Much attention has been paid to the case of the three minor children in Oakland County Michigan who were removed to juvenile detention in the wake of years of conflict between their divorced parents. Judge Lisa Gorcyca observed that the mother had been engaging in parental alienation, loosely defined as brainwashing her children against their father. Experts debate whether parental alienation is a mental health disorder. It was not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition, however, it is undisputed that some angry parents do insult and disparage their ex-spouses in an effort to “win” their children in the divorce. Often, it is the mother who hates her ex-husband and wants the children to hate him, too.
She may have legitimate concerns about their father’s ability to parent, but the court system, and society at large, believe that a child has a right to a relationship with both parents. Unless she can convince the court that he is physically endangering the children, her concerns about his parenting style are legally irrelevant. Unable to find validation in the court, some parents try to turn their children against their ex-spouse to protect them, or because their anger is so consuming they cannot tolerate seeing their beloved children align with their “enemy.”
The parent-child relationship is one of the strongest bonds in human experience. If our children suffer, we suffer. If our children are happy, we are happy. Parents are hard-wired to care for and protect their children. We anticipate their needs and as they grow we direct them towards healthy goals. And most children, raised by loving parents, accept their parents’ vision for them.
Parental Alienation: Parents Must Cut the Umbilical Cord
When parents’ divorce, each parent’s vision of what their children need may differ. This causes conflict between the parents, but what may cause greater conflict is the post-divorce disparity between each parent’s needs and the child’s needs. An angry mom may never want to speak to her ex-husband again. An angry dad may want to punish his ex-wife for hurting him. These parents have certain feelings with respect to each other, healthy or not, but those now differ from their children’s who still want and need to have a relationship with their other parent. A byproduct of divorce is that the parent’s needs, and the children’s needs, diverge. The divorce severs the umbilical cord connecting parent and child.
How It Can Happen
Parental alienation occurs, in part, because the alienating parent cannot differentiate herself from her children. She is enmeshed in their lives such that the boundaries between mother and child are blurred. Her needs are still their needs and their needs remain her needs. For her, her hatred or fear of her ex-husband is indistinguishable from her children’s feelings. She sees him as evil and so must they. Sadly, this parent has difficulty accepting that with respect to their father, her children’s needs are now and will always be different from hers.
There will now be a part of her children’s lives she cannot share. Her children will now have experiences and relationships which may cause her concern, but she must learn to identify the cause of that concern. If it is born of an actual threat to her children’s well-being then she can pursue legal recourse. But if it is generated by her own anger and fears, then she must accept that her needs and her children’s needs are distinct and will never again be identical.
What can a parent do when they find the other parent doing the alienating? My ex is often making me out to be the bad parent. The children have approached me, asking me why I was bad and what did I do to make their dad leave? I am flabbergasted over and over again when attacked in this way. (My ex had an affair, left me for her, and continues to blame me for his choices.) He constantly asks the kids about things that are going on in my house, then uses that knowledge against me whenever he can, including making rules the kids think they must follow for my house. He also gets mad at me when I don’t tell him details of things that happen. If I do let him know that something serious has happened, he blames me for it and ends up rewarding the kids for their poor behavior rather than reinforcing any discipline at his house. (This happened on two occasions recently, both involving one of the kids physically attacking another person. In both instances, the child did not accept any blame and he gave them extra privileges.) I am at my wits end.
I actually stopped reading half way and went back to check if I authored this because it is my experience exactly minus the physical altercation….. It is uncanny how similar our stories are.
Yes, I have a friend whose soon to be ex-husband is a serial cheater. He encourages the kids to lie to their mom, rewards them with trips and other extravagant gifts when they have acted out against her, and has convinced the kids that mom is abusive and scary, even though he was constantly travelling and rarely home while the kids were growing up and this never came up as an issue prior to the divorce. He also will agree with my friend to her face that for example, a smart phone is a bad idea for the ten year old, but then get the child an iphone and tell her to lie to mom about it.