When one parent’s end game is to hurt the other parent by damaging the children’s relationship with them, it’s called parental alienation. The alienating parent wages a war against the targeted parent placing the children in an impossible situation to please them against the targeted parent. Suddenly, the children are thrown into a situation they are too young to understand, little alone process.
Sadly, the children are manipulated and coerced to act in hurtful ways towards the targeted parent. They mimic the alienating parent’s behaviour just to feel worthy of their affection to survive an emotional situation that they have no control over. The children become pawns in the alienating parent’s game and are victims too.
An alienating parent’s behaviour can never be validated as an act of love, only dysfunctional. The alienating parent has no insight into their own behaviour or concerns how it impacts the children. As parents, our children are entrusted into our care to protect, guide and support them, not this need to dominate and control for our own self interest.
We really need to take a minute here and digest the following …
Fostering and encouraging cognitive biases and attitudes in the child that promote denigration and estrangement of the TP is itself a form of emotional abuse.
Teresa C Silva author Parental Alienation: In the Child’s Worst Interest
To continue and just briefly put some of the behaviours an alienating parent will display, keep in mind, here in Australia under the Family Law Act 1975, there is a presumption that both parents will have ‘equal parental responsibility’ – that is, they will both have a role in making decisions about major long-term issues such as where a child goes to school or major health issues.
Summary:
An alienating parent engages in various destructive behaviors to undermine the targeted parent’s authority, such as insulting, bad-mouthing, and belittling them in front of the children. They may even encourage disrespectful behavior towards the targeted parent, interfere with visits, make unilateral decisions about the children, and manipulate them to spy and report on the other parent. This behavior negatively impacts the children’s well-being, academic performance, and relationships, while the targeted parent also suffers. Ultimately, the alienating parent seeks control at the expense of everyone’s happiness.
If you recognise any of these patterns of behaviour and you are the targeted parent, also be aware the presumption of ‘equal parental responsibility’ does not apply if the parent engaged in abuse of the child or family violence. So a word of warning, keep a diary and seek counsel as an alienating parent will use the system, make false allegations against you or worst, have the children accuse you. Timing often aligns around parental and property settlement matters and it’s not hard to figure out why?
Are these the behaviours of a parent who nurture the best interests of the children? I think we know the answer to that one!
Below is a link to further information and a petition to motion legislation on parental alienation as child abuse and domestic violence.
Reference: Teresa C Silva author Parental Alienation: In the Child’s Worst Interest
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