The 8 Manifestations of Parental Alienation (child's behavior)

Children of divorce often have a slight preference for one household over another. This is often due to a dichotomy in custody where there is a "primary" parent that deals with the full range of life circumstances - happy, sad, joy, misery, work and play; and a "fun" parent whose time with the child(ren) is primarily visitation and can be targeted to excursions and good times. Children that complain about doing chores and pointing out that "(the other parent) never makes me do any work" are not alienated (based on this behavior alone).

Who wouldn't prefer a life of fun, ice cream and no distasteful "chores"?

Research has demonstrated that children who are alienated will display a very specific set of symptoms, known as the 8 Manifestations of Parental Alienation .

Those 8 manifestations are as follows (from the article linked above):

1. The Campaign of Denigration: alienated children express deep hatred of the rejected to the point that they deny, and may not even be able to recall, any positive interactions or times with that parent. They aggressively resist contact and communication with the rejected parent and in the most severe cases, refuse to eat food or sleep on the sheets of the parent when on court-ordered visitation. In some cases there is even a refusal to take gifts given by the rejected parent (and their extended family) with them to the other (alienating) parent's home.
2. Weak, Frivolous, and Absurd Rationalizations: alienated children will present explanations about why they are so hateful toward the rejected parent that make no sense. In an interview in 2019 at an international conference, Dr. Amy Baker shared examples of children who report that they never want to see their father again because his car smells like coffee. Other examples include children who claim that the parent and their home is HORRIBLE, but when questioned for specifics will not be able to provide any, or will simply state "There's just so many reasons,..." Alienated children are also prone to making make accusations of things that are not true, and in the early stages of custody, if alienation has not been identified, these accusations can cause problems for the rejected parent.
3. Lack of Ambivalence About the Alienating Parent: alienated children are incapable of seeing both good and bad in both parents. This then expresses in a total loyal support for the alienator and a belief that the rejected parent is unfit, terrible and unredeemable. Normal range relationships between parents and children reflect the ability to see both positive and negative in parents.
4. The “Independent Thinker” Phenomenon: alienated children will often insist that their complaints are their own words, ideas and feelings and that no one has influenced them or made them think that way.
5. Absence of Guilt About the Treatment of the Targeted Parent: alienated children exhibit behaviors that are rude, hostile, aggressive and even cold toward the rejected parent. They are seemingly incapable of feeling remorse for their behavior, and display no feelings of guilt or shame around their actions. Alienated children are not appreciative of gifts given by the targeted parent or any act of goodwill or support and they often display behaviors of entitlement with the rejected parent.
6. Reflexive Support for the Alienating Parent in Parental Conflict: conflict is a normal occurrence within intact families, as well as healthy-range divorced couples. People disagree at times - and in normal circumstances and relationships, these disagreements can be weathered and moved through to a positive outcome. In alienated children, the reaction is always to side with the alienating parent, regardless of that parent's position or perspective. These children offer no interest in impartiality when it comes to disparate opinions between their parents and they have zero interest in entertaining the rejected parent’s side of things.
7. Presence of Borrowed Scenarios: alienated children can often be observed making accusations about the rejected parent, but sound like the alienating parent's words. Specific word use, phrasing and ideas that are obviously straight from the alienating parent come out of alienated children's mouths in accusations and criticisms of the rejected parent. In these situations accusations that cannot be supported with details or facts are often slung at the rejected parent as well. In some cases we'll see an incident from more than a decade ago that is recalled but twisted in context and used as an "example" of abuse. This might include an alienated teenager accusing their parent of threatening to kill them,... when they were 3 or 4 years old. This is obviously a borrowed scenario (and likely evidence of brainwashing by the alienating parent) when there is no history of abuse, the rejected parent and other relatives refute the charge and this is the standalone "proof" of the rejected parent being "awful". (e.g. there are no recent or credible examples to support the accusation).
8. Rejection of Extended Family: the extreme hatred toward the rejected/targeted parent will often spread to the extended family. In addition to the parent being denigrated, despised, and hated; once-loved grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins are cut off and out of the child(ren)'s life. This is often also accompanied by a "replacement" of step-parent family members who the child(ren) will begin to call "Mom" or "Dad" and "Grandma" or "Grandpa",...etc.

In one case this is how a grandmother knew there was a larger problem than a moody teenager. She was the first person to hold her grandchildren in the hospital (after their parents) the day they were born. Over the years, this grandmother and her grandchildren spent time together multiple days each week since the day each of them were born. It's one thing for a teenager to cop an attitude about Mom or Dad: when Grandma begins to be called by her first name and her gifts for birthdays, holidays and otherwise are tossed aside - there's a bigger problem that needs to be investigated.

It can be easy to get aggravated with a snotty adolescent or ingrateful child, but rejected parents and grandparents/extended family must realize that these poor kids are being brainwashed and brought into a delusion by a very deeply mentally ill person: the alienating parent.

Dr, Craig Childress, whose work (among others) in parental alienation has been instrumental in bringing it out of the research stacks and into the public discourse, notes that alienating parents are not normal range parents, but suffer from a Cluster B personality disorder . This is reflected in many of his talks where he refers to the alienating parent as the "borderline/narcissistic parent ".

Dr. Childress and others speak of parental alienation as being primarily a child protection issue and NOT a child custody issue because of the great harm that the brainwashing and alienating tactics are exacting on the alienated child(ren); and this is where too many attorneys (and sometimes therapists) get it all wrong and do major damage.

From the Child Rights Foundation web page , I share the following:

"There is now scholarly consensus that severe alienation is abusive to children (Fidler and Bala, 2010), and is a largely overlooked form of?child abuse?(Bernet et al, 2010), as child welfare and divorce practitioners are often unaware of or minimize its extent. As reported by adult children of divorce, the tactics of alienating parents are tantamount to extreme psychological maltreatment, including spurning, terrorizing, isolating, corrupting or exploiting, and denying emotional responsiveness (Baker, 2010). For the child, parental alienation is a serious mental condition, based on a false?belief?that the alienated parent is dangerous and unworthy. The severe effects of parental alienation on children are well-documented—low?self-esteem?and self-hatred, lack of trust,?depression, and?substance abuse?and other forms of addiction are widespread, as children lose the capacity to give and accept love from a parent. Self-hatred is particularly disturbing among affected children, as children internalize the hatred targeted toward the alienated parent, are led to believe that the alienated parent did not love or want them, and experience severe?guilt?related to betraying the alienated parent."

From an April 2022 post on Contemporary Pediatrics , Alan Blotcky, PhD wrote:

"Causing parental alienation in a child is on par with physical and sexual abuse. It is?considered child psychological abuse and is subsumed in DSM-5 (V995.51).?Parental alienation is real, definable, and toxic. In severe cases, it is so malignant that it can undermine a child’s psychological development. It is not hyperbole to say it can be catastrophic."

Parental alienation tactics are abusive, and the after-effects experienced by the children are very often, as described by the experts, "catastrophic". A research study from 2021 on the long-term effects of alienation on children concluded the following:

"Children exposed to parental interference and alienation show in adulthood depression and anxiety symptoms, a higher risk of psychopathology, lower self-esteem and self-sufficiency. As well as, higher alcohol and drug use rates, parental relationship difficulties, insecure attachment, lower life quality, higher divorce rates, feelings of loss, abandonment and guilt."

The bottom line is this: parents who choose to ALIENATE their children are sentencing them to a lifetime of misery and suffering. This is criminal, and needs to be treated as such, beginning with assessing alienators as abusers and leveraging existing state laws to penalize them in accordance with the scope and severity of their crimes.

In Pennsylvania, the Child Protective Services Law (CPSL) notes that child abuse includes actions that "...intentionally, knowingly or recklessly cause or substantially contribute to serious mental injury to a child,...".

Parental alienation, recognized in the mental health professional community as child psychological abuse (DSM-5 code V995.51) is punishable as a felony, and should be investigated with urgency and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

There is ZERO excuse for allowing this behavior to continue in any family. Actions of alienation need to be met with swift and serious consequences.

I will close this article with a portion of the tagline on this newsletter: jail the perpetrators! and then enter them into state and national databases as child abusers and elevate this issue to the level of emergent attention that it requires.

Our children's health, well-being and FUTURES depend on it.

#parentalalienation #familylaw #childabuse #childabuseawareness

Coming next: parental alienation as continued acts of domestic violence