster care. Failure to do so by a county child protective agency can subject the county to a suit for damages by the father under the federal civil law governing deprivation of constitutional rights.

To put it bluntly, this is a huge win for non-custodial parents.

The opinion in Burke, et al vs. County of Alameda California, et al now governs everyone within the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit which encompasses California, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, Montana and the territories of Guam and the Northern Marianna Islands. Unless overturned by the United States Supreme Court, Burke is binding precedent throughout the Ninth Circuit.

The Ninth is the largest federal circuit and one of the most influential on the others. Of course the opinion in Burke doesn't govern cases in other circuits, but, given that it was a case of first impression (i.e. a similar case had never been decided before by that circuit) there, it may well be looked to by other circuits in deciding similar cases. It may also be looked to by the Supreme Court should a similar case reach that level.

David and Melissa Burke lived together and apparently were married. Melissa's 14-year-old daughter "B.F." lived with them. She was the natural daughter of Melissa and Clifton Farina who had divorced some years before. David was her stepfather and Clifton was a non-custodial dad. Frustratingly enough, the opinion doesn't tell us whether Clifton had an order of visitation, but it seems that he did not because the opinion says that he had no right of physical custody. Nevertheless, he saw his daughter fairly often even though B.F. testified that his new wife didn't like her and being around her was uncomfortable for the girl. Melissa had sole physical custody of B.F.

When B.F. complained to an Alameda County Sheriff's officer that David hit her repeatedly and often fondled her breasts, the officer, without a warrant, removed her from the Burke home and placed her with the county child protective services agency. CPS in turn placed her in some form of protective care.

David, Melissa and Clifton Farina sued Alameda County and the sheriff's deputy under federal statute 42 U.S.C. 1983 which allows civil suits against municipal and state entities which "under color of law" deprive someone of their constitutional rights. The trial court granted the county's motion for summary judgment, holding that neither the Burkes nor Farina had any claim against the county on which they could prevail at trial. The Ninth Circuit agreed that the Burkes had no claim and that the sheriff's deputy was immune from suit.

But the circuit court reversed the trial court as to Clifton Farina. It said that, even though he had no right of physical custody, Alameda County could not lawfully ignore Clifton as a possible custodian of B.F. Failure by the county to "explore the possibility of putting B.F. in his care" violated his constitutional right to a familial relationship and association with his daughter. His case was returned to the trial court so a jury could hear and decide his claim for damages against the county.

On this blog, both Glenn and I have written about the outrageous preference on the part of CPS agencies for foster care over father care. Those agencies routinely bypass fathers altogther and place children in foster care. I reported on an Urban Institute study that showed that, even though CPS agencies know who the father is in some 88% of cases that come before them, attempts to contact him are made in barely over half those cases. Glenn has written about a girl to whom Orange County, California lied repeatedly over many years, solely to keep her from her father and in foster care.

In short, after this case, CPS agencies can no longer do that without getting sued. The Burke opinion is not clear on exactly what a county must do to comply with it. But as I see it, they'll have to make diligent efforts to locate the father and assess whether his care would be superior to that of a foster home. If it would be, he would get custody. In short, when taking a child from its custodial parent due to abuse or neglect, a state within the Ninth Circuit's jurisdiction may no longer simply ignore the non-custodial parent.

Thanks to Ned for the heads-up.

Los Angeles Dads--Free Legal Consultation on Your Case If you are involved in a divorce, domestic violence, paternity, child custody or support case in the greater Los Angeles area, call Certified Family Law Specialist Stephen A. Gershman to schedule your FREE initial one hour consultation at (888) 295-1756. With 25 years experience, he will competently and aggressively defend you. www.losangelesfamilylawyer.com

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 10:09 am and is filed under blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. | 67 views | Trackback | Print this page |

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A Major Announcement from Fathers & Families

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

By Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & Families

In a move that will change the course of the family court reform movement, Fathers & Families has just hired two experienced, accomplished legislative representatives. Soon we will be launching campaigns in support of our family court reform legislation---to get involved, please click here.

California

Readers of www.GlennSacks.com are familiar with Michael Robinson's work in Sacramento on family court reform legislation, and Robinson and I have often worked together. In 2004 and again in 2006, we helped scuttle two bills (SB 730 and SB 1482) that would have led to unrestricted post-divorce move-aways. This was an important victory for California's children of divorce, and one that surprised many Sacramento insiders, including Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters.

Robinson and I also worked together to pass family law legislation to help military parents (SB 1082) and on shared parenting and domestic violence reform bills. In 2007 and again this year, Robinson helped build a professional coalition to scuttle AB 612, a bill that would have banned target parents of Parental Alienation from raising PA as an issue in their cases.

Robinson has also been instrumental in passing legislation on paternity fraud (AB 252 and SB 1333), noncustodial parents’ access to school records (AB 164), Collaborative Law (AB 402, AB 189, AB 3051), and protection for disabled veterans with child support obligations (SB 285). He helped create the COAP program, which allows mothers and fathers who are unfairly saddled with inflated, unpayable child support arrearages to settle them for modest cash payments.

Michael Robinson is now Fathers & Families' full-time legislative representative in Sacramento, and we will be introducing several family court reform bills into the California legislature in February. Starting soon, Fathers & Families activists will be meeting with legislators throughout the state. We want your participation--to get involved, please click here.

Massachusetts

Enzo Pastore, our new deputy director, has worked on health care reform legislation in Washington DC, Albany, NY, and Boston, MA for 15 years. Pastore designed and promoted model prescription drug legislation that was introduced in 27 states in 2001. He led a successful legislative campaign in New York in 2007 to fund special housing for senior citizens and the disabled. In 2005, he helped defeat a federal Bush initiative that would have drastically cut Medicaid funding and services.

In January, we will launch our campaign to pass HB 1400, the Massachusetts Shared Parenting bill, and Pastore will be spearheading our campaign.

Through Fathers & Families’ efforts, over one-quarter of the Massachusetts Legislature has expressed clear, public support for our Shared Parenting Bill, many of them signing on as co-sponsors. We gathered thousands of signatures to place shared parenting on the 2004 Massachusetts ballot and led a successful campaign for its passage, winning 86% of the vote. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick told the Legislature that if they pass Fathers & Families’ Shared Parenting, he will sign it, and F & F recently met with Governor Patrick.

We need volunteers to meet with legislators, do media work, and help build our campaign--to volunteer, please click here.

Federal Legislation, plus Legislation in Texas & Many Other States

Robinson has worked with legislators and staffers in many other states on military parent legislation, and many states have passed bills modeled in part on SB 1082, the military parents bill we passed in California in 2005. These include: Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Ohio, Michigan, Oklahoma, Utah, Mississippi, Alaska, Missouri, and others.

Robinson worked with Texas Senator Jane Nelson to pass SB 279, a bill to protect military parents' custody rights which was signed by Texas Governor Rick Perry earlier this year.

Robinson worked with Mark Sullivan, Committee Chair of the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association's Military Committee, on the National Defense Reauthorization Act (HR 2647), which was signed by President Obama last month. The bill mandates that the Secretary of Defense produce a report on child custody litigation involving members of the Armed Forces, as well as international intrafamilial abductions of servicemembers' children.

The Secretary of Defense will submit its report to the Armed Services Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives by the end of March. Robinson says:

"Fathers & Families can play a major role in the implementation of this legislation. We need to make sure that the impact isn't watered down, that it's powerful, not sugar-coated."

This problem affects both fathers and mothers who serve. If you are a military mother or father whose custody rights have been adversely affected due to your service, we want to make sure your story is included in the Secretary of Defense's report. To submit your story for inclusion, please fill out our form here.

Prominent Biotechnology Executive Mark Benedyk, PhD Joins Our Board of Directors

Dr. Benedyk is the head of The Pfizer Incubator, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pfizer, Inc., the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company. The Pfizer Incubator was initiated by Pfizer to support life science start-ups and to explore novel approaches to discovering new medicines.

Dr. Benedyk has over 15 years experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, where he has been involved in business development, product management, and corporate fundraising. His business strategy and fundraising skills will be invaluable for Fathers & Families, and we welcome him as our newest national board member.

What You Can Do

Experienced legislative experts like Robinson and Pastore cost money, as does the organizational work we do surrounding their efforts--please make a tax-deductible gift to support our important work by clicking here.

One very affordable way to help build Fathers & Families is to make a monthly gift--to do so, click here and enter an amount under "monthly contribution."

The Family Court Reform Movement will not progress unless we engage in the political process on a professional level, as our opponents do.

Fathers & Families has the largest membership base, the highest media profile, the most funding, and now the best legislative advocates of any family court reform organization. The time to take this movement to a higher level is now, and it takes money to do it--please give generously by clicking here.

To volunteer to help, please click here.

Together with you in the love of our children,

Glenn Sacks, MA
Executive Director, Fathers & Families

Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S.
Founder, Chairman of the Board, Fathers & Families

Help for Boston Dads The Law Offices of Nicholas Palermo in every custody and support case, consistently promotes and advances the fundamental, Constitutional, equal right of all involved and fit Fathers, to raise and nurture their children. In case after case, founder Nick Palermo establishes that Fathers are parents, not "visitors", and secures joint, shared custody, and equal parenting rights for both fit parents. In 2008 we celebrate our 22nd year as a downtown Boston trial and full service law firm. LAW OFFICES OF NICHOLAS PALERMO

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 11:59 pm and is filed under blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. | 165 views | Trackback | Print this page |

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Mothers commit vast majority of parental murders of children

I would like to thank Mike Murphy again for pointing these statistics out. Without a doubt legislators in the US are getting this wrong, and it is time that more moms need to be on supervised visitation.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Mothers commit vast majority of parental murders of children

This data is U.S. sourced but there are similarities in English speaking western democracies. Click on the link below for the source data.

Federal Data: Mothers commit vast majority of parental murders of children

These data are not blips. The trend is clear over many years that the mother (female) is responsible for the greatest amount of child abuse and child murder in family relationships. How then can it be there is no tax supported DV or emergency shelters for men in Canada; how can it be there are few, if any, (I haven't found any yet) tax supported counseling services for men in marital breakdown in Canada; how can it be woman's groups can tap into such large amounts of tax support to send out propaganda about how vulnerable they are; how can these DV groups spout the invective they do against men when their own clients are the worst perpetrators of abuse to children.

How many women are actually in these shelters because of DV; how many are in them for addictions; how many are planning a false ex parte order to nail hubby while he sleeps; how many are in there because they are hiding from legal pursuits of them; how many are "passing through" while traveling. I think an accounting and operational audit of these facilities should be part and parcel of their ability to obtain tax funds. There is no doubt some women are there because they have no recourse and are subject to abuse but it casts a pall over them if many are there for other reasons. They are emergency shelters - so called - for Domestic Violence - at least in terms of the marketing of them to get tax funding.

Is there something wrong with our values? Is there something wrong with government largess and what is wrong with us men for laying down and taking this misinformation from groups like the Tennessee DV coalition as described here amongst many others.

Figure 3-3 Victimization Rates by Age and Sex, 2007 Child Maltreatment 2007

Victimization Rates by Age and Sex, 2007

This bar graph breaks the victim population into age groups as follows: Less than 1, 1, 2, 3, 4–7, 8–11, 12–15, and 16–17 and either boy or girl sex. According to this graph, the youngest age group is the most victimized, with a rate of 22.2 boys and 21.5 girls per 1,000 children of the same age and sex group. The oldest children were victimized the least frequently.



Victims by Perpetrator Relationship, 2007This pie chart presents victims by relationship to their perpetrators. More than 80 percent (80.1%) of victims were maltreated by at least one parent. Nearly 40 percent (38.7%) of victims were maltreated by their mother acting on her own.Note the rate by mom and other is 44.4% while dad and other is 18.8%. The rate by the mother is 2.36 times higher than dad. That is 236% greater. Now how to explain that away to those who believe only men are abusive.MJM








Table 4-5 Perpetrator Relationships to Child Fatalities, 2007 Child Maltreatment 2007

Relationship to Child	Child Fatalities
	Number	Percent
PARENT	Blank Cell
Mother	347	27.1
Mother and Other	96	7.5
Father	208	16.3
Father and Other	11	0.9
Mother and Father	232	18.1
NONPARENT	Blank Cell
Daycare Staff	24	1.9
Foster Parent (Female Relative)	0	0.0
Foster Parent (Male Relative)	0	0.0
Foster Parent (Nonrelative)	3	0.2
Foster Parent (Unknown Relationship)	3	0.2
Friend or Neighbor	2	0.2
Legal Guardian (Female)	0	0.0
Legal Guardian (Male)	0	0.0
More than One Nonparental Perpetrator	52	4.1
Other Professional	2	0.2
Partner of Parent (Female)	4	0.3
Partner of Parent (Male)	35	2.7
Relative (Female)	29	2.3
Relative (Male)	20	1.6
Staff Group Home	2	0.2
Unknown or Missing	210	16.4
Total	1,280	Blank Cell
Percent	Blank Cell	100.0

Perpetrator Relationships to Child Fatalities, 2007


This table first lists perpetrator relationships including mother, mother and father, father, mother and other, father and other, female daycare staff, more than one nonparental perpetrator, unknown, etc. In the next column is listed the number of child fatalities from the specified perpetrator. The third column lists the percentage. More than 27 percent (27.1%) of child fatalities were perpetrated by a mother acting alone.

Moms and another are more than twice as likely to kill a child as a dad and another.MJM

Figure 4-2 Fatality Rates by Age and Sex, 2007
Child Maltreatment 2007

Fatality Rates by Age and Sex, 2007

This bar graph shows two groupings of victims, one for boys and one for girls. Each grouping displays the fatality rates for each sex by age group. The graph indicates that the youngest children have the highest fatality rates for both sexes.


Note boys have the higher death rates.MJM






Some data on child abuse from Child Maltreatment 2006, a report by the Federal Administration for Children & Families...

Figure 4-2 Perpetrator Relationships of Child Fatalities, 2006

Child Maltreatment 2006

Perpetrator Relationships of Child Fatalities, 2006

This pie chart indicates that 27.4 percent of child fatalities were perpetrated by the mother acting alone. Such non-parental perpetrators as daycare providers, foster parents, or residential facility staff were responsible for 14.6 percent of fatalities.

Leaving aside killings by non-parents or by mothers and fathers acting together, mothers committed a significantly greater number of the parental murders of children.

Figure 3-5 Victims by Perpetrator Relationship, 2006

Victims by Perpetrator Relationship, 2006

This pie chart shows that 39.9 percent of child victims were maltreated by their mothers acting alone; another 17.6 percent were maltreated by their fathers acting alone; 17.8 percent were abused by both their mother and father. Victims abused by a nonparental perpetrator accounted for 10.0 percent.

Table 4-5 Perpetrator Relationships to Child Fatalities, 2006
Child Maltreatment 2006

Relationship to Child	Child Fatalities
	Number	Percent
Mother	288	27.4
Mother and Other	121	11.5
Father	138	13.1
Father and Other	16	1.5
Mother and Father	235	22.4
Female Relative	31	3.0
Male Relative	17	1.6
Female Foster Parent (Relative)	0	0.0
Male Foster Parent (Relative)	0	0.0
Female Partner of Parent	0	0.0
Male Partner of Parent	30	2.9
Female Legal Guardian	1	0.1
Male Legal Guardian	0	0.0
Foster Parent (Nonrelative)	5	0.5
Foster Parent Unknown Relationship	4	0.4
Staff Group Home	4	0.4
Daycare Staff	32	3.0
Other Professional	0	0.0
Friend or Neighbor	2	0.2
More than One Nonparental Perpetrator	26	2.5
Unknown or Missing	100	9.5
Total	1,050	Blank Cell
Blank Cell	Blank Cell	100.0

Based on data from 36 States.

Perpetrator Relationships to Child Fatalities, 2006

This table first lists perpetrator relationships including mother, mother and father, father, mother and other, father and other, female daycare staff, more than one nonparental perpetrator, unknown, etc. In the next column is listed the number of child fatalities from the specified perpetrator. The third column lists the percentage. More than 27 percent (27.4%) of child fatalities were perpetrated by a mother acting alone.



The following are data from 2005.

Figure 4-2 Perpetrator Relationships of Child Fatalities, 2005
Child Maltreatment 2005

Note the mother (female) again is responsible for the vast majority of deaths of children.

Table 4-5 Perpetrator Relationships of Fatalities, 2005
Child Maltreatment 2005

Blank Cell	Child Fatalities
Perpetrator	Number	Percent
Mother	287	28.5
Mother and Other	104	10.3
Father	159	15.8
Father and Other	16	1.6
Mother and Father	205	20.4
Famale Relative	24	2.4
Male Relative	7	0.7
Female Foster Parent (Relative)	0	0.0
Male Foster Parent (Relative)	0	0.0
Female Partner of Parent	6	0.6
Male Partner of Parent	33	3.3
Female Legal Guardian	1	0.1
Male Legal Guardian	0	0.0
Female Foster Parent (Nonrelative)	5	0.5
Male Foster Parent (Nonrelative)	1	0.1
Female Foster Parent Unknown Relationship	1	0.1
Male Foster Parent Unknown Relationship	0	0.0
Female Staff Group Home	0	0.0
Male Staff Group Home	0	0.0
Female Daycare Staff	20	2.0
Male Daycare Staff	2	0.2
Female Other Professional	0	0.0
Male Other Professional	1	0.1
Female Friend or Neighbor	2	0.2
Male Friend or Neighbor	4	0.4
More than One Nonparental Perpetrator	23	2.3
Unknown or Missing	105	10.4
Total	1,006	blank cell
Percent	blank cell	100.0

Based on data from 34 States.

Perpetrator Relationships of Child Fatalities, 2005

This table first lists perpetrator relationships including mother only, mother and father, father only, mother and other, father and other, female daycare staff, more than one nonparental perpetrator, unknown, etc. In the next column is listed the number of child fatalities from the specified perpetrator. The third column lists the percentage. 28.5 percent of child fatalities were perpetrated by a mother acting alone.







"According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' new report Child Maltreatment 2004, when one parent is acting without the involvement of the other parent, mothers are almost three times as likely to kill their children as fathers are, and are more than twice as likely to abuse them."
Source: Child Maltreatment 2004, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. According to Figure 4-2 “Perpetrator Relationships of Fatalities, 2004 Child Maltreatment 2004” here, child fatalities perpetrated by mothers or by “mother and other [not father]” comprise 40.6% of all child fatalities. Figure 4-2 also shows that fatalities perpetrated by fathers or by “father and other [not mother]” comprise 15.6% of all child fatalities. According to Figure 3-6 “Victims by Perpetrator Relationship, 2004 Child Maltreatment 2004,” here child abuse perpetrated by mothers or by “mother and other [not father]” comprise 45.6% of all child abuse. Figure 3-6 also shows that abuse perpetrated by fathers or by “father and other [not mother]” comprise 19.5% of all child abuse.

//

Parental Alienation (Canada): Mothers commit vast majority of parental murders of children.