Parental Alienation is a consistent set of behaviors that seek to drive a wedge between a parent and a child. Methods of parental alienation can be very subtle, such as making a child feel guilty for spending time with their other parent, or more deliberate, like purposely throwing away letters and gifts of the other parent.
Parental Alienation is a form of child abuse, not to be taken lightly. Why is it so serious? For one, a child deserves to have a full and loving relationship with both parents. As long as neither parent exhibits behaviors that could be detrimental to the child (such as a substantiated history of abuse or neglect, drug or alcohol abuse, criminal behavior, and anything else potentially damaging to the child), then the child should not be kept apart from either mom or dad.
As an adult who grew up alienated from her father, I can personally attest to the fact that when a parent is not in a child’s life, he or she can feel as though they are not lovable or good enough. For my entire childhood, I was led to believe that my father was not interested in a relationship. My mother routinely told me what a terrible person he was and prevented our relationship by refusing his calls, not answering the door when he came for me, and throwing away cards and gifts. I still have issues with not feeling valued, and I fear those I love will leave me.
Keep in mind when a child hears bad things said about either parent, it hits on a deep level because a child is composed of both mother and father. When a parent is attacked to a child with insults, criticism, and portrayed in a negative light, this sends a message to the child that he or she is also a bad person.
These are some of the common ways Parental Alienation are exercised:
- Bad-mouthing of a parent in front of a child
- Using guilt to make a child feel bad about loving or wanting to see the other parent
- Making a child feel as though he needs to take sides, spy, or defend one parent over the other
- Refusing attempts at contact (and then often telling the child that parent doesn’t care or want to see them)
- Acting to turn the child against the other parent
Many divorced parents could find themselves guilty of elements of parental alienation. Most of us have been angry at a former spouse and, if not careful, it would be easy to begin a verbal rant about all of the things about them that irritate us or reminisce about all of the things they do or have done that you don’t like. STOP before you speak, because you will just hurt your child making these statements. In the short term, you may succeed in persuading your child to take your side, but these methods often have a way of backfiring!
Think before you vent, and remember who is watching and listening to your behavior. If you are upset about something your ex has done, remember that your beef is with them, and should not involve your children!
Below are ways you can combat parental alienation
1. Take every opportunity when you are able to see or talk to your children to remind them of how much you love them and want to be with them.
2. Document every refused attempt that you make to contact your kids. Save any returned mail and keep a log of every visit or phone call made. The more proof of intent that you can attach to every one of your efforts (e.g. certified mail, e-mail, or other methods with “evidence” included), the better.
3. Release your children of the pressure to choose. When I saw my son struggling under his dad’s influence, I continually reminded him that he was free to love who he loved and like who he liked, so I would be happy for him when he was happy, allow him to share without judgment, and vocalize to him that I supported his right to love and be loved by his dad. This helped him immensely!
4. Don’t be afraid to involve the courts or law enforcement, if needed. Police don’t typically get involved in family issues, but if you feel that you need a witness to parenting exchanges or the courts to enforce your parenting plan, back up any claims with your documentation.
5. Two wrongs don’t make a right, so as much of a right as you have to be angry for being alienated, take the high road and demonstrate peace and civility before your kids. Let the other parent own the role of angry, bitter, and vindictive!
6. Prove the other parent’s allegations wrong. If your ex is portraying you as a deadbeat, hot head, or you name it, show your child all of your good qualities and make a liar out of your ex. Kids are smart. They will eventually put the pieces together and realize that their alienating parent treats others in this way or has issues of their own.
7. Don’t fan the flames by becoming part of the alienator’s anger campaign. If you remain calm and well-behaved, you don’t add any more fuel to the fire. Some people will act childish and crave fights no matter what. There’s not much anyone can do to prevent the extreme tactics of a narcissist or others who are mentally unbalanced. Just do your best to ensure your children have one stable parent.
8. Never give up! Sadly, some alienating parents succeed in keeping their children away from the other parent for years – even a childhood. This is extremely cruel to both the children and other parent; but, it does happen. I was 42 before I reunited with my father. It took me that long to see through all of the lies I was told and to find my dad. Other alienated children also see the light and seek reunification with their parents, so be ready to welcome them back!
I’m glad you reunited with your dad. My girls haven’t talked to me for years. I tried everything but the mother child relationship seems to be all that the courts really care about. I finally stopped trying when my oldest started cutting herself…they deserve the right to enjoy and get to be children. My ex and her partner we’re very clear with me that things would continue as long as I insisted on visitation. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Audrey, this piece brought me a glimmer of hope and a tear to my eye – thank you.
My 30-year old mentally handicapped daughter has rejected me since the divorce in 2002. She is co-dependent and fully enmeshed with her mother. Given her compromised mental capacity, she was easily manipulated to hate her father. Words can’t describe the pain. Who would do this to a child? At her brother’s wedding last weekend, an otherwise wonderful occasion, she gave me dagger eyes and avoided me as usual.
Years ago a judge and my attorney concluded that mine was the most unfortunate example of parental alienation that they had seen. When I look at the definition of parental alienation and parental alienation syndrome, I break down. It’s as though it was written just for my situation. Long story short, I lacked the funds to fight the legal battle against my wealthy former father-in-law, while my ex poisoned my children. As a result, my children grew up in a world where anything for Dad was against Mom – and don’t cross Mom.
Today, you can see the damage done and the scars run deep for both children. My son became a stand-up comedian, finding humor to deal with issues that I’m not sure he understands. However, the ex remains in control of my daughter and enables her to treat Dad like dirt. She’s also convinced that she’s come up with her rationale for this hatred all by herself.
So, to anyone reading this and going though the same pain, DON’T GIVE UP. I never will. A parent’s love should be unconditional.
God bless.
Great Information sharing .. I am very happy to read this article .. thanks for giving us go through info.Fantastic nice. I appreciate this post.
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Great Information sharing .. I am very happy to read this article .. thanks for giving us go through info.Fantastic nice. I appreciate this post.
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Thank you so much for sharing your life with all of us. I am so glad someone is speaking up about something that is happening way too often. It happened to us. I met my husband just after his divorce 9 years ago. His daughter was 9 at the time. I moved in with him after 6 months of dating and we married 5 years ago. My step daughters mom hated me from day 1 & we’d never met. She even emailed him when we moved in together, telling him she didn’t want him sleeping with every whore in front of their daughter. I’m a nurse & at that time was a special needs pediatric nurse. He emailed back telling her that to alleviate her fears. His ex would text him repeatedly over the next 2 years, email, and even sent him a pic of herself in a toga. Once the texts hit over 64 in a 2 week period, & that pic was sent, I’d had enough and asked him to have a talk with her about limiting the texts, emails, etc to issues involving their daughter. She’d been texting about horses, chicken bar-b-q’s and everything you’d see a married couple text about. It was obvious she hadn’t gotten over him. He let her know to only communicate when it was regarding their daughter, and she was really angry. Her next text to him was “Thanks Linda”. He showed me, but neither of us responded to her text. I think she started taking it out on him through their daughter. Things for the 3 of us had been great until we got married. That’s when his daughter became very distant from both of us (she was 13 now). My husband put it off as just a ‘teen phase’. We bought her a cell phone for her birthday & put her on our family plan, which she was so happy about. We felt it was a good way for her to keep contact with both her parents at any time. She had continued to be very distant, even through all our efforts to keep a connection with her. One day we each rec’d a text from our phone company saying we had exceeded our data plan limit…it had only been 10 days into the cycle, so my husband checked the phone records, thinking there had to be an error. Instead he found that his daughter had texted over 17000 times in a 10 day period, and used up all our large amt of data single-handedly in that 10 days. More importantly, he also noticed she had been up almost all night every night texting (including school nights). This explained a lot. She spent Friday nights until Saturdays at noon with us and we’d always gotten up early and had quality time together, but lately we couldn’t get her to get up. My husband just thought it was due to a ‘phase’, but now he knew why. He had a talk with her about cutting back and informed her mother. Her mother initially said that since she was on his plan, it was “his call”. She didn’t cut back in the 2 wks he gave her, so he implemented something called ‘smart limits’ through the phone company where her texting to all #’s except her father and mothers would be cut off at 11pm and allowed again at 7am. Mom and dad would remain unlimited as before. He checked the phone records again after a couple weeks and found that she had completely stopped using her phone. He knew that wasn’t right. Later that week when she came back for her time with us, he asked her about it. That’s when she told him that 3 weeks prior, her mom had put her on her plan and gotten her a new cell phone. Her father was upset, but didn’t address it with his daughter because he didn’t want her in the middle of it, but he did say since he couldn’t check to see if she’d stay off the phone at night, he’d be taking her phone at 11pm and returning it at 7am Sat morning. She didn’t say anything & seemed fine with it. She stayed in her room on her phone and her computer for a bit, then we took her out to eat and to the movies. She appeared to enjoy herself and never showed any signs of problems. We got home about 10:30 and were all preparing for bed…or at least we thought she was too. Our bedroom is downstairs, hers upstairs. At 10:55 hubby got a text from his daughter saying she was sick and that she had called her mom to come get her. She texted it just 5 mins before he was to take the phone for the first time for the night. When hubby got upstairs, he was calling his ex to tell her she didn’t have to come and that we could handle it, but she & her bf were already parked in front of our home. We realized this had to have been pre-planned. There’s no way his ex could have gotten to our home that quickly from where she lived. He explained to his ex that their daughter was not sick and that there was no need for her to get her. His ex demanded he send their daughter out, or “she was coming in to get her”. To avoid further conflict, he let his daughter go with her mom, even though the joint custody agreement was for her to be with him until noon the next day. Right after she took their daughter, the texts started coming in to MY phone from both my hubby’s ex and her bf. They called me a “fake stepmom” and said I was “selfish”, etc, etc. They even bashed my grown son which had absolutely nothing to do with anything. They were cutting down his job, etc. That’s when we realized that apparently they’d been pumping my SD for information when she’d come back from our home. There’s no other way they could have known anything about my son who lives in a different city. I asked both of them, could we just please try to get along for SD’s sake? No further response from them. He didn’t see his daughter for 3 months, but there were numerous emails back and forth between he and his ex regarding the situation. His ex accused him of trying to ‘tap’ their daughters phone, and trying to spy on her, etc, etc. My husband had never even looked at his daughters texts, etc, even though he’d had a right to all along. He let his ex know this and that the conflict wasn’t regarding whom she was texting, but the hours she was texting & that she wasn’t getting any sleep. He knew the texts were mostly going to trusted friends and family. His ex continued to blame me even though he told her it was between he and his daughter and had nothing to do with me. That didn’t help. Apparently, the ex must have been very worried about him seeing the texts between his daughter and her mother, thus the ‘spying and tapping’ accusations. She even told my husband in an email, “I’m sure Linda saw that ___ and & I text together a lot and that has to burn her ass.” I have no idea why she would say something like that. I would have been concerned if they didn’t text a lot. I didn’t even see the phone records and didn’t care to…not my business. He finally got to start seeing his daughter again once he threatened his ex with contempt of the court ordered visits. When his daughter came back, she no longer spent any nights. She was only there after school for 3 hours at a time, 3 days a week & she wouldn’t talk to either of us. She would only answer yes or no questions. My husband or I would ask how her day was and she’d just say “ok” & that was all. It was like pulling teeth to get her to talk. I think my husband eventually gave up. I had begged him to have a talk with her way back when we first noticed she had become so quiet, but he just blamed it on a phase she was going through. We never imagined her mother was talking negatively about both of us to her. My SD quit coming when she was 16. She also quit communicating with her father and I. She’s now 18 (almost 19), and we only see her from a distance. We attended her school plays and graduation from a distance. We had to call the school to find out when those things were. The entire time I’ve been with my hubby, his ex had never allowed him to make any decisions in my SD’s life. Even when I first met him, all the decisions were made by her and he didn’t want to ‘rock the boat’. Apparently, even during their marriage, she was very controlling and would completely disregard him from any decisions pertaining to their daughter. After the divorce, his ex would go on vacation and not tell him. He wasn’t given the opportunity to have his daughter any extra. His ex instead took their daughter to her maternal grandparents. Her father was only allowed to have their daughter during ‘his time’. When there were school events that occurred on his time, he just wouldn’t get to see her. No chance at changing the schedule. His time with his daughter had been cut down to 6 hours a week (Mon and Fri, 3 hours each) due to school stuff about a year before she stopped coming. He never pushed it because he didn’t want to fight with his ex. Since we haven’t seen his daughter since she was 16, he didn’t get any prom pics or senior pics of her. Not really a surprise, but he didn’t get to have any decision in her first car, etc. It was as if he’d never existed. Her mom broke up with her bf and moved about 5 mins from us about the same time SD stopped coming. We see his daughter driving past us sometimes, but there are no waves or any acknowledgement that they even know each other. It’s so sad! We both text her to tell her how much we love and miss her, but never get a reply. Her father texted to ask her to meet him for lunch the week after graduation (just the two of them), so he could give her a graduation gift, but no reply to that either. She has birthday/Christmas cards and gifts still sitting here from when she last came. I try to talk him into writing her, but he knows the ex will interfere, so he doesn’t. His ex had made it clear in some of the emails, that all along she had been reading all his daughters texts from him and telling her how to reply, so I’m sure he’s right, but I think he should still try. We can only hope and pray someday she’ll realize what happened and come back. I hope she doesn’t wait until she’s in her 40’s or until there’s a tragedy in the family though. Again, thank you so much for letting us know what had happened to you. I am so sorry that you went through this, but so happy you realized that it wasn’t your dad. I can only hope my SD sees that someday.
I’d fight a damn mountain lion for my child. NO ONE would interfere with my relationship with my child. Your husband allowed his ex to do this. He sat back and did NOTHING to fight for his relationship with his daughter. He is as much to blame as the mother is. He should have had her in court for contempt. He should have been willing to get into any kind of conflict he had to with his ex for the sake of his relationship with his daughter. By not fighting for that he left his daughter in the hands of a demon who had bad intentions toward him and his daughter. This mother is unfit but, it can’t all be laid at her feet. Maybe if your husband is ever able to see the mistake he made he can become more forceful in repairing his relationship with his daughter.
It’s really not that easy and I am a Mama Bear who has fought a few mountain lions. I am actually in the husband’s position and I fight every single day but to no end. I could go to court but it would only put my son in the middle and make his life even more difficult. My ex would only use court as another way to show my son how I am the bad guy. He waited until my son was old enough to have a say in court. Reunification is difficult once they are teenagers. You can’t force a teen to stay. Once they are enmeshed it doesn’t matter how much you tell them you love them. I’m shocked at this reply to be honest.
This is my first time i visit here and I found so many interesting stuff in your blog especially it’s discussion. thank you.
fighting in court does nothing but leave the father broke and more broke. I would fight a lion for my grandchildren, but as an alienated family, we have no support. The courts are against us.. and unless you have money to burn, giving it all to lawyers, it is of no avail. Do you have any other advice besides this one? I mean seriously, you just cant win! Lord knows we are trying, but the laws are just not there. Desperate Grandmother
Hi Danese, I was alienated from my son for a year so, I know what you’re talking about as far as the expense of fighting for your rights. I don’t know how old her grandchildren are or how long you’ve been alienation so it’s hard to give advice. Courts can order reunification therapy and the custodial parent will be forced to make the children available for that. Not know what tactics your lawyer has taken during court appearances also makes it hard to give advice. If you’d like to give more detail, feel free to email me at [email protected].
I think that your reply to this woman’s obvious anguish, was callous and cruel.
I also think that you were subconsciously transfering your OWN feelings with regard to your past, upon this poor couple.
Things are not always as easy as one might think. You have no right to judge – and so harshly.
Shame on you…