The Myth of the Well-Adjusted Alienated Child
Excerpt from a trial court’s decision in a child custody case: To alleviate their stress, the children chose to align themselves with the plaintiff and see as little as possible…
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Is Rejecting a Parent Merely a Child’s Attempt to Alleviate Stress?
From a trial court’s custody decision, quoted in a 2025 Connecticut Appellate decision: To alleviate their stress, the children chose to align themselves with the plaintiff and see as little…
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Children Appreciate Being Rescued by the Court from Parental Alienation
Words have the power to shape our thoughts. When severely alienated children refuse to be with a parent, despite the court-ordered parenting time schedule, some people who see themselves as…
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Poisoned Tongues
In The Psychology of Alienated Children (Chapter 10), I describe the similarity between teaching children to hate people of another race and teaching children to hate a parent. One way…
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Don’t Confuse This with Alienation
Problems in a parent–child relationship can occur when a parent mistakenly believes a child is becoming alienated. There is a difference between a child who succumbs to a parent’s toxic…
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Children Do Not Always Say What They Need
When training judges about parental alienation cases I emphasize that a child’s stated wishes may be a poor index of the child’s best interests. Children do not always want what…
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The Imperfect Parent
The American Film Institute ranks it the greatest comedy film quote of all time. In the 1959 classic, Some Like It Hot, Jerry—played by Jack Lemmon—finds himself, after a wild…
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BBC News: Divorce Poison — A Massive Public Health Issue
A recent BBC report highlights alarming findings from a University of West London study on parental alienation—or what many of us know as “divorce poison.” The study surveyed 1,000 young…
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Six Tips to Give Children Better Holidays
Holidays can be times of great joy when families build shared positive memories. Holidays can also be times of great stress, blues, and depression. When parents live apart from each…
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Daddy, Tell Me A Bedtime Story
Mom instilled a love of music in me at an early age. When I was three years old, she gave me a small record player with a couple of small…