Parental Alienation and Parental Alienation Syndrome

Parental Alienation and Parental Alienation Syndrome

Definition: Parental Alienation is a term which is used to describe the process of one divorced parent inappropriately influencing a child into thinking that the other parent is bad, evil or worthless.

Definition: Parental Alienation Syndrome is the resulting condition that a child who has been subjected to Parental Alienation can have, in which, under the influence of an adult whom they trust, inappropriately believe that one of their parents is worthless, bad or evil.

Definition: Hostile Aggressive Parenting (HAP), also known as Parental Alienation, is a term which is used to describe the process of one divorced parent inappropriately influencing a child into thinking that the other parent is bad, evil or worthless.

Description

In general, alienation means interfering with or cutting off a person from relationships with others. This can occur in a number of ways, including criticism, manipulation, threats, distorted reporting or control. Click Here for More Information on Alienation in General.

The most widely reported form of alienation is parental alienation - where a parent tries to sabotage the relationship their child has with the other parent. This is quite common when divorcing someone who has a personality disorder.

Examples:

Parental Alienation can take many forms including:

• Verbal criticism of the other parent - derogatory comments, telling stories about the other parent, portraying their bad side, picking up on their faults, highlighting their mistakes, drawing unfavorable comparisons between them and others.
• Withholding or discouraging contact with the other parent - not allowing visits or keeping visits inappropriately short. Moving to another geographic location to limit contact, forgetting or impeding visitation rights, forcing the other parent to jump through hoops or meet inappropriate criteria or conditions in order to see the children.
• Denying phone contact or sabotaging phone contact by not picking up the phone, turning the phone off, being out when the phone call comes. etc.
• Intimidating the child - making the child feel bad for loving the other parent, criticizing or mocking the child's interest in the other parent or discouraging the child from spending time with the other parent. Forcing the child to meet stringent criteria or perform extra chores or pass certain tests in order to be "rewarded" with contact with the other parent. Punishing the child by removal of affection or privileges after spending time with the other parent.

What it feels like:

Parental alienation is a form of emotional child abuse. Children instinctively love both parents and feel immense stress when asked by one parent to choose between them and the other parent. When a child is told that one of their parents is bad they identify with that parent and they feel as though they themselves are bad. They feel shame for who they are and they feel shame for secretly loving the other parent.

It is absolutely critical to a child's sense of security and self esteem that they be allowed to love both of their biological parents. That doesn't mean you have to condone bad behavior. It does mean though that you have to allow the child to love who they love and to feel what they feel without shame or punishment or control or manipulation.

It is very common for divorcing parents to feel anger at the other parent and to express that anger in front of the children. However, it is highly inappropriate for parents to put children in that position. If you need validation for the way you feel towards your ex-spouse you should talk to a friend or a therapist about it - not to the children.

It's also common for people with personality disorders to launch their distortion campaigns about the other parent in front of the children. This is highly destructive.

What NOT to Do:

• Don't verbally berate your child's other parent in front of them - no matter what they have done. When a child hears that his parent is bad he hears you say that he is bad.
• Don't try to discourage your child's love for their parent. Separate your feelings from your child's feelings and understand that they will make up their own mind about what they think.
• Don't limit your child's contact with the other parent - except when they are in danger of abuse.
• Don't lie to your children. Be honest with them if they ask a question - but don't take it as a license to say more than you really need to. If, for example, your child asks you "did mommy do something wrong?" you can say "I think mommy made a mistake" and leave it at that.
• Don't discuss grown up issues with children.
• Don't interrogate your child about what the other parent says or does. If they want to tell you something let them, but leave it at that.
• Don't try to compensate for a parent who is trying to alienate you with gifts or strange behavior. Just be you. Your child is able to separate fact from fiction in cartoons. They can do it in real life too.

What TO Do:

• Put the best interests of your child ahead of any personal feelings you may have.
• Affirm your child. Tell them you love them. Praise their accomplishments, encourage them to be all they can be.
• Be consistent and reliable. Keep your promises.
• Document clearly incidents where you feel the other parent is trying to alienate your children from you.
• Consult with a COMPETENT attorney about your options. In general, courts do not look favorably on parents who try to alienate their children from the other parent. However, your complaints should be specific and unemotional - with the best interests of the child at heart.
• Confront the other parent unemotionally and clearly - in writing is best - if you feel that they are making a mistake. Keep a record of what you have written.
• Report any acts of violence, threats of violence or self harm immediately to the authorities.

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For More Information & Support

If you suspect you may be related to - or in a relationship with - someone who suffers from a personality disorder, we encourage you to learn all you can about personality disorders and get support to help you to cope. Explore our site to learn about more Common Traits & Behaviors of Personality Disorders or discover real life stories and discuss your own situation in our Support Forum.

THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND "PARENTAL ALIENATION"

There are some who use the term parental alienation instead of parental alienation syndrome. Generally, these are individuals who know of the existence of the parental alienation syndrome but want to avoid using it because it may be considered in some circles to be "politically incorrect." But they are basically describing the same clinical entity. There are others who will use the term parental alienation syndrome but strictly avoid mentioning my name in association with it, lest they be somehow tainted. Unfortunately, the substitution of the term parental alienation for parental alienation syndrome can only result in confusion. Parental alienation is a more general term, whereas the parental alienation syndrome is a very specific subtype of parental alienation. Parental alienation has many causes, e.g., parental neglect, abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual), abandonment, and other alienating parental behaviors. All of these behaviors on the part of a parent can produce alienation in the children. The parental alienation syndrome is a specific subcategory of parental alienation that results from a combination of parental programming and the child's own contributions, and it is almost exclusively seen in the context of child-custody disputes. It is this particular combination that warrants the designation parental alienation syndrome. Changing the name of an entity because of political and other unreasonable considerations generally does more harm than good.

Richard A. Gardner, M.D.

THE PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME AND "PARENTAL ALIENATION" by Richard A. Gardner.

After divorce fathers excluded from families

After divorce, fathers too often excluded from parenting
By Jason Aulicino

Appeared in print: Wednesday, Dec 30, 2009

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According to the Strengthening Families Act of 2003,

“Nearly 24 million children in the United States, or 34 percent of all such children, live apart from their biological father.

Forty percent of children who live in households without a father have not seen their father in at least one year.

And 50 percent of such children have never visited their father’s home.”

The Census Bureau, in 2006, found that five of every six custodial parents are mothers (83.8 percent). One in six are fathers (16.2 percent), and 37.9 percent of fathers have no access or visitation rights.

Simplified, the result of divorce for the majority of children is a fatherless home.

If you are divorced and are the noncustodial parent, then you probably have experienced first-hand the inequity that exists in divorce and child custody cases. Restrictive visitation rules — or parenting plans, as they are now called — often accompany sole custody awards regardless of circumstance. Many status quo parenting plans are not based on a presumption of shared parenting, nor do they promote a father’s presence in a child’s life after divorce.

A meta-analysis of 33 studies found that “Children living in joint physical custody arrangements had better emotional, behavioral and general adjustment on multiple objective measures, and better academic achievement, when compared to children living in the sole physical custody of mothers.”

Additionally, for parents, and more commonly fathers, who are noncustodial parents and want to have a close, loving, supportive and active role in their children’s lives, a mother’s sole custodial award results in a near impossible visitation schedule and a set of circumstances keeping them from being anything other than a mere “visitor” to their children.

In a majority of cases, sole custody can hardly be justified as promoting the “best interest of the child.”

The conditions for noncustodial parents are deplorable, marginalizing, and often create circumstances that push them out of their children’s lives, creating a preponderance of fatherless homes. In addition, economic hardships, an inability to see the children regularly due to restrictive parenting plans, and the sole custodian’s intentional interference create an unequal balance in the children’s lives. Statistics clearly show the result is the noncustodial parent’s difficulty in maintaining a close relationship with the child.

A national study found that 77 percent of noncustodial fathers are not able to visit their children, as ordered by the court, due to “visitation interference” perpetuated by the custodial parent.

Two other peer-reviewed studies indicate that 40 percent of mothers reported that they had interfered with the noncustodial father’s visitation on at least one occasion to punish the ex-spouse. And approximately 50 percent of mothers see no value in the father’s continued contact with his children.

Because it is true that sole custody is overwhelmingly awarded to the mother, a father must often take a plea-bargain approach to gain substantial parenting time and avoid a restrictive status quo visitation plan. Often fathers must willingly forfeit custody through an out-of-court settlement, even when they believe it is not in the best interest of their children, in order to avoid a worse ruling by the court. This is happening to loving, able and willing fathers who would otherwise be spending time with their children.

If the United States wants fathers to be more involved in their children’s lives, then 24 million children’s living circumstances cannot be ignored.

In addition to promoting a father’s involvement, legal policy must be altered to encourage shared parenting. Only when the laws protect a father’s relationship with his children will society begin to accept that fathers are equally capable of raising a child. Then, and only then, a father will have no need to “win” sole custody of his children to protect his relationship with them.

If a sole custody presumption promotes a father’s presence, then it fails, and it fails big time. We absolutely do not want to promote an impression that a father’s financial obligations through child support are more important for the child’s welfare than the actual contact a child has with that parent.

It is undeniably in the child’s best interest to have both parents raise, provide for, and have the ability to make decisions regarding the upbringing of a child, if they are considered fit to do so.

Perhaps now it is time for a shared-parenting standard to become law rather than just a social movement. Today, millions of children in the United States depend on it.

Jason Aulicino of Eugene (DivorcedChildrensRights@gmail.com), a father and an advocate for divorced children’s rights, is a graduate student in Conflict and Dispute Resolution at the University of Oregon School of Law.

Posted by Peter G. HIll at 5:32 AM

Thanks to Peter Hill for posting this here:
Communicationhelper: After divorce fathers excluded from families.

Brazil court supports US dad in son's custody case

Brazil court supports US dad in son's custody case

By BRADLEY BROOKS (AP) – 1 day ago

RIO DE JANEIRO — A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that a 9-year-old boy living in Brazil should be returned to his American father, but the case will likely be appealed again, officials said. U.S Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praised the decision.

A panel of three Brazilian judges ruled the boy must be handed over to his father, David Goldman, at the U.S. Consulate in Rio de Janeiro within 48 hours, said Ricardo Zamariola, Goldman's attorney.

"He's really happy but he is worried about any eventual future decision that could block the boy being handed over to him," said Zamariola, who added that he didn't expect a final resolution until at least the first half of next year.

Clinton thanked Brazil's government for assistance and said she was encouraged by the court's decision "that Sean Goldman, a young American boy wrongfully retained in Brazil for more than five years, should be reunited with his father David in New Jersey."

In a statement, she also said: "It is my hope that this long legal process is now complete and that the Goldman family will be reunited quickly. They will be in my thoughts and prayers today and throughout this holiday season."

Goldman's lengthy court battle to get custody of his son, Sean, has gained international attention as President Barack Obama, the U.S. Congress and Clinton have all weighed in, seeking the child's return.

The decision by the federal appeals court in Rio de Janeiro upheld a Brazilian federal judge's earlier ruling.

But Zamariola said he was certain lawyers for Joao Paulo Lins e Silva, the Brazilian stepfather with whom Sean is living, would appeal, perhaps to the Supreme Court.

Lins e Silva's attorney, Sergio Tostes, declined to comment.

Goldman was not present for the ruling Wednesday and didn't return a request for comment made to his U.S.-based attorney, Patricia Apy. Zamariola said he spoke with Goldman and that he was expected to arrive in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday morning.

The case began in 2004, when Goldman's wife, Bruna Bianchi, took then-4-year-old Sean to her native Brazil. Goldman says it was to be a two-week vacation.

But she stayed and so did the boy. She eventually was divorced there and remarried. Last year, she died giving birth to a daughter.

Goldman, who lives in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, had already been seeking his son's return under an international treaty that covers cross-border child abductions.

Bianchi's death generated more interest in the case, which has been discussed this year by top-level diplomats in Washington and the Brazilian capital, Brasilia. It also has been the subject of congressional hearings in the U.S. and has prompted protests in both countries.

Previous rulings favorable to Goldman have been scuttled by other Brazilian courts.

But U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, who has traveled to Brazil with Goldman and held congressional hearings on the issue, said he was optimistic Sean would soon be in the U.S.

"It's outstanding news," the New Jersey congressman said of Wednesday's ruling. "Even if there is an appeal, the order is to deliver Sean to the Embassy Friday."

Meanwhile, Sean's Brazilian maternal grandmother has said that Sean wants to stay in Rio. She has filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking that the boy's statements be taken into consideration. A similar request from the Brazilian family was denied earlier this year. The child, who has dual citizenship, has been shielded from speaking directly to the news media.

Both Goldman, a former model who now has a fishing charter business, and members of Bianchi's family, including her second husband, have appeared on television talk shows to make their case.

Goldman and his son reunited in February for the first time since the child was taken to Brazil. They have not seen each other since June.

Associated Press Writers Alan Clendenning in Sao Paulo and Geoff Mulvihill in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The Associated Press: Brazil court supports US dad in son's custody case.

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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Separation, Divorce and Parental Alienation Syndrome | Psychology Today.