Parental Alienation: Understanding Its Impact on Child Custody

Most divorces are painful, but it hurts even more when your children vilify you to make your ex happy despite all your parenting efforts. You cannot pinpoint what you have done to deserve such hatred. But the animosity feels familiar – you have seen it in your former spouse. This is what parental alienation looks like. It is an insidious and subtle form of manipulation that a parent does to their children, mainly to take revenge on the other parent.

When an alienated parent is maliciously portrayed by the alienating parent, the scenario can evolve into severe parental alienation, significantly harming the child’s relationship with the other parent. Recognizing such dynamics is crucial for family court judges in family courts, as it impacts decisions related to child abuse and custody.

The alienated child often feels torn between one parent’s coercive tactics and their genuine affection for the targeted parent. These complex cases require the expertise of family law attorneys who understand the intricate aspects of family law and can adeptly guide and navigate the targeted parent through the legal and emotional complexities of parental alienation.

The other parent is ruining your children’s emotional and psychological well-being; the worst you can do is let it happen. This article aims to help you rise above negative emotions and take action to protect your children.

Signs of Parental Alienation

Parental alienation happens when one parent manipulates the children to turn against the other parent. The alienating parent has behaviors, actions, and attitudes that intentionally damage the relationship between the children and the other parent. These behaviors train the children to hate, fear, or disconnect from the target parent. They may include:

• Badmouthing
• Gaslighting the children into believing bad things about the other parent
• Accusing the other parent for things they did not do
• Telling the children the other parent does not love them
• Criticizing the other parent in front of the children and to other people for unjustifiable reasons
• Limit communication between the other parent and the children
• Intercepting phone calls between the other parent and the children
• Interrupting the children’s visits to the other parent
• Denying access to the children or moving away
• Forcing the children to cut ties with the other parent

Regardless of gender or family type, either parent can become the alienator if they let fear and hate steamroll them into sabotaging the children’s bond with the other parent. Parental alienation is particularly prevalent in high-conflict separations and divorces, although it could also happen in an unhappy marriage.

When does disrespect become something worse? Signs of parental alienation in your children

In many jurisdictions, parental alienation is considered a form of domestic abuse. As a victim, the children may feel confused, scared, angry, and withdrawn from the target parent, but they cannot name a reasonable cause for their feelings.

Most children want to please their parents, but when one parent becomes hostile towards the other, they are caught in the crossfire and are forced to confront emotional conflict.

When their trust is being manipulated into hatred for the other parent, younger children often insist that their negative feelings are their own. They would likely defend the alienating parent. In mild cases, they would alternate between animosity and neediness.

Teenagers during the rebellious phase may be able to tell that something is not right and resist some manipulation, but that does not make them more willing to connect with the targeted parent.

Alienated children’s accusations are often black-and-white: they see the alienating parent as an angel and the other parent as a demon. They align with the alienator no matter what.

The children may also have no guilt or empathy for disrespecting the targeted parent. Some may even spread it to other family members and friends. Essentially, the children are turned into cruel cult followers of the alienating parent.

If you ask the children to mention an instance in which you were as bad as they say you are, they often come up with the memories from the alienating parent as their justification. At first brush, this may make you feel guilty – you may have indeed committed such a mistake. However, these reasons involve the alienating parent, and the children may not have been in the picture.

How to detect parental alienation?

Dr. Amy J. J. Baker identifies 17 strategies that alienating parents employ. When you are the victim, take the three steps below:

• Take stock of your relationship with your children

• Look for alienating behaviors in your former spouse

• Look for alienating behaviors in your children

Take stock of your relationship with your children

Assuming you had a close, positive bond before the alienation happens. If you and your children have never been close, or you had disconnected some time before the signs appeared, then your ex’s manipulation may not amount to parental alienation.

While doing this, be very honest with yourself. Parents who have failed to prioritize family over work may feel they do not have a close bond with their children. However, you do not have to see your children daily for the bond to be close. Your bond counts as positive as long as you have provided for them and ensured they are safe and healthy.

Do not let the guilt of being an uninvolved parent or any past parenting mishaps downplay your relationship with your children. Even if it may seem distant, it is still one of the formative relationships in your children’s lives, and your ex has no right to destroy it.

Look for alienating behaviors in your ex-spouse

See the above section for a list of expected behaviors. Does your ex exhibit the behaviors below?

• Withdraw love if the children show love to you

• Destroy your children’s pictures with you

• Force your children to choose between the two of you

• Ask your children to spy on you

• Withholding medical, academic, and other important information from you.

• Keeping your name off relevant documents. Change your children’s name to remove any association with you.

• Compel co-dependency: making the children feel they can’t be okay being apart.

Look for alienating behaviors in your children

Your children may misbehave or throw a tantrum, but these behaviors should raise an alarm:

• The children treat you with cruelty but feel no remorse.

• The children repeat phrases used by the other parent to denigrate you.

• The children support the other parent in your disputes.

• The children spread hostility against you among families and friends.

• The children deny any influence from the other parent.

What parental alienation is not

Parental alienation often comes from one parent’s sabotage. However, if the children reject a parent on reasonable grounds, this is justifiable estrangement. It could happen due to domestic violence, abuse, neglect, mental disorders, or substance abuse.

However, justifiable estrangement can be challenging to distinguish from parental alienation for small children who have yet to develop better emotional awareness.

Consequences of parental alienation

To unknowing eyes, a parent shielding the children from another harmful parent is a protective act. However, parental alienation is a form of domestic abuse to the children and the targeted parent.

Your children are fed lies about you when they are caught in alienation. Small mistakes, like being 20 minutes late for pickups, may be overblown with polarized criticisms. Your children may become confused, hurt, and scared because they believe you intentionally neglect, harm, or threaten them. The other parent may make your children feel as though they are no longer safe with you.

They may start to think you no longer love them.

The alienation makes them accept your ex’s hatred without genuine feelings. If you choose to do nothing, these manipulated feelings will tear you apart and haunt your children well into adulthood.

The children would grow up believing they have been rejected or betrayed by someone they once trusted and depended on. The grief from losing one of the most important bonds in their lives can be unresolvable.

Carrying such grief would influence how they manage their relationships. Like other unacknowledged traumas, children of alienation may choose intimate relationships in which they repeat the tragic patterns of alienation.

Moreover, emotional manipulation is indelible to the children’s psychological well-being. How would it feel to be told repeatedly that the person you believe to be safe is not? The children may be low in self-sufficiency, as they were misguided to doubt their perception and judgment despite the evidence.

Such gaslighting renders the victims dependent on the alienating parent for protection. As an adult, the children may doubt their ability to make good decisions and live independent lives.

This research dives deeper into the psychological consequences of alienated children.

The alienating parent also suffers, even if they do not see it that way. Most exhibit character disorders, sudden mood swings, or splitting personalities. The targeted parents tend to be the healthier parent before succumbing to the distress of alienation.

Can parental alienation backfire?

Parental alienation can backfire. Three ways this can happen:

• The children become more aware of the manipulation and cut off from both parents.

• Family relationships are damaged.

• The targeted parent fights back.

The children’s suffering

Most child psychologists contend that parental alienation is a form of psychological abuse, and the children are the victims bearing the heaviest damage. Children of alienation suffer from long-term emotional damage, developing depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, substance abuse, and co-dependency with their alienating parent.

As adults, the traumatized child may struggle to form healthy, trusting relationships. If the children become aware of the alienation, especially teenagers, they often decide to cut off ties with both parents.

Family relationships are damaged

The alienating parent often tries to get other people onto their side. If aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents see through their act, the perpetrator will lose credibility and support.

The targeted parent fights back

If the targeted parent can convince the court about parental alienation, the court may order financial restitution for their legal fees and treatment expenses.

What can an alienated parent do?

The situation is not hopeless. As the world has become much more aware of parental alienation, there are things you can do.

Respond to the children’s deprecation with gentleness but do not believe or discipline them

While hearing your children hurling unfounded insults at you is heartbreaking, do not believe them. Do your children hate you, or are they being deceived? Are their genuine emotions for you being honored, or is their perception of reality being distorted into misplaced hatred?

They are not intentionally lying about false memories of your alleged ineptitude as a parent. Instead, their grasp of reality is being severed by the alienation.

Many alienated parents make the understandable mistake of taking their children’s words seriously. After all, the children say it unequivocally, and they back it up with unambiguous actions. The truth is that they are confabulating thin stories to fit the polarized narrative that would please the favored parent.

According to former alienated parent and current alienation expert Inbal Greenberg, the extremeness and intensity of the children’s disrespect is a red flag: the children are trying to convince themselves that this is how they honestly think and feel. Moreover, they desperately try to maintain loyalty to the alienating parent, unable to resist the powerful attachment dynamic imposed on them.

Here’s what you can do

• Be present with your children after they return from the other parent’s place; be mindful of their emotional outbursts.

• Let the children know you love them no matter what. The children are testing you; do not confirm the other parent’s words.

• When possible, gently point out the apparent evidence that proves the accusations are unfounded.

• Explain that the other parent’s hateful messages should be kept between the grown-ups.

• Teach them ways to process their emotions, such as writing them down or drawing them.

• Involve legal and mental health professionals with experience dealing with parental alienation.

Do not take matters into your own hands. You need to find objective and knowledgeable third parties who can correctly assess the situation and vouch for you.

Here’s what to avoid

• Do not take the children’s defiance personally. After all, this is not about you; the children fear rejection from the alienating parent, and defying you is the only way to prove their loyalty to the other parent.

• Do not discipline their extreme disobedience. They are the victim, not the perpetrator. Discipline only confirms the perception that you are a terrible parent. Only issue appropriate discipline to normal misbehaviors.

• Be patient and methodical; avoid retaliation. Doing so would make the alienation even more successful.

Do not hope the children will grow out of it

The children’s suffering can be hard to detect because they may be unaware of it. However, do not stay away and hope the children will grow up and understand.

Many cases have proved that they will not. This is not just a phase – it is mental abuse, and abuse victims do not just “grow out of it” – they need proper treatments.

It may sound counter-intuitive, but it is true that abuse victims also do not cut off ties with the abuser. Your alienated children desperately want to be with the harmful parent. Child abuse victims often yearn to maintain a relationship with the abusive parent, hoping that they will become ‘normal’ again.

The children may even feel guilty about blaming or suspecting the parent for being harmful. They may believe that they are dependent on the alienating parent.

Therefore, staying away enables your abusive ex to go unpunished for harming your children.

Eventually, the children may become aware of the manipulation, but that would not result in reunification. Most likely, the children would be cut off from both parents. Having been deprived of a deep and meaningful connection with a loving parent, they probably go on to struggle with psychological issues such as depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, low self-esteem, and insecure attachments.

Try reunification therapy

Reunification therapy starts with individual sessions, but the treatment begins when you and your children do the sessions together.

The therapist would try their best to foster parent-child connection with these steps:

1. Bring something that reminds you of the fun times you shared to re-experience warmth and connection with your children.
2. The therapist asks the children to list all the criticisms about them.
3. The therapist asks the children to recall an example for each criticism.
4. The therapist asks the children to recall examples that prove the opposite. You may be asked to add to that list.
5. The therapist explains alienation to the children to warn them of future attempts. They may ask the children how the criticism may benefit the alienator more than it does you.

Legal strategies to fight parental alienation

Despite such devastating damage, parental alienation is not a crime in the U.S. The concept is not incorporated into any state or federal law. However, you can take legal action against parental alienation in the context of custody laws, which require courts to consider how parents’ actions impact the child’s best interests.

When children are involved in a dispute, the child’s best interest is the central concern of family law. Parental alienation is a form of child abuse and can thus damage the child’s best interest. However, it is also important to remember that documented evidence guides the court’s decisions.

So, what can you do? Here are the legal strategies you can consider with your family law attorney:

• Prove it
• Ask for a custody evaluation
• Guardian ad Litem
• Seek psychological counseling

Prove parental alienation by keeping daily written records

Parental alienation is hard to prove. The term is overused, making it hard to identify. It usually happens in the confines of the home, so it is hard to document. The “How to detect parental alienation” section above provides a preliminary course of action. You must:

• Document your positive relationship with the children: family photos, holiday or birthday videos, messages, emails, cards, or letters.
• Document alienating behaviors. You can use:
• Note-taking mobile apps such as ONRecord, Evernote, or Notion.
• Co-parenting apps are designed so that all co-parenting communication happens within the app.
• Audio-video recording devices, but be sure to double-check with a verified family lawyer on the legality of recording such conversations.
• Document how such behaviors damage your relationship with the children.

Keep a daily written record of everything involving your children, both positive and negative, significant and innocuous. This is also known as a custody journal. Make sure to put things in writing because secret audio recordings are controversial and may not be recognized as evidence in court.

To keep an effective custody journal, you can:

• Write notes after verbal conversations with your ex and your children.
• Keep all messages and make copies of them.
• Talk to other adults who know your children: teachers and coaches can be vital witnesses for you. Make a record of what they tell you.
• Get legal and psychological advice if necessary: do not downplay your ex’s accusations even if they sound absurd.

Persist in keeping reliable records – they could become valuable evidence to prove parental alienation in court.

Ask for a custody evaluation

When the parents cannot agree on custody arrangements and suspect that the other parent is ‘unfit,’ they can request a child custody evaluation to assess what is in the child’s best interests.

The custody evaluator is a trained mental health professional with experience as a child therapist or psychologist. They will spend a few weeks to gather information and meet with you and your children individually. This process could involve:

• Psychological testing for parents and children.
• Interviewing you, your children, teachers, babysitters, family friends, and extended family members.
• Examine health and school medical records, report cards, and attendance records.

Then, they will judge whether the children’s best interests are being served. They summarize the findings in a report that makes recommendations about custody arrangements.

While a custody evaluation carries much weight, the judge does not have to follow its recommendations, especially if you can prove any bias or it doesn’t serve your children’s best interests.

How to get a custody evaluator?

There are two ways to get a custody evaluator:

• Ask the court to order an evaluation: cheaper ($1,000- $2,500)
• Hire a private one: more costly ($15,000 or more)

You do not have to get the judge’s permission for a custody evaluation, but the judge may be able to recommend a good evaluator.

You may also want a second opinion from your lawyer to check out any known biases the evaluator may hold against mothers or fathers. However, you should be careful not to pose any direct questions to the evaluator – doing so may hurt their impression of you.

If you have any concerns and want the judge to take them seriously, you should ask your lawyer to raise them immediately, not after the report.

Guardian ad Litem (GAL)

A Guardian ad Litem (GAL) joins the case when the parents cannot agree on custody arrangements. The GAL acts as the legal advocate for the children in the case. They can be involved in all matters concerning the children, such as custody negotiations and child support. This temporary form of guardianship lasts only for the duration of your divorce case to protect the children’s rights.

When the children’s best interests differ from what the children want, the GAL would favor the former. Some would find a leeway to compromise with the children’s wishes so far as the children’s best interests are served.

The GAL’s duties may overlap with those of the custody evaluator:

• Speaking with and advising the children
• Speak with you, your partner, and your lawyers
• Request relevant school and medical records
• Request evaluations
• Work with the parents and their attorneys on the preliminary recommendations before presenting them to the judge.
• Present their findings and make recommendations to the court.

While the custody evaluator gets involved only for an evaluation, the GAL serves in the case until one of these things happens:

• The parents reach a formally executed written agreement resolving the issues and approved by the court.
• The judge rules on the case in a hearing.

Therefore, having a GAL means having someone who watches out for your children’s well-being. When both parents cannot resolve their disagreements, this third party can provide a neutral voice. Working with a GAL has these benefits in a case of parental alienation:

• They can find out what your ex is doing to your children.
• They can document robust and objective evidence of parental alienation for the judge.
• They can provide independent support for you.

However, the GAL has to make its neutrality clear. Alienated children are hyper-vigilant about which side the people are on. So, if the GAL is perceived as on your side, the children would likely act accordingly to maintain the lies.

To make it work in your favor, cooperate. Provide any relevant documents when asked. Stay in touch and inform them of updates. Do not rush them even if the alienation seems evident to you – respect their duty to be impartial and thorough in considering all the facts.

GAL fees may range from $1,000 to $3,000, and the judge decides who will pay. Usually, each parent is responsible for one-half, but in some cases, the fees may be paid by the county or paid based on the ability to pay.

Support for alienated parents

Parental alienation is simply child abuse. Your children suffer from something they cannot comprehend, and you know the cause. Do not make the mistake of enabling the alienation to go on.

Reach out to these organizations for support for alienated parents:

• Family Access – Fighting for children’s rights
• Parental Alienation Study Group (PASG)
• International Support Network of Alienated Families (ISNAF)

Also, check out Dr. Susan Heitler‘s works, who writes extensively on family conflicts and parental alienation.

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