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The chapter will provide a brief introduction to the problem of alienated and estranged children, and discuss what the experts have to say about Parental Alienation Syndrome. It will also look at ways of dealing with alienated and estranged children during custody battles, and provide a selection of helpful online and printed academic resources. Introduction The end of a romantic relationship is always difficult for parents. It can be just as difficult, if not worse, for their children. How children deal with the end of their parents' relationship has to do with two things: the age of the children; and, how their parents manage the breakdown of their relationship. Children don't see things in terms of "custody," "guardianship" or "access" when their parents' relationship ends. All they know is that something has gone terribly wrong. Mom and dad are yelling at each other a lot, and then, one day, mom or dad isn't there anymore. Young children won't understand these adult problems. Children who are in Grade One to Five will have a better idea, since they will have friends whose parents have divorced. Pre-teens and teens will have a much more grown-up grasp of things and be able to appreciate the idea that a relationship has ended. How children emotionally and intellectually cope with their parents' separation changes as they grow older and more intellectually mature. Things are a lot different for parents. A significant relationship has ended, and in the midst of all of the emotions which go along with that — grief, anger, jealousy, love and loss — they might find themselves also having to deal with some extremely difficult legal issues. It's even worse where the parents wind up fighting a battle in court. Litigation can have a very profound impact on people. At its core, litigation is an adversarial process: each parent is fighting the other in order to "win," and where there's a "winner" there's always a "loser." This sort of approach to a dispute often polarizes parents and encourages them to take extreme positions. What makes this so much worse is that the parents are both fighting about something they cherish dearly, their children, and they are both fighting against someone who they used to deeply love. In circumstances like this, it can be easy to forget how important it is that the children maintain a positive, loving relationship with the other parent. It can also be easy to overlook the importance of managing the children's exposure to and perception of their parents' conflict. One parent's view of the other becomes clouded by hatred, malice and spite, and nothing that parent can do is right. This attitude is almost impossible to shield from the children. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the children are inevitably exposed to these negative views which, without interference, can come to colour the children's own views of the other parent. Children's Experiences of Separation It is important to remember that while one parent's thoughtless comments about the other parent can have an impact on how a child sees the other parent, so too will the child's own experience of the separation. This can include:
These feelings may have nothing at all to do with any blameworthy conduct on the part of either parent, but they can cause a child to feel closer to one parent than the other. Further, there a number of normal reasons why a child might feel closer to one parent even in families that haven't separated, such as:
There are, of course, ways that parents can behave, intentionally and unintentionally, that will encourage a child to drift towards one parent and away from the other that are blameworthy. Bear in mind, however, that there are normally reasons why a child's experience of divorce may align with one parent over the other that have nothing to do with a parent's conduct. Resisting Access Visits When a child begins to drift apart from a parent, the first sign that this might become a serious problem occurs when the child begins to express a reluctance to spend time with the other parent. It is important to distinguish a simple reluctance from a more serious problem like estrangement or alienation. It is also important to distinguish between a reluctance that stems from child and a reluctance that is fostered by a parent. In a sense, this is the key difference between estrangement and alienation. Normal reasons why a child might resist access include:
Of course, any resistance to separation is difficult for both parents. For the parent sending the child on the visit, it can be heartwrenching to force the child out the door. For the parent receiving the child, it can be devastating to hear — from the other parent or the child — that the access is unwelcome, and to experience the rejection that this entails. These "normal" reasons why a child would be reluctant to see a parent can be aggravated by the unintentional conduct of each parent. Separated parents have a positive duty to nurture their child's relationship with the other parent. In the context of access, this means encouraging the child to look forward to seeing the other parent. In general, this means actively fostering the child's relationship with the other parent and refraining from making negative remarks about the other parent. In high conflict situations, even parents who understand this basic duty can unconsciously communicate their feelings about the other parent to the child. Children are not stupid, they know something's not right; even young children will pick up on non-verbal clues to a parent's feelings. This sort of unintentional communication of emotion includes:
Even though nothing is actually being said to children to discourage their relationship with the other parent, they will pick up on the implications these behaviours suggest: there is something bad about one parent which is hurting the other parent. This sort of behaviour will inevitably encourage and reinforce and reistance the child might have to seeing the other parent. When a child begins to express a reluctance to visit the other parent, both parents must act to stop the problem from getting worse. For the parent who has the child most often, this means that you must:
For the parent who the child is resisting seeing, this means that you must:
None of these solutions may be effective if the child's opinion and emotions are too entrenched, if the parents are simply too angry with one another to cooperate effectively, or if one of the parents is actively working to undermine the other parent's relationship with the child. When things go to far, or when a problem is left unchecked, a child's simple preference for one parent can develop to an extreme point, where the child is estranged or alienated from the other parent. Knowing when there's a Problem An otherwise "normal" resistance to access can cross the line when the child's opinion of the parent and his or her emotional attachment to that parent begins to change. Temper tantrums about an access visit, and expressions of rage and hate should send a loud and clear signal that both parents have to work a lot harder to help the child through his or her experience of the separation. Mild expressions of a change in the child's attachment to a parent include:
More serious expressions of a change in the child's attachment to a parent include:
Still more serious expressions of a change include:
The most serious expressions of a change in the child's attachment to a parent include:
Even mild indications that a child is growing emotionally distant from a parent are disturbing and warrant some attention by both parents. When a child is clearly heading from feeling ambivalent about a parent to feeling hatred towards that parent, parents should seriously consider getting the child professional help from counsellors who specialize in helping children cope with and adjust to the separation of their parents. It is often helpful for the parents themselves to find some counselling and guidance on how to approach access issues with the child. Estranged Children The difference between an estranged child and an alienated child is that an estranged child has grown apart from the parent for reasons that are, to be blunt, reasonable and realistic. An alienated child, however, is the vicitim of one parent's efforts to destroy the child's relationship with the other parent. An estranged child is either absolutely ambivalent about the other parent or enraged by the other parent. These feelings are, however, justified by the child's experience of the separation or by the child's experience of that parent. These children are usually estranged as a result of:
The point here is that the child's experiences make the child's rejection of that parent reasonable, and an adaptive and protective response to the parent's behaviour. The feelings of alienated children, however, are neither reasonable nor the result of the rejected parent's conduct. Alienated Children Alienated children reject a parent without guilt or sadness and without an objectively reasonable cause. Their views of the alienated parent are grossly distorted and exaggerated. When this rejection is caused by a parent's active efforts to undermine the child's relationship with the alienated parent, it is known as Parental Alienation Syndrome. Parental Alienation Syndrome is most easily defined as the complete breakdown of a child's relationship with a parent as a result of the other parent's efforts to turn a child against the other parent. Typically, PAS only comes up when the parents are involved in extremely bitter and heated litigation as a result. Not every case of high conflict litigation involves PAS, but it does happen. A 1991 study by the American Bar Association found indications of PAS in the majority of 700 high conflict divorce cases studied over 12 years. This sort of intentional alienation is absolutely wrong and virtually unforgiveable. In some circumstances, PAS can amount to child abuse. As J.M. Bone and M.R. Walsh put it in their article "Parental Alienation Syndrome," published in 1999 in the Florida Bar Journal: "Any attempt at alienating the children from the other parent should be seen as a direct and willful violation of one of the prime duties of parenthood." The author absolutely agrees with this statement. The parent most likely to attempt to alienate a child from the other parent is the parent who has the child for most of the time, usually because of an interim order or some other sort of temporary arrangement. The sorts of behaviours that suggest an intention to alienate a child from the other parent include, among other things:
The consequences of parental alienation or attempted parental alienation can be quite profound. PAS at its best it is a form of psychological programming; at worst, it's brainwashing. PAS may result in the permanent destruction of a child's relationship with a parent and in long-lasting psychological problems. In their article "Parental Alienation Syndrome," Bone and Walsh conclude that when Parental Alienation Syndrome has been identified, the solution is to deal with PAS immediately: "When attempted PAS has been identified, successful or not, it must be dealt with swiftly by the court. If it is not, it will contaminate and quietly control all other parenting issues and then lead only to unhappiness, frustration, and, lastly, parental estrangement." Again, the author agrees. While any application which flows from a suspicion of PAS will be costly and worsen the conflict between the parents, it is urgent that the alienation be stopped immediately if the long-term impact of parental alienation is to be avoided. A few Final Notes First, the author is not a psychologist, a psychiatrist or a counsellor. As a result this chapter should be read with a grain of salt, as it is based on the author's observations of his clients' experiences, a bit of research, and a healthy dose of common sense. For the same reason, you are cautioned that this webpage should not be used as authority for the propositions it sets out. Finally, the author wishes to acknowledge that the bulk of this chapter came from two sources: Dr. Deirdre Rand's 1997 article, "The Spectrum of Parental Alienation Syndrome (Part II)" from the American Journal of Forensic Psychology; and, a 2001 article by Drs. Joan Kelly and Janet Johnston, "The Alienated Child: A Reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome", published in Family Court Review. Back to the top of this chapter. What the Experts say about Parental Alienation Syndrome The profound alienation of children from a parent in the course of high-conflict family law litigation was first noticed by the mental health community in 1976. In 1987, Dr. Richard Gardner gave this alienation the label "Parental Alienation Syndrome," to describe a diagnosable disorder children that occured in the course of a custody dispute. Dr. Gardner's interpretation was not without controversy, and has continued to be studied, reviewed and revised by the pscyhiatric community. The most recent work on PAS comes from Drs. Joan Kelly and Janet Johnston, but since Dr. Gardner wrote the first formulation of PAS, that's where we'll start. Gardner's Parental Alienation Syndrome In 1997, Dr. Deirdre Rand published an article called "The Spectrum of Parental Alienation Syndrome (Part II)" in the American Journal of Forensic Psychology, summarizing and updating Dr. Gardner's theory. In that article, Dr. Rand describes PAS as the child's formation of an "alignment" with one parent against the other. Think of "alignment" as meaning an alliance, or a sense of allegiance, in which a child comes to share the views and emotions of one parent as opposed to the other. A study by J.R. Johnston and L.E. Campbell in 1988 found a measurable degree of alignment between children and one parent in 35 to 40% of the high conflict cases they studied. In a 1993 article in Children of Divorce who Refuse Visitation, Johnston found strong alignments in 28 to 43% of 9 to 12 year olds in high conflict cases, with another 29% showing symptoms of a mild alignment. According to Dr. Rand, children align differently depending on their age:
According to Drs. Rand and Gardner, children are about twice as likely to form alignments with their mothers than they are with their fathers, meaning that mothers are twice as likely to engage in alienating behaviour. Dr. Rand says that PAS is a risk whenever parents' must litigate a custody dispute. This risk increases when one or both parents make claims that attack the integrity, moral fitness or character of the other parent. Such claims are typically hard to defend, and puts one parent on the defensive while giving the other parent a sense of moral superiority. She notes that the statistical risk of PAS increases when: the parent perceived to be responsible for the breakdown of the relationship becomes involved in a new relationship shortly afterwards; and, a parent leaves the relationship precipitously. In the author's view, a third factor is when a parent's personal family support the parent's cause fanatically and encourage the parent's ill-will to the other parent. Drs. Rand and Gardner identify five types of behaviour that are characteristic of PAS:
To this list, the author would add two more categories:
Reaction to Gardner's Parental Alienation Syndrome As you can imagine, lawyers loved the idea of Parental Alienation Syndrome, especially in the US where it became a rather trendy strategy in high conflict cases. The American Bar Association's 1991 study found symptoms of Parental Alienation Syndrome in the majority of 700 high conflict custody cases they studied over the course of 12 years. While lawyers might have loved the theory, it did raise lots of other problems. Men's rights groups loved it because the majority of parents perpetrating PAS were women, and Gardner's work appeared to give them the scientific backing that would turn the tide in courts they perceived were biased in favour of women. Women's groups hated it as a sexist and unscientific piece of claptrap. The courts didn't like it because the result of Dr. Gardner's theory and recommendations would be to place the child in the home of the "hated" parent, which was plainly the last thing the alienated child wanted. The mental health community has been split on PAS for a number of reasons:
A Reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome In their 2001 article "The Alienated Child", published in Family Court Review Drs. Kelly and Johnston propose a reformulation of Dr. Gardner's theory that would focus primarily on the alienated child rather than on the alienating parent, on the principle that there are many different factors that can cause a child to be alienated from a parent apart from a malicious parent. Drs. Kelly and Johnston view a child's relationships with his or her parents as falling on a spectrum between the child wanting a positive relationship with both parents to the child being pathologically alienated from one parent:
Central to this reformulation of Dr. Garder's theory are the ideas that:
Drs. Kelly and Johnston do not reject Dr. Gardner's theory of the malicious parent, but they do broaden the scope of things that should be considered when evaluating for PAS. The Impact on Children The Johnston and Campbell study described children with strong alignments as "forfeiting their childhood," because of children's feeling that they must help the alienating parent because of their observations of the parent's anguish and emotional distress. Dr. Rand notes that: "Divorce almost inevitably burdens children with greater responsibilities and makes them feel less cared for. Children of chronicaly troubled parents bear a greater burden. ... The needs of the troubled parent override the developmental needs of the child, with the result that the child becomes psychologically depleted and their own emotional and social progress is crippled." While the process of alienation is underway, children are subject to a tremendous conflict of loyalties, which compounds the burden of nurturing an emotionally troubled parent, particularly when the PAS is intentional. While the parents were together, their children love them both, and children naturally desire for this to continue even when their parent's aren't together. Alienating conduct essentially asks children to pick sides, to chose one parent permanently and irrevocably over the other parent. In G.F. Cartwright's article "Expanding the Parameters of Parental Alienation Syndrome," published in The American Journal of Family Therapy in 1993, found long-term psychological problems in children is PAS situations, including:
In A. Lampel's article "Children's Alignment with Parents in Highly Conflicted Custody Cases," published in the Family and Conciliation Courts Review in 1996, these psychological problems were found to include:
When the process of alienation is complete, the child will have chosen sides. The child's relationship with the other parent may be permanently impaired. While many children afflicted by PAS will recover in their mid- to late-teens and reach out to the other parent, some never do and their relationship with the other parent is permanently destroyed. To quote from the judge in a 2005 Ontario case, Cooper v. Cooper, "I find that [the mother's] sabotaging actions have been knowing, wilful and deliberate. As a result of [her] behaviour, the children have little or no relationship with the father who loves them, who has tried to be a good father, and who has been a good provider throughout their lives." Alienated Parents Parents often find themselves feeling closer to the children following separation than they did during the relationship. Dr. Rand says that fathers in particular find a greater reward in parenting following the loss, loneliness and feelings of failure that can follow from the breakdown of the relationship. Accordingly, the impact of Parental Alienation Sydrome is particularly traumatic to the targetted parent. Backing Off D.S. Huntington, in an article published in 1986 in Divorce and Fatherhood, noted that some parents can be driven off by a child's apparent rejection and refusal to visit. J.W. Jacobs, in a different article in the same book, says that targetted parents may also voluntarily withdraw from the child's life where, in their view, the child would suffer if the custody issues were pursued or if the child would be exposed to additional conflict between the parents. Contributing to the Problem Johnston has described ways that a targetted parent can inadvertently contribute to PAS by displaying the sorts of behaviours that the alienating parent has taught the child to expect. These sorts of behaviours include: being cold and emotionally distant; being rigid and controlling; being insensitive to the child's needs; and, not being empathetic. These sorts of behaviours may reinforce the alientating parent's position and make the environment provided by the alienating parent compare favourably to that of the targetted parent. False Claims of Abuse In cases that are profoundly high conflict, false claims may be made, usually by the alienating parent, that the other parent has sexually or physically abused the child. Sometimes this is the fruit of the paranoia with which the alienating parent views the other parent, when a diaper rash turns into sexual assault and a bruise from falling off a jungle gym turns into physcial assault. Sometimes, however, false claims are a part of the campaign to alienate the other parent when the PAS is intentional. For the targetted parent, claims of this nature are devastating because they are so very difficult to disprove and attack the moral fitness of the parent in a fundamental and humiliating way. While the claim is being defended, however, the parent may spends months without seeing his or her child. Even if the claim can be disproven, the parent may find that so much time has been lost that his or her relationship with the child is damamged. Note that even unproven claims may result in arrest and possible criminal charges. Even where there are no criminal charges, a parent who has been arrested is invariably released following arrest on a promise not to contact the other parent or the child. Interestingly, K.L. Ross and G.J. Blush, in an article published in in 1990 in Issues in Child Abuse Allegations, observed that falsely accused parents typically displayed passive behaviour in contrast to the accuser's excitable and hysterical behaviour. An American attorney Dr. Rand mentions says that the falsely accused parents she represents in PAS cases are typically emotionally and financially stable people, who were often the child's primary parent before separation. Back to the top of this chapter. Dealing with Estranged or Alienated Children When a child is becoming estranged or alienated, or when Parental Alienation Syndrome is suspected, the situation must be dealt with as soon as possible. In most cases, these sorts of problems occur in the context of on-going litigation, and the problem can usually be dealt with in the context of that litigation. Custody and Access Reports Section 15 of the Family Relations Act allows a court to order that a custody and access report, usually called a "section 15 report," be prepared. If the other parent will not agree to the preparation of a s. 15 report, you must apply for an order that the report be prepared. Proper s. 15 reports are prepared by a psychologist or a psychiatrist who interviews each of the parents separately, and then interviews the child twice, once in the presence of each parent. The psychiatrist may also give the children and the parents certain common psychological tests, such as personality tests and parenting checklists, although most often it's only the parents who are tested. The psychiatrist will then prepare a report which sets out his or her observations and recommendations. In making an order that a s. 15 report be prepared, the court can simply say "a report will be prepared" or it can be very detailed and discuss which doctor will prepare the report and who will pay for it. Most importantly, the order can identify particular issues that the psychiatrist is to address in the report. Where a report is sought because of suspected PAS, the order should expressly state that the psychiatrist is to see whether PAS is or is not happening. Fixing the Problem Frankly, it may be impossible to fix a child's alienation from one of his or her parents even when PAS has been identified by a psychiatrist. In a 1988 article by N.R. Palmer published in the American Journal of Family Therapy, she quotes a Florida judge who dealt with a PAS case: "The Court has no doubt that the cause of the blind, brainwashed, bigoted, belligerence of the children toward the father grew from the soil nurtured, watered and tilled by the mother. The Court is thoroughly convinced that the mother breached every duty she owed as the custodial parent to the noncustodial parent of instilling love, respect and feeling in the children for their father. Woese, she slowly dripped poison into the minds of these children, maybe even beyond the power of this Court to find the antidote." In most cases, the best that can be done to "cure" the problem is to obtain an order requiring that the child, the alienated parent, or both the child and the parent see a family counsellor expert in dealing with the psychological effects of separation. The court can specify who the counsellor will be, how frequent the sessions will be and who will pay for them. There is no guarantee that counselling will fix the problem as the source of the problem lies in the conduct of the alienating parent, but counselling is a less drastic step and will be easier to obtain than an order changing the children's home. In a small number of cases, it may in fact be impossible to heal an alienated child's views about the targetted parent. These cases are tragic and a legal solution may not be available. When the alienation becomes deeply entrenched, the children's views about the other parent are become the fact of how they feel about the other parent, and the issue about which parent bears the blame for those views is irrelevant. You can lay blame, but that won't change the fact of how the children feel. In situations like this, the targetted parent may have no choice but to wait until the children become mature and independent enough to seek out the parent and talk about their childhood. Back to the top of this chapter. Resources The following lists of resources are not, of course, encyclopaedic. There are doubtless many valuable studies, articles and websites which the author has overlooked, and doing your own research is always recommended. Academic Materials The following articles were suggested as recommended readings on child alienation and estrangement by Dr. Joan Kelly at a June 2005 presentation in Vancouver.
Online Information The web is full of resources about Parental Alienation Syndrome. Much of the information available online is, however, crap. Look about the web and educate yourself about PAS, but be cautious about the sources of what you're reading. Stick to information published by academics, lawyers, psychiatrists and psychologists, and avoid unaccredited websites, websites sponsored by special interest groups that are likely to be biased, sensationalist websites, and websites that don't give a source for their data or their conclusions. The most reliable sort of online information is that which has been reproduced from a professional journal. The following are some websites that the author thinks are helpful. The author does not, however, endorse their content or views.
A final note of caution. Many of the groups you'll find online that offer information on PAS, such as Fathers are Capable Too, regard Parental Alienation Sydrome as a men's rights or father's rights issue. In part this is because the majority of alienating parents are mothers. However, some of these sites go too far and identify feminism, or rather their prejudice against feminism, with the small overall number of women who engage in alienating behaviour. Fathers also engage in alienating behaviour. Again, take care in choosing where you get your information from and make sure you're reading between the lines. Back to the top of this chapter. Site Navigation
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