INTRODUCTION
I wrote this book out of frustration – and hope. It’s intended for parents, professionals, and anyone concerned about the next generation. It’s about two growing problems that overlap:
1. More and more children and parents are suffering from “high-conflict” divorces – unnecessarily. (When I speak of “divorce” throughout this book, I include the separation of unmarried parents, who face the same problems.)
2. Recent research suggests that “high-conflict” personalities are increasing in our society, and one of the contributing factors may be the life-long dysfunctional lessons children learn from high-conflict divorces.
Therefore, the information in this book is designed to assist parents and professionals in helping children learn skills for resilience for a lifetime – even during a divorce.
Frustration
For the past 17 years I have been a family law attorney – a Certified Family Law Specialist. I have represented clients in family court in many high-conflict divorces. Over time, in many of these cases, the children have become “alienated” from a parent. I use that term broadly to mean that the child resisted or totally refused all contact with that parent.
In some of these cases, I represented the “rejected parent” who the child didn’t want to see. In other cases, I represented the “favored parent,” who seemed to win the child’s loyalty and total agreement. However, in both types of cases, the children were stressed and unhappy, and learned dysfunctional ways of handing close relationships – ways which may negatively affect them for the rest of their lives.
I was frustrated in both types of cases. I had many restless nights, trying to figure out how to protect my clients and their children. The opposing parent would hate me. The opposing lawyer would criticize me. And the judge would frown and disregard much of what I had to say.
Out of about 400 cases I had as an attorney representing one party, approximately 40 included an issue of child alienation. Out of all the issues I handled in family court (child support, property division, custody and visitation, even child sexual abuse), I found child alienation to be the most frustrating – because it seemed to be based on nothing. There was no credible evidence, but lots of opinions. No one could figure out these cases, so there was a lot of blaming. Anger grew as everyone’s frustration grew – for parents, lawyers, counselors, and judges. This anger was contagious, and the children absorbed it as well.
I always intended to focus my law practice on divorce mediation. After 15 years of representing clients in family court, as well as handling about 1000 mediation cases, I finally stopped taking court cases. Some of my last court cases were alienation cases.
In one case, my client was the rejected father. His case had gone on for about 6 years, in and out of court, until his daughter totally stopped spending any time with him. At my last court hearing, the judge said there was nothing he could do.
In the other case, my client was the mother, who became the rejected parent. The father had been ordered into domestic violence treatment near the start of the case. Even though he had about one-third of the parenting time, he returned to court repeatedly seeking primary custody of their son. Even after the judge sanctioned the father once for a totally unnecessary hearing, he kept bringing the mother back to court. For ten years, the mother was the primary custodial parent. Then, after relentless pressure by his father, the son “ran away” to his father’s and stayed there. She gave up, exhausted.
Neither of these children had rejected either parent prior to their parents going to court.
The Wall of Alienation
Somehow, the adversarial structure of court focused on determining who was the “all-good parent” and who was the “all-bad parent.” The allegations went back and forth:
“The father must be abusing the child. That’s why she doesn’t want to see him and cries before his visits.”
Or: “Her mother must be alienating her. That’s why she refuses to see me.”
Or: “The father must be alienating the child. That’s why he refuses to see the mother.”
Or: “The mother must have done something to make the child estranged from her.”
The court process was all about who put the wall up between a parent and the child.
“It’s all his fault. He has only himself to blame. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Or: “It’s all her fault. I have been a loving parent while she just spews vituperative venom against me.” (Yes, these statements are drawn from real court documents.)
The whole battle over picking the “all-good parent” and the “all-bad parent” was a long, drawn out tug-of-war until one parent lost. Most of the time it was the rejected parent. But sometimes, the rejected parent won a change of primary custody and the previously favored parent left the city, the state or the country. (Yes, I saw each of these happen.) Or attempted to commit suicide, as occurred in more than one case.
It has become an ugly contest.
It’s not a gender issue…
It’s not about who has custody…
What Alienation is Not
From all of these experiences, I learned a lot about what alienation is not:
• It’s not a gender issue: I have represented fathers and mothers who were the “rejected” parent.
• It’s not about who has custody: While most rejected parents have been the “non-custodial” parent with less parenting time, I have represented several custodial parents who became the rejected parent.
• It’s not just a defense against child sexual abuse allegations: Child alienation is an issue in over 20% of contested custody cases at court, yet child sexual abuse is alleged in only about 2-5% of contested custody cases.
• It’s not just a defense against domestic violence allegations: From my experience, perpetrators of domestic violence engage in more alienating behaviors than victims of domestic violence.
• It’s not just a defense against child abuse allegations: I have seen cases where one parent had abusive behaviors and the other parent had alienating behaviors. I also know of cases where a parent with abusive behaviors also engaged in alienating behaviors, and the other parent had neither abusive nor alienating behaviors. I learned that abuse and alienation are independent sets of behavior.
• It’s not a common symptom of child abuse or domestic violence: Most abused children are not alienated. Most love their parents, but want the abuse to stop. Many fear their abusive parents and are very careful not to upset them. Most would never say they hated the parent or would risk running away – behaviors I have seen much more common in alienation cases.
• It’s not caused by one disparaging remark or incident: From my experience, alienation is a gradual process which may begin before separation, but mostly grows during the divorce process.
So, if alienation is not about the above common theories, then what is it?
Learning About Child Abuse
I was a social worker for many years before becoming a lawyer. My first job out of college was as a social worker in New York City. In 1981, I got my Masters in Social Work degree, and I counseled children and adults for much of that decade. Many of them had been abused.
In the 1980’s, child abuse, especially child sexual abuse, was starting to be taken more seriously. Some of my clients were teenagers who had been sexually abused and some of my adult clients had been sexually abused as children. Some cases were extremely shocking. Others seemed mild, but the long-term effects were still quite damaging.
Learning About Family Systems
In 1980, as I was in training as a family therapist, I learned that families are like a system – like the solar system – in which everyone has a pull on everyone else. Each family’s “system” of relating is influenced and maintained by everyone in the family – but in different ways. Usually, everyone in the family system is blind to their own role in reinforcing problems and blind to their potential role in solving problems.
My job as a family therapist was to help enough members of the family system to shift their behavior, to change the whole family for the better – especially for the benefit of the children. That was the only way that family problems could really be improved. No one person could really change, unless most in the family changed. Children’s behavior was often the result of unresolved issues between the parents. This was rarely obvious on the surface.
I learned that other family members (grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc.) were hidden parts of the family system as well, and could have a powerful influence over the problems on the surface. And, of course, therapists, teachers and others involved with a family also became part of the family system. Everyone reinforced the problems (in hidden ways), so they needed to reinforce the solutions.
During the 1980’s, I was also volunteering as a mediator with community mediation programs that resolved...
