Comments on: Parental Alienation Syndrome

By: kathy worwood

kathy worwood — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 15:45:23 +0000

I write as an aunt to children who are and will suffer due to the crazy system in this country. I have 30 years experience in damaged children as a foster carer. My nephew’s wife left him wanting to come to london and life her dream of being a fashionista. Having married young and ended up with two children under 3 was not her ambition. I suspect she had post natal depression. However, she left husband and children emptying bank accounts including the kids, and left. Story to her parents had been she had to leave as he was a drug addict. They supported him and disowned her when truth came out and she had not taken children with her. Story moves on. SHe discovered she could not live on benefits and had no true talent so gave up art college and moved in with a man it transpired she had been meeting from FB when she had been with children. He encouraged her to demand children. Seemed to be when she realised who had kids got more rights over the home. My nephew meanwhile was in dept, made redundant due to time off work when kids ill. He had encouraged her to see kids often pushing hard for this. Story moves on. When he went to court for a residency order as he got fed up of demands about house and money [she having to pay maintenance to him] and him being told she would get kids anyway. SO bewing depressed and promised she would not seek money and allow him the same access she was now having he agreed. Once she got kids she put in for maintainance using kids to make demands about sale of house etc. Not accepting current market reason not selling. He only got access during mediation and once that stopped she went back to using kids to get at him. COntrolled by the man she lived with. They tried to get house by moving back to small village but nephew would not move out until legally sorted out so they then returned to London. Kids disrupted yet again. His son has had operations without him being told. Contact usually when it suits her as she wont commit to regular contact so kids feel secure. Older child now showing mega signs of issues, self harming, begging not to go back to mum etc. SHe would hand over in old clothiing, once even without coats, to make point he was not paying maintenance. {he had no money as not working, trying to not get house repossessed etc. SHe would hand over kids to him with him funding transport to then have to hand them over to her parents, then got told he could have them, usually when she wanted them returned to london as his expense like a taxi. He loves his kids so he let it all happen.

Then they stopped him seeing kids after one awful return when 5 year old ran away screaming he did not want to go to mummy, his grandma got involved with boyfriend and result was he was not allowed to see them. He went to court for a custody order asking for residency and concerns about children welfare. He ended up with supervised contact and we are nearly a year on and it seems CAFCAS beleives all she says, despite a supervision report which states what a wonderful dad he is and makes clear who is bad mouthing who by reporting things the children said that were observed. Yet he has got the 2 hours extended to 4 increasing to 6 hours fortnightly with hand over no longer supervisedd. Not allowed to see on birthday weekend of daugter but given a tuesday instead. No allowance for it meaning missed day at work. A 5 hour car trip for each visit that mum insists starts at 10am. No visit on fathers day. Objection to him taking children to local park or shopping center in case children seen by their friends as they are known as a family and boyfriend does not want kids heard calling their father daddy. He insists they call him dad and tried to get them to refer to their father by his christian name. Older child said” daddy you are still my real daddy arnt you”. Not allowed to see grandma or parental family for a further month. They are forgetting who we all are. DISCUSTING.

By: Deysi

Deysi — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 04:30:07 +0000

The most frequent comment readers make to me is that they are stunned at how much the situations described in Divorce Poison match their own. I don’t think it is likely that your wife’s former husband used my book as a manual to alienate the children. Instead, I think what is going on is that parents who dispense divorce poison do so in very similar ways. But, it is certainly possible that reading Divorce Poison will help an alienating parent anticipate the arguments you will make to the court. Using this knowledge a parent could try to fool the court about what is going on. But, I don’t think my book is needed for this. Here is an example of a manipulation designed to mislead the court about a child’s alienation. Shortly before a case goes to trial, a child who has been hateful and completely out of contact with a parent suddenly reaches out to the parent, asks to meet with them, and pretends to have a reasonably good time with the parent. This allows the alienating parent to claim that the child is not truly alienated and thus the court should empower the child to determine if and when future parent-child contacts take place. If the Judge interviews the children, the children are prepared to say they love the rejected parent, but they just are not ready to be with that parent. Judges who are educated about the psychology of alienated children will see through these manipulations.I know that it is very frustrating to parents when evaluators and Guardians ad Litem fail to do an effective job. It may seem to you like they are deliberately messing up. In my experience, though, most professionals are trying to do their job well and are not merely seeking to keep cases in court to continue to earn money from the case. Every field has unscrupulous people. Psychologists and attorneys are no exception. But, when GALs fail to take effective action to bring resolution to a case that involves allegations of alienation, usually it is because they do not know what to do. In some of these cases, even when the court finds that a child’s rejection of a parent is not in the child’s best interests, the court is unsure about how to safely and effectively resolve the situation.

By: Carola

Carola — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 19:15:50 +0000

In Sept 2006 my son (then 7) confided in me that his brother’s dad had been hitting him because he wet the bed. My first instinct was to confront the man in question with serious violence, however I did “the right thing” and contacted social services. As a result they contacted her and closed the case. As punishment, my sons mother denied me access for over 2 months until he ran away from her house to come and see me. He was found by British Transport Police at his local train station and returned home; this happened to be the catalyst that social services needed to act. They investigated and found that his mothers partner was actually wanted by the police, however they were not allowed to enter the property to check on the children without adequate police protection, something they had trouble organising.Over the next few weeks I had limited contact with Islington SS who told me they would be seeking an Interim care order, described as a first step towards getting his mother the help she needed. I was told the day before the court case and assured that I dont need to attend.Being a suspicious person I contacted a solicitor who informed me that it was imperative that I attend and was able to meet me at court the next morning.After a full day (10.am- 6.30pm) of fighting tooth and nail I was granted temporary custody of my son while his younger half brother was placed in temporary foster care.Thus began a year long court battle. Even though I had stated from the start that if my son wanted to return home and his mother was able to provide a safe environment for him then I would be more than willing to support his decision, I was subjected to false claims and attacks by both his mother and Islington SS. During the course of the proccedings I was forced to drop out of university, give up my job and finally leave my family home as the pressure on myself and my partner was far too great. We were investigated for a number of outlandish claims; all of which fell at the first hurdle but had the effect of ruining our relationship.At the end of the procceding I was given PR and his mother was given a 1yr supervision order.Fast forward to Dec 2010.My son was due to come to me the second week in Dec but his mother spend 4hrs creating excuses and wasting time. As a result the table I had booked for dinner had to be cancelled and I was less than pleased. I sent her a message to show my displeasure (not at all abusive as I am very wary of what I say or send to her), she responded by refusing me access.So now here we are; I have not seen my son for almost 2 months, his christmas presents are STILL stood in the corner of my living room, I am not allowed to speak to him on the phone or in person, I have only managed to speak to his mother once since this began (3days ago), my daughter is in pieces because she wants to see her big brother and now knows he will not be attending her birthday party tomorrow.I dont want to return to court but what can I do? My partner is pregnant and due mid Februaury, I know I cant spend another year in court and I know it will affect my son more than anything, however I know I have no choice.When he was 7months old his mother left us for a year, one of the best periods of my life as we were allowed to bond fantastically. Since then I have him every weekend and all through the holidays, apart from the occasions where his mother has tried to flex her parental muscles. I love him so much and I just want to see him. How can one selfish b***h affect so many lives without even thinking. I want to give up as i just dont have the energy but I know i never will.When family courts and SS are held accountable we will start to see positive changes in our children, from education to crime. As it stands I believe they actively encourage and support certain mothers to disrupt the lives of their children with the result that the amount of children in care is constantly swelling- I should know, I work with young offenders and children who are failing in education. Can you guess what ties the majority of them together?

By: Colin Reed

Colin Reed — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:43:30 +0000

I am a seperated father of 8 months who has a son J (10) and 2 stepdaughters E(15) L(17) , having tried unsuccessfully to gain access on many occasions, and was gobsmacked at the behaviour that was being shown from the children suddenly refusing to talk to me and exhibiting signs of being alienated from me, i have had difficulty acquiring a solicitor as this was a cross border dispute, my family being in Scotland and I in England, it seems that Solicitors don’t like dealing with scottish law after eventually acquiring a solicitor, i was told that i would have to go through the routine of applying by letter, the time that for a solicitor to act on my behalf was disgusting as i knew that every day the kids were slowly turning against me, it is now at the point that L does not want anything to do with me and E and J go through patterns of not wanting to talk to me and i am currently unable to contact E and J, its only a matter of time that the relationship will be destroyed totally