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Parental Alienation. How to Recognize it during Family Law and Child Custody Matters

By James Chau

What is the impact of parental alienation during divorces and family law cases? The author of this article discusses what children of divorce want and need to maintain a relationship with their parents and the matter of parental alienation.

 Some parents force children to take sides or cause a child to snub the other parent. The article describes parental alienation as, ?...the ?programming? of a child by one parent to denigrate the other ?targeted? parent, in an effort to undermine and interfere with the child's relationship with that parent??

 The article goes on to discuss what is parental alienation defined.  Parental alienation often involves several things: bad-mouthing the other parent, limiting contact, erasing the other parent from the child?s life, making the child feel unsafe with the other parent, forcing the child to choose between you, etc. When this occurs, the result is the loss of a loving parent from the child?s life (despite what you may think of the other parent).

 According to the article, the concept of "parental alienation syndrome" was developed by Psychiatrist Richard Gardner and defined it as a disorder that arose primarily from child custody disputes. The article further describes parental alienation as a form of brainwashing. How frightening is it to think that a parent is brainwashing their own child(ren) into hating the other parent!?! Yet this happens everyday. A child will often have a solely negative view of the other parent to point that the parent is demonized in that child?s eyes.

 The author notes that it has been reported by adult children of divorce that they felt the tactics of alienation are on the same level as extreme psychological maltreatment of children (such as: terrorizing, isolating, exploiting, and denying emotional responsiveness), and the effects of parental alienation on children have been documented: self esteem issues, depression, substance abuse, etc.

 Every child has the right to a loving relationship with both parent. The denial of that relationship by one parent is not reasonable.

If there are any legal questions you may have, I encourage you to, please contact my San Jose Divorce Lawyers office. My San Jose Family Lawyer offices assists many people who are going through family law related issues. We have many Affordable San Jose Divorce Lawyer solutions for many different budgets. We help many individuals through this very chaotic period in their life. Proudly serving the following cities, Fremont, Milpitas, Los Gatos, Cupertino, Mountain View, and Santa Clara.

Full post as published by San Jose Divorce Law and Family Law Lawyer Blog on April 03, 2014 (boomark / email).