When one parent intentionally, pathologically, and deceitfully sabotages a child’s relationship with the other parent, they commit the abomination of parental alienation.

Motivations for Alienation
All-encompassing unforgiveness can trap innocent children within a labyrinth of loss and alienation from their father (or their mother). Instances of alcohol, drug, emotional, physical, sexual, and/or verbal abuse can fuel fires of legitimate enmity. If putting children in harm’s way is even a remote possibility, caretakers and the family court system must keep children safe. Conversely, in cases where the other parent is equipped, engaged, present, loving, and pose zero danger, parental alienation is psychological child abuse.

New Moms
Sometimes, parents break up before children are born or while they are still babies. Unless mom is abusive, the biological needs of a newborn typically trump concerns of mild paternal alienation or partial rejection. As children grow, every competent human knows that they live their best lives with healthy guidance from two well-equipped parents. Virtuous mothers who truly care about their children’s best interests eventually have an epiphany and stop preventing good fathers from being involved. With the passage of time, antagonistic co-parenting attitudes tend to subside, and divisiveness can be replaced with normalcy.

The Evolution of Parental Alienation
What begins as mild or moderate alienation can escalate in severity until children are poisoned to totally reject the other parent. When the commitment to nuclear hatred is prioritized over a child’s best interests, short-term psychological damage contaminates the innocence of youth. Long-term consequences almost always undermine a child’s mental health, well into adulthood.

Younger children lack the life experience and emotional intelligence to recognize when toxic efforts are disrupting their relationship with dad (or mom). The catastrophe of parental alienation leads to deeply embedded trust issues, setting children up to be indefinitely repressed by an avalanche of emotional problems. In disrupting one of a child’s two primary bonds, the alienating parent introduces loyalty conflict.

One day, as victimized children develop critical thinking and logical reasoning skills, they’ll see the hollow falsity of the make-believe cloud cast over the targeted parent by the alienating parent. When this happens, the child carries with them for the rest of their life a sense of severe betrayal—the alienating parent often incurs the wrath of their own divisiveness. By imprinting pain and loss into the conscious and subconscious of innocent children, everyone loses.

Mental Illness & Teaching Hatred
Teaching children to hate is counterintuitive to any normally thinking human. Parents who instigate alienation commonly suffer from one or more mental illnesses. Children are the greatest victims; seeds of hatred sprout damaged trees. While people who live healthy lives tend to adjust to a post-breakup life normally, people who struggle with mental instability are more likely to diabolically manipulate children.

Children Lose an Entire Extended Family
Often, parental alienation ostracizes an entire extended family. As family court systems allow one parent to interfere with the familial bonds of an innocent child, the otherwise healthy roots of the youngster’s bloodline continuously deteriorate. What sin has a 90-year-old great-grandparent committed for an alienating parent to feel virtuous about severing generational connections between a child’s past and their future? When the love of an extended family is chopped away, children often trade feelings of love and belongingness for identity conflict and shallow (or empty) roots. Deep-seated trust issues are a foregone conclusion. The longer hatred persists, the more difficult the consequences are to reverse. If it goes on too long, consequences may become irreversible.

The Problem with GALs & Family Court Attorneys
Guardian ad litems (GALs) are attorneys who are brought into family court cases by other attorneys to advocate for children’s best interests. Oftentimes, hearsay can blur the lines of what is truly best for children. If one parent is alienated, the involvement of a GAL seldom helps break the alienation cycle. GAL recommendations rarely deviate from status quo custodial arrangements, actively protecting the interests of the alienating parent.

Meanwhile, the alienating parent’s attorney is intent on helping their client “win,” often deploying strategies to encourage ongoing alienation in pursuit of “victory.” Satan has reserved one of the hottest sections in hell for unscrupulous family court attorneys.

How to Remedy
While alienated parents understandably harbor resentment towards their ex, the path towards healing is best illuminated with a forgiving heart. By perpetually waving a white flag, alienated parents can show love, hopeful that common sense prevails, and the alienating parent chooses to lift the curse of darkness. No resolution is healthier for children than when an amicable co-parenting relationship is embraced by both parents.

To the extent this does not happen, the alienated parent can either fight or quit. Either way, children lose more precious time. Wars of attrition are waged for months or even years, but eventually, with total commitment, money, and luck, the reunification process can begin. To uncover and resolve the parental alienation pathology, two experts are needed: 1) a world-class attorney and 2) an experienced and trustworthy mental health professional. With the right players in these roles and excellent documentation of all relevant details, a compelling argument can be made to prove that alienation is occurring. To overturn the status quo, judges need evidence.

Although children may never fully recover from parental alienation, three specific interventions must be proposed and adopted. 1) The alienating behavior must cease, 2) the alienating parent must commit to individual therapy, and 3) the rejected parent and children must undergo reunification therapy.

Summary
Sadly, and easier said than done, the best approach for a targeted parent is to consistently offer respect, love, and forgiveness to the alienating parent with the hopes that healing energies will impart the peace and goodness needed to start dissolving the hatred. Alternatively, battles rage in family courtrooms across North America, and children are the biggest losers. In some family court systems, quid pro quo runs rampant among court officers; this corruption handcuffs judges from making rulings that align with a child’s best interests. Judges are only human and can be easily swayed by an alienating parent’s disingenuous legal strategy, where seeds of darkness can be planted by crooked attorneys and nurtured by GAL incompetence. Worst of all, when alienation is missed or dismissed, the wrong parent is labeled as the culprit, and custody is granted to the parent who is guilty of psychological child abuse.

“Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God. For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the Lord. Instead, “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.” Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.”
—Romans 12:19-21 NLT