Approaches To Combat Parental Alienation During Child Custody Litigation
Being a lawyer, I have witnessed that in most cases the flawed court systems were being manipulated to take revenge from the non-custodial parent (which is usually a father) by not letting him meet his/her children, during a child custody case.
It is extremely easy to delay the proceedings simply by filing frivolous applications/appeals and assailing the orders to higher courts. Using similar delaying tactics, thousands of children are kept from meeting their non-custodial?parent for months and in some cases, years.
The Guardian/ Family Courts are adamant to acknowledge the simple fact on ground that the nature of a child custody case is entirely different from routine civil cases. Child custody litigation is a true representative of judicial litigation where “justice delayed is justice denied”.
The?mind of a child is like a perishable commodity. With the passage of time it is easy to change the innocent mind. Within months due to lack of interaction with non-custodian parent and constant brainwashing by custodian parent and his/her family, the children start forgetting and in many cases disliking the non-custodial parent who once used to be extremely dear and loved. This phenomenon has been named as Parental Alienation Syndrome or simply “PAS” by the psychiatrists.
It is peculiar however to observe that there is no simple approach to battle distance, particularly if it has stretched over time and the estranged guardian has had little contact with the minor child. One may say the alienator has won and has the complete control of the youngster in this situation. The two (alienator and minor child) then are a “group” who absolutely work against the estranged guardian with the ultimate goal of mortifying and dismissing that parent from having contact with the exploited?child.
A percentage?of techniques that are prescribed for managing the procedure of distance might appear to be great, however it is a compelling circumstance that one is confronting when managing the staggering force of the alienator. Run-of-the-mill restorative systems are incapable when managing such issues. Firm methodologies are required and these must be upheld unequivocally by the court with the goal that they should have an impact in questioning the casualty of the distance. This occasionally puts the specialist in a hazardous circumstance for he or she might be blamed for being too firm in trying to switch the distance impacts. A mix of both reason and feeling must be displayed to the minor children to make them mindful of the harm that has and is continuing, so as to end the negative mentality towards living with one guardian. This is obviously accepting that the estranged guardian is pure of all physical, sexual or psychological mistreatment.
The following recommendations would be able to lessen the impacts of estrangement and diminish distance and alienation:
- Shatter the impacts of vilification by one parent towards the other by making the minor child mindful of the upbeat history before the rancor and detachment between the parents happened.
- Get the minor child to?to focus on the good things about the criticized guardian.
- Be firm and proactive in changing states of mind and conduct that have created the parental estrangement.
- Attempt to get the estranging parent to participate in halting the distance. This is less demanding said than done, and numerous alienators will decline to participate in this.?This is even so when it is highlighted that such activities are really unsafe to the minor child’s improvement.
- Engage the minor child’s inner voice that he or she is dismissing, harming and embarrassing a pure gathering that looks after that child.
- Bring the child together with the estranged parent at the appointed time while trying to change both mentalities and conduct by means of judicious emotive treatment. There is a need in this procedure for firm interchanges.
- Make the youngster mindful of what a blood relative may give up for that minor child which is not the situation for outsiders.
- Caution the guardian who estranges the offspring of the damage that they are doing to the youngster in the present time as well.
- Engage the child’s basic?considerations (knowledge and feelings) and make the minor child mindful of the injustice and coldness in dismissing a cherishing guardian.
- Make the minor children mindful that they require both spouses without imperiling the association with the estranging parent.
- Make the minor children mindful that they might lose a decent parent if the procedure of estrangement proceeds.
- The minor child ought to be made mindful that the?distant family of the estranged guardian is also being unreasonably dismissed.
- Support the minor child to draw in with the distanced guardian as well as with the estranged guardian’s more distant family, i.e. grandma, granddad, close relatives, uncles, and so forth. This will serve to invert the estrangement process.
- Reduce or take out phone calls and different correspondences from the programming parent while the minor child is with the non-custodial parent.
- It is imperative for minor child who has been estranged to invest as much energy as is conceivable with the distanced parent alone so that a relationship can be recreated between them. The more extended this individual contact happens, the more noteworthy the probability that the distance procedure will be exhausted.
- Stop the minor child from being utilized as a spy against the estranged parent.
- The minor child ought to be expelled from the impacts of the distancing parent and be given in care of the estranged guardian or another body including a relative. This is to shield the minor child from further estrangement.
- Lack of involvement and resistance are insufficient when managing parental distance. What is required is an encounter of a capable sort keeping in mind the end goal to neutralize the impacts of the estrangement and to switch it around.
- The force of the court must back the persons looking to evacuate the estrangement impacts.
- The minor child should frequently be taken to an unbiased setting, for example, a clinic to forestall further estrangement. This is just in exceptionally compelling situations where serious mental harm has been done to such an extent that the minor child experiences hallucinations about the estranged parent.
- On account of extreme estrangement it is best for the distanced spouses to never approach the home of the alienator,?rather they should utilize a middle person for the exchange of contact with the minor child.
- It ought to be recalled that the minor child who has been the casualty of mental programming needs to realize that he or she can still feel protected with the distanced parent without this decreasing their devotion towards the other parent. Consequently the estranged parent ought to do as much as could be expected to promise the minor child that there is no longing to detach the minor child from the other parent.
- Once the distanced spouses have reached out to their minor child, they ought to focus on discussing good times spent together in the past, supplemented with pictures or recordings. At first a minor child could, on the spur of the moment,?even neglect to have eye contact however this can be diminished through indications of content past events and how to proceed with them.
- Estranged contesting parents ought not to surrender without making an effort first and ought to continue with their endeavors to reach out to their youngster. Steady dismissal from the minor child is prone to be?embarrassing and disheartening, however?determination in some cases prompts accomplishment with the assistance of a specialist and the backing of the courts.
The Author is a Lawyer at Lahore High Court and is advocating for the application of concept of shared parenting in child cutsody litigation in Pakistan and can be contacted at +92300-8411403
