Parental Alienation Gary Stanek

Published, Stamford Advocate/Greenwich Time, February, 2010

I know a father who lives less than a mile from his children, yet visitation has averaged only two times a year for the past several years. That’s less than 24 hours a year. He believes this has resulted because he and his children have been subjected to a campaign of “let’s criticize and ostracize dad” for the many years since his divorce. The message this father has gotten from judges, attorneys, police and family relations workers along the way is that no system is in place for dealing with a custodial parent who finds reason after trivial reason not to comply with court-ordered visitation. This is an issue that brings pain to many caring fathers who are denied relationships with their children. Yet, fathers are not the only victims. The children are victims too, usually the greater victims, as is true in most cases of divorce and child custody conflicts. There is a name for what is possibly happening with this father’s children: Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS). This is a syndrome first defined by a child psychologist who wrote a book on the subject back in 1987. Dr. Richard Gardner defined PAS as “a disturbance in which children are obsessively preoccupied with deprecation and/or criticism of a parent, denigration that is unjustified and/or exaggerated.” Simply put, PAS means that a child has been manipulated to dislike and reject a parent he or she would otherwise need and love. The effects of this manipulation on a child are serious and long-term: depression, identity and relationship dysfunction, hostility, guilt, isolation and even suicide. The “unjustified and/or exaggerated” part of the definition is important. Not only is it crucial in identifying PAS correctly in children, but, obviously, if the alienated parent actually abused or hurt the children in any way, then the children’s rejection and negative feelings would be factual and justified, and PAS would not be relevant. Yet certainly one parent can easily alienate the children against the other parent, not just by unjustified claims of abuse, but simply by focusing on faults that are real and/or provable. Real and provable faults, however, along with character flaws and value differences, do not automatically give justification to condemnation and rejection, and should not lead one parent to discredit the other in front of the kids. Observing, defining, and explaining differences in these areas is normal parental behavior. Judging the other parent unfit for parenting based on these differences, belittling and demeaning them and then withholding visitation, that kind of judging is reserved for the court system. Divorced parents need to understand that their children need to love both of them even if they themselves ceased to love and respect their ex-spouse years before. Both parents should help the children to focus on the other parent's good points rather than the faults, a difficult but doable task for most mature adults. When a child is, regrettably, exposed to constant alienating messages toward a parent, that child’s parental bond and loyalty will first be divided and then eventually compromised in favor of the presumed loving and protective parent. A fear will develop, not of the alienated parent, but of losing the acceptance and affirmation of the so-called “loving” parent. It is a dysfunctional dynamic best exemplified in the brainwashing associated with cult control methods. The situation is often made worse by the fact that children themselves will usually have motivations that make the alienation worse. Their normal developmental need for immediate gratification or their natural desire to avoid discomfort makes them easy allies for siding with the alienating parent. A child can easily become an advocate for an alienating parent by becoming the spokesperson for the parent's rejection and hatred. The child becomes the messenger for the alienating parent who is in the background directing the action against the targeted parent. The child is put in the middle and doesn’t really know how he or she is being used. This whole issue has even broader implications. First, research shows that it’s not just fathers who are victims; mothers, too, are equally the targets of an alienating x-spouse. And, if we accept that parental alienation is any group of behaviors that disturbs the relationship between a child and another parent, then step-parents clearly become targets even more easily than x- spouses. In a kinder and gentler world, none of this would happen. But in the world of divorce there is often the need to lay blame, if not solely on ones x- spouse, then on anyone associated with the x-spouse, especially a new partner. When one parent speaks disparagingly of the other parent’s new partner, children no longer feel free to discuss what has happened in their other home and will often feel distrusting of the other parent, and angry. This effects both households. Biological parents feel separated from their children, and stepparents feel rejected and unappreciated. The usual result: an alienated child. What can be done? In mild cases, therapist intervention may work, identifying and disrupting the damaging negative messages with the cooperation of all involved. In moderate cases, where greater resistance from the alienating parent and the children can be expected, court ordered therapy, parent education and even modified custody arrangements will probably be necessary. In severe cases, like that of the father I described earlier, an even more aggressive approach may be necessary. Judges must have the courage to mandate the temporary separation of the children from the alienating parent. The children might need to be court ordered into an intensive treatment program where deprogramming and reestablishment of the healthy parent- child relationship can be achieved. The goal in any treatment of PAS is the restoration of a healthy relationship with both parents. What a wonderful world it would be if that were the goal of both parents in the first place.