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 as possible of the defendant. By doing so, they minimize their exposure to parental conflict. Both children are doing well emotionally and physically with the status quo and little or no contact with the defendant. . . . Both children have made it known emphatically that they do not wish to spend time with the defendant or attend therapy with the defendant.
Disclaimer: I have not consulted on this case and have no first-hand knowledge of the evidence the trial court considered in reaching its decision. Thus, I offer no opinion on the wisdom of the court’s decision. Instead, I take the liberty of reading between the lines of the decision to make two general points about understanding and responding to alienated children.
According to the Court, the children rejected the defendant—their mother—to alleviate the stress of being exposed to parental conflict. There is no suggestion that their mother mistreated them or that the children wanted protection from her. Rather, they chose to avoid contact with their mother to avoid witnessing parental conflict.
Something seems missing from the Court’s opinion. True, some children find it easier to take sides in their parents’ battles rather than live with the tug of an ongoing loyalty conflict. But this choice does not occur in a vacuum. Usually, multiple factors contribute to children’s decision to cut a parent out of their lives.
To name just one relevant factor: how does the parent with whom the child aligns feel about the rejection of the other parent? Does the father who has his child’s allegiance encourage the child to repair the relationship with the mother? Does the father anguish for his child over the child’s loss of a mother? Or does the father relish the situation, vindictively gleeful that his former partner suffers such pain?
Another possibility when children reject a parent is that the parent’s own behavior has driven the children away. Possibly the trial court was aware of additional factors contributing to the children’s estrangement, but did not discuss these factors in its written decision, and instead chose to focus on the estrangement as a means to avoid exposure to parental conflict.
Nevertheless, the idea that a child’s rejection of his or her mother is simply a means to alleviate stress is simplistic. There must be more going on when a child reaches such a grave decision.
My second concern about the trial court’s reasoning relates to the statement that both children, who want no contact with their mother and have no interest in improving their relationship, “are doing well emotionally.” Really? A child who loses a parent is doing well emotionally? My next Plutoverse post takes a closer look at this statement.