Child Abuse by any other name

After a few decades of professional wrangling around the terminology, experts in child psychology agree that parental alienation is real, and problematic. Its early challenges stemmed from it being classified as a SYNDROME, which it is not.

According to Ken Lewis, Director of Child Custody Evaluation Services of Philadelphia, "Parental alienation is a form of emotional child abuse. The potential impact of this abuse on a child’s life can be devastating."

Thankfully, today's courts are beginning to view parental alienation as child abuse and taking steps to address it criminally. In his list for Custody Evaluators and Family Court Judges, Lewis notes that "Extreme parental alienation should be considered emotional child abuse and referred criminally."

He also notes that "All states make emotional child abuse or maltreatment of a child a criminal offense. Some extreme cases of parental alienation may warrant this response."

As an educator, I am a mandated reporter. This means that I am "... legally required to report suspected child abuse if [I] have reasonable cause to suspect that a child is a victim of child abuse."

Let's explore this a bit further as it relates to emotional child abuse, which is what parental alienation is, and especially in its more extreme form (e.g. severe parental alienation).

While the law is moving closer to more regularly charging alienators (the alienating parent) with a criminal offense, what about the enablers?

Enablers are people who SEE what is going on and delude themselves into thinking that they can replace a child's other parent or grandparent(s). They contribute as much to the damage of the alienated child as the narcissistic or borderline alienator does. In many cases, these enablers would be able to intervene, stop or at least provide a buffer to the behaviors in terms of supporting the child's relationship with their rejected parent; but they choose not to.

Let's stop here and look at the damage that emotional child abuse exacts on children when it is perpetrated in the form of parental alienation.

From Lewis:

Parental alienation is a form of emotional child abuse. The potential impact of this abuse on a child’s life can be devastating.

"Some of the frequently listed effects of parental alienation have been reported in the child welfare literature, including:

• an impaired ability to establish and maintain future relationships;
• a lowering of the child’s self-image;
• a loss of self-respect;
• the evolution of guilt, anxiety, and depression over their role in destroying their relationship with a previously loved parent;
• lack of impulse control (aggression can turn into delinquent behavior); and
• educational problems, disruptions in school."?

Lewis goes on to note that "this emotional abuse is usually invisible to teachers and social workers".

The abuse is evident in many family journeys, but what is ALSO obvious is that there are people up close and personal to the abusers who are seeing this happen day in and day out, and doing NOTHING.

I contend that they are legally liable and should be held as such, suffering consequences to include significant financial penalties/fines and even JAIL TIME when there is proof that the enablers were aware that there was a problem but continued to not only turn a blind eye, but support the abusers.

The laws in place today that require educators (and others) to notify the authorities when they suspect child abuse seem to suggest that there is a responsibility for ALL adults to do the same. If an educator who does not have an up-close-and-personal view of the day to day is responsible for reporting suspicious things, why not a step-grandparent, step-aunt/step-uncle, family friend, or neighbor who knows the story and sees the evidence on a regular basis?

The liability of the extended abusers is further strengthened (my opinion) when there is evidence of extended family members participating in the alienation or the brain-washing by providing excessive gifts and money to the alienated child. Lavishing gifts and money on a child that is being alienated against one entire side of the family is a known and documented tactic and can be documented and - I assume - admitted in court as evidence.

There is a tidal wave growing into a tsunami of momentum against those that perpetrate this horrendous abuse against children. The best way to avoid being swept away by this storm of justice is to do the right thing - even when it is inconvenient. Be a good and decent human being - even if it means making people close to you angry; and wake the f#@% up!

You're not just "being nice" to your adult child/adult sibling/neighbor/cousin's new spouse and his/her child(ren): you're participating in CHILD ABUSE - and the real family members who have loved that child/those children since before they were born see you, and are gathering the full force and weight of the law to end that abuse and make sure that the perpetrators - ALL of them - are held accountable for their actions.

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(coming next: custodial interference as a criminal offense - not just for the step-parent (here's looking at your step-aunts, step-uncles and step-grandparents)