Category Archives: child trauma

Tips For Children Who Are Alienated or At Risk For Alienation

Children who feel pressured by a parent to disrespect and reject their other parent risk losing a healthy connection to both their parents. This is true whether the pressure is subtle or obvious, inadvertent or intentional. “Welcome Back, Pluto: Understanding, … Continue reading

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Why Children Take Sides Against a Parent 

  At times parents find it difficult to show patience with irrationally alienated children who act disrespectfully. To respond sensitively, parents and professionals need to understand why alienated children act as they do. Also, when alienated children themselves better understand their … Continue reading

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Blowback For Divorce Poison! Mother Jailed, Ordered to Pay $84k, and Stripped of Custody

Spain is a wonderful place to visit. World-class museums, unique architecture, distinctive cuisine. Welcoming to tourists. But not so hospitable to parents who lodge false abuse accusations to win custody. In a stunning ruling rarely seen on this side of … Continue reading

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Think an alienated child is well-adjusted? Dig deeper.

“Otherwise well adjusted.” That’s how some professionals rationalize doing nothing to help severely alienated children who reject a relationship with a good parent. If a child does well in school, enjoys extracurricular activities, and behaves well in one parent’s home, … Continue reading

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Parental Alienation’s Tragic Legacy of Shame, Guilt, & Remorse

A woman lamented to advice columnist extraordinaire, Carolyn Hax: “I’m so ashamed. I don’t even know how to make it up to my mom, who through all of this always told me she still loved me, even with all the … Continue reading

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Removal from An Alienating Parent Not a “Last Resort”

“The court must be alert to early signs of alienation. . . . It is emphatically not necessary to wait for serious, worse still irreparable, harm to be done before appropriate action is taken.” Continue reading

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Backlash Against Parental Alienation: Denial and Skepticism About Psychological Abuse

A boy wrote a letter to his mother telling her that she belonged in a mental institution, that she was nothing to him, that she was nothing but a screw-up, that she was sick, selfish, that he wanted to have … Continue reading

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Origins of Batman

In the early 1990s, after completing my first book I was eager to take a break from the world of divorce and custody research in which I had immersed myself for many years. To shift gears I gave myself a … Continue reading

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