This year the UK looks set to follow the USA and have a Parental Alienation Awareness Day on April 25 to highlight the issue and help prevent psychological harm to children.
What is parental alienation?
Parental alienation is when, following divorce or separation, a child, for no good reason, rejects one parent as a result of the influence, either conscious or subconscious, of another.
Every divorcing or separating parent should know about parental alienation. It’s emotional abuse.
We wish to raise awareness of it before cases reach the courtroom and to highlight the issue to ensure parents can identify and catch it in its early stages, so children aren’t fully alienated.
The English legal system is only just starting to get to grips with the concept.
We’d rather it didn’t reach the court and could be resolved before this to reduce the damage it can cause between parents and children.
With time, parental alienation can lead to a child falsely accusing the rejected parent of harming them.
It results in the child becoming psychologically ‘split’. This is when they perceive one parent is all good and the other all bad.
These are some of the most difficult cases around and they need careful and sensitive handling.
Parents need the right expert advice and assistance from barristers, but also therapists and psychologists.
If left to continue, it can cause severe emotional harm to a child and this can be difficult to repair.
Recently there was a case at Bristol Family Court showing how difficult it can be to transfer residence once a child is fully alienated.
While parental alienation is now being recognised and understood in our legal system, it’s just the beginning.
Identifying a child’s behaviour as parental alienation can be an uphill struggle. It is key to tackle it early with the right legal and therapeutic input.
Once parental alienation is recognised
Once recognised, you then have to convince the judge on the right course of action to help your child.
You also probably have to convince a Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) officer and the other parent too.
Your child will probably require therapy to help them process and understand the alienation. Using the wrong therapist for your child can worsen the alienation. You therefore need expert legal advice on how to address this issue.
We advise and represent parents in cases of parental alienation. We can help explain to other professionals, and the judge, what is happening and how to try to resolve it.
Contact us today to find out how we can help you.