In this episode
- The idea around parental alienation is that one parent is doing things to alienate their child from the other parent. It could be saying bad things about the other parent, not allowing communication, restricting access, etc.
- Richard Gardner was the first one to coin this term. Here are a couple of facts about him:
- He had no research experience.
- It was based on nothing but clinical opinion.
- He was a part-time clinical professor as a psychoanalyst.
- And it was horrible.
- It was very misogynistic.
- He would always say 90% of the time, it was mothers alienating a father.
- Some examples of parental alienating; Telling false stories about the parent, telling negative stories, not communicating with the parent with the other parent, and not allowing access. Inflexible, Pretty restricting, acting like the other parent is dangerous, portraying them as difficult or scary to the child. These are all things that can do damage to a child's relationship with that parent.
- The cases most strongly presented to the court are when there's actual physical withholding of the children. Everyone asks at what point can the child decide they don't want to go in the visit, and it's not going to matter. There is no actual age that a child can determine if they want to go in for a visit.
- Do we talk about the effects on the children of this behavior by their parents?
- Do we talk about what tips would you give the other non-alienating parent?
- If you could manage to tell good stories, boost their image, be flexible, promote access, and promote that relationship, your child benefits from that relationship. If you damage that relationship, you are hurting your child. Parental alienation, when it's severe, is considered child abuse.
- Most of the time, both parents share some responsibility for this. Maybe one parent is doing a lot of the alienating behaviors, but the other parent might be doing some as well.
Help your friends who may be going through a divorce go from victim to victorious and bitter to better.
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