Divorce: Parent Alienation

Divorce and Parent Alienation
Michelle Boyce

According to Wikipedia, Parental alienation syndrome (abbreviated as PAS) is term coined by Richard A. Gardner in the early 1980s to refer to what he describes as a disorder in which a child, on an ongoing basis, belittles and insults one parent without justification, due to a combination of factors, including indoctrination by the other parent (almost exclusively as part of a child custody dispute) and the child's own attempts to denigrate the target parent. On May 28th & 29th, 2011 in Montreal, Quebec the Canada Canadian Symposium for Parental Alienation Syndrome was held. Seven of the world’s leading experts in a PAS presented. “Any attempt at alienating the children from the other parent should be seen as a direct and willful violation of one of the prime duties of parenthood”, writes J. Michael Bone, one of the presenters.

Craig Schelske has been fighting to have increased parenting time with his children with his ex-wife, country music star and "Dancing with the Stars" contestant Sara Evans. Craig has become an advocate against parent alienation. In his words when you are the target of PAS it is, “Pain beyond anything you could have imagined”.

Brian Ludmer is a Toronto lawyer with 25 years experience in difficult custody cases compares parent alienation with the death of a child, only the child isn’t dead so it is worse. Canadians might not know it Mr. Ludmer says, but parenting is not a human right unlike in the United States. Ludmer says the enforcement of court orders and having a consistent judge working with any file will reduce the opportunity for parents to alienate children. There is no excuse for keeping a child from another parent, unless there is a Children’s Aid order in place, it is a parent’s job to make sure that access happens. Judges need to enforce these orders, with stiff financial penalties and contempt of court. Alienating parents believe that they have truth on their side and that the target parent is bad for the children. Believing that they themselves are the perfect parents not recognizing the harm they are causing their children. Experts all agree that access to both parents is required for a healthy child, but the alienating parent does not and will not recognize this fact.

Although exact statistics are unavailable, it is estimated that in as many as 20% of custody cases there is parent alienation occurring. Some of the telltale signs are the deterioration of an otherwise healthy child parent relationship post separation, children calling their parent by their first name, and being cruel and harsh when speaking of their parent. Even in child abuse situations, children tend not to exhibit these characteristics towards the abusive parent.

Brian Ludmer says we know all these things, but changes in the court system, evaluators and mental health are not moving fast enough to help these families and reduce the long term effects of PAS on children.

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