How we parents love to hear from our toddlers who’s their favorite parent but imagine if we deliberately or unwittingly try to make our children believe that only one of us loves them. How damaging can that be for our child’s mental wellbeing to know that one of the parents is the cause of all their problems? Well, it may sound very demeaning and upsetting but this phenomenon is not that uncommon. Parental alienation is all around us and who knows, our child can be suffering from it as well.
Parental Alienation – what is it all about?
Many of us might not have heard about this before – that’s what these fancy terms are for – but a lot of can certainly relate to it. But what is it, anyway? A forensic psychiatrist Dr. Richard A. Gardner first identified Parental Alienation Syndrome in the 1980’s after he say a dramatic increase in child-custody disputes where the child was brainwashed by one parent against the other. Parental alienation happens when a child, without any legal justification, enmeshes him/herself with one parent and rejects the other. He/she may believe that one parent is the cause of their problems. Often such kids believe or are made to believe that their parent hates them. Here is a simple chart by Equal Parenting to make it clear:
Why would a parent do such a devastating thing?
Well, there may be a load of reasons why a parent would wittingly or unwittingly try to alienate the other parent. Sometimes, when parents are close to get separated or divorced, they might try to win the child over for custody reasons. Some parents simply want to transfer their hate and distrust for their spouse to their children as well as a revenge tactic and sometimes, it’s just a habit of badmouthing your spouse in front of your children.
Who faces the brunt of it? Your Children!
What we may not want to take into account is that our children are who suffer the most. High-conflict divorces result in acute mental trauma among the children. They will grow up believing that one of their parents did not love them and that make them feel unworthy, unappealing and unloved. This can result in poor relationships in future, insecurities and a false perception of reality that can further lead to other mental disorders.
What can be Done?
Your children need both of you and its extremely important for them to have your affection and time – even if you are getting divorced or separated. In most cases of a divorce, one of the parents, usually the father can be alienated. Phrases like, “Your mother doesn’t give a damn about your or your feelings” or, “if you don’t feel safe with your dad, give me a call and I will come to get you” can foster a false image of the other parent in the child’s mind.
If you feel that you are being alienated by the other parent, you must see professional help. It takes a sophisticated forensic psychologist to diagnose Parental Alienation. Or just to start with, parents can have a look at the Psy Care’s website that outlines the basic symptoms of Parental Alienation.
There are many support groups for this and you can seek help from the one near you. For example, there is this Parental Alienation Study Group founded by the expert, Amy J. L. Baker, to help and there are many books written by Baker herself with a lot of helpful material.
Co-parenting is a relatively new concept where divorced parents, despite their differences and conflicts, collaborate for their children’s sake. This mode of parenting highly discourages alienating a parent or deliberately trying to malign the other parent.
There are parenting apps for Android and iOS that also help in collaborating and sorting out parental custody problems.FamilyTime, for example, can help parents to collaborate and participate in parenting equally. It’s basically a parental monitoring app that lets the co-parents to monitor their children’s smartphones and tablets. This can give both the parents a way to know what’s going on in their children’s’ lives and lets them share responsibilities equally. SO even if the parents are not on talking terms, they can still know when they need to pick up their children and check out details like their online behavior, phone contacts and their location history. This way, both parents are actively involved in their child’s live and one parent can’t blame the other for not participating enough and thus alienating him or her.
The app can be downloaded on your child’s Android phones and tabs or the iOS devices and can help you with digitally parenting your kids even if you’re not living with them.
Collaborate for a greater good!
Parenting is a mission and a teamwork that’s why both the parents must actively be involved in raising up their children. Since the babies naturally get enmeshed with their mothers since birth, they need to encourage and foster a healthy bond between the child and the feather. Whereas, the father need sto be more active and need to know about their child’s social circle, their preferences and inclinations and need to talk to their children more often. Parental apps for Android and iOS can be a good starting point but remember, without real effort from both the parents; your children can suffer and grow up with a lot of challenges and insecurities to cope up with!