Children cope best with their parents’ separation by maintaining good relationships with both parents. Most parents understand this. But some poison their children’s affection and respect for their other parent. These children suffer a problem known as parental alienation. Click here to learn more.
Parental alienation is a disturbance in which a child rejects a parent without good cause. When alienation reaches a severe level, the child may claim the parent is a bad person, a bad parent, and unworthy of a relationship.
Therapists used to tell these parents to step back, bide their time, and have faith that the children will eventually come around. My book, Divorce Poison: How to Protect Your Family from Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing, challenged that advice. After hearing from so many parents whose children remained permanently disconnected, I recommend a proactive approach in place of passivity. Fortunately, the tide has turned. Most therapists now understand that absence does make the heart grow fonder in many irrationally alienated children.
The tragedy of a parent losing a child—and a child losing a parent—makes it imperative that parents do everything they can to rescue children from being alienated. Therapists, family court judges, alienated parents, and relatives should not wave the flag of surrender too soon. We should not accept a child’s unreasonable alienation if any reasonable remedies are available.
But some parents reach a point where they believe they have exhausted their options and need to let go of active attempts to repair a fractured relationship. This is an agonizing dilemma for a loving parent. To help with this decision I created a checklist of seven reasons why a parent might choose to let go, at least for the present.
- Your children are too alienated or emotionally unstable to return directly to your home, and a suitable transitional site is not available or affordable.
In some cases, a court determines the best hope for the alienated children is to place them in the custody of their rejected parent. But the alienation may be so entrenched, and the children’s sense of entitlement so strong, they either refuse to cooperate with the custody arrangement or they cling to distorted views of the rejected parent. If they cannot live safely with that parent, they need help to cope with the transition.
Some children live with a relative or at a boarding school while they work with a therapist and the rejected parent to heal their relationship. Children who threaten violence and lack self-control may get help in a residential treatment center. Other alienated children participate in a program like Family Bridges, a four-day workshop that facilitates their reconnection with the parent they have been rejecting. When these options are unavailable, the rejected parent may conclude the children are better off remaining with their other parent. The alternative may be an ongoing struggle with defiant and unhappy children.
- You have exhausted all legal channels to improve the situation.
In most cases the court’s intervention is necessary to overcome severe alienation. If the court is unable or unwilling to put in place an effective remedy, of if you cannot afford to continue litigation, you may have no choice but to accept the status quo.
- The court recognizes your children are unreasonably alienated but will not place them in your home long enough to allow them to emerge from the shadow of your ex’s negative influence.
Some courts determine the children’s rejection of a parent is unreasonable, but leave in place a parenting schedule, such as every other weekend contact, that is insufficient to modify the children’s negative attitudes. They may remain withdrawn in their rooms for the weekend, and the rejected parent has little leverage to promote change. If you cannot get the court to reduce the children’s exposure to alienating influences and give them enough time with you to heal the relationship, you may have to accept that the alienation will not be overcome under these circumstances.
- You have a new partner, and perhaps other children in your home, who will suffer if you continue to invest emotional and financial resources on a battle that has little chance of success.
Custody battles take an enormous toll on your emotions and your wallet. The resulting stress taxes the emotional atmosphere and relationships in the home. If the battle for your children’s souls will likely bear fruit, it makes sense to persist. But if the battle is doomed to fail, it may be best to cut your losses. It does your alienated children no good if their negative attitudes and behavior create too much tension in your home, harming your relationship with a new partner or detracting from the positive attention other children deserve in your home.
- Your ex is so disturbed that continuing the battle could provoke a violent reaction against the children or against you or other members of your family.
Ideally, the court will put in place effective protection for you and your children and intervention for a violent ex. But in the real world, such protection is not fail-safe. If you believe that persisting with a battle to gain custody of alienated children carries a strong risk of a violent outcome, the rational course may be to give up the fight.
- Your efforts to follow professional advice have met with repeated failure.
Divorce Poison offers plenty of tips for interrupting and overcoming parental alienation. If you have diligently implemented these tips, and the situation has not improved, it may be time to face the fact that your children’s alienation is too resistant to change at this time.
- You are working with a therapist who clearly understands the problem and is dedicated to helping repair your relationship with the children, but believes it is now time to consider letting go.
With a major decision like this it helps to have advice from someone who is familiar with the situation. If an experienced therapist has tried to remedy the alienation and can think of no other approach that will succeed, it is reasonable to carefully weigh the therapist’s observations and advice.
Regardless of the advice you receive, the decision is your own. I have seen parents who were ready to quit when I thought they should continue to pursue reconciliation. And I have seen parents who persisted in their quest when I thought they were being unreasonably optimistic and paying too little attention to the drawbacks of continuing the battle.
If you postpone your efforts to overcome your children’s alienation, consult Divorce Poison for detailed guidance on how best to implement and cope with this difficult decision. Handle it well and you will increase the chance of reconnecting in the future.
For an overview and additional resources on the identification, prevention, and treatment of parental alienation, see Parental Alienation: The Psychology of Fractured Parent–Child Relationships at the Child and Family Blog and warshak.com.
Dr. Warshak is the author of Divorce Poison: How to Protect Your Family from Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing (HarperCollins), Welcome Back, Pluto: Understanding, Preventing, and Overcoming Parental Alienation, and numerous articles in professional peer-reviewed journals. Find him on Facebook: @RichardAWarshak.
