How to tell if a child is being coached?
There are many signs, some very subtle, others not so, that a child may have been coached by a parent.
In our work with children we sometimes find for instance that there is a clear disparity between what they are saying and how they are saying it, so for example if a child verbally expresses intense fear of a parent as part of their resistance to seeing them and yet when they are reintroduced to them are comfortable being in close proximity with them or even presenting challenging behaviour, we might feel there is a bit of a ‘script’.
We hear very adult terms from young children at times, just the other day a little boy of 4 said he was “anxious” and when asked what he meant he didn’t know what the word meant.
A little girl said ‘ my dad needs anger management classes’ and she was 7 at the time and again was unaware what that actually meant.
How do you respond to parental alienation?
Alienation as a term has become a very loaded and politically sensitive term. There are pressure groups and even some academics that despite this being recognised as a form of emotional abuse by childcare experts worldwide, still deny its existence.
For those of us who have studied the emotional abuse of children and its expressions, this is difficult. We deal with its effects on families every day. Both men and women are devastated when they are rejected by their child.
As experienced therapists and family workers, we at CFS choose to avoid labelling this form of abuse as much as we can. It is not for us to ‘find’ that this is occurring, that is for the Court to determine. However we do recognise alienating behaviours and we record and evidence the harm to children from the same.
Early intervention is key and we have a particular process we use to assess and mitigate the harm. If alienation is already ‘found’ by a Court, and there is already an expert assessment, we use sensitive direct work with children but importantly we also work with the whole family to try to understand why this is happening and we can use psychoeducational techniques with parents to assist their understanding.
Post separation contact resistance isn’t only due to alienation but many of the families who are referred to us suspect that it is and some expect us to confirm this and are surprised when they are advised that the situation is actually far more complicated.
If we are presented with what looks like alienation we will undertake our own assessment and provide a detailed report setting out our concerns.
The fact that it might look like alienation doesn’t however mean it always IS alienation though…one parent was very angry with me when I pointed out that his parenting was severely lacking and he was additionally overly punitive and this is in fact what lay behind his son’s resistance to seeing him!
We will always make recommendations for further work, possibly a clinical assessment if we feel there might be severe alienation or if we suspect that a parent is unable to work with us to assist their child.
Delay should always be avoided so we allocate swiftly and we can offer very competitive timescales for reporting.
We always work as a team so we can consult with our clinical lead or a specialist colleague if we need to understand more about what might be going on in a family dynamic.
How to tell if a child is being alienated?
There are many signs.
Along with evidence of coaching, we encounter ‘black and white thinking’ which is where a child idealises one parent ( all good ) and vilifies the other ( all bad).
This child often may not be able recall ANY happy memories even though their parents were happy together for many years before separation and we will of course as part of what we do, work to adjust their perspective.
We might for instance show them a photo or a video of a holiday where they were laughing whilst playing in the sea with the rejected mum.
One child with whom we did exactly this said to us ( he was 3 when the video was made) “I was pretending, I hated it really”.
One teenage boy said to us “I hate my dad as he pushed me down the stairs when I was a year old”. He said he could remember it clearly.
There are real reasons why a child will avoid a parent, they might have experienced abuse from them, they might have witnessed parental conflict and become aligned with one parent (normally the one who they feel needs them more)…many children find it really hard to deal with separation when their parents are unable to even speak to one another.
Children and parents are complex, separation is challenging for everyone and our focus as a team is on mending fractured or damaged attachments, not on confirming a parents worst fears and offering diagnoses that they can use in litigation.
How to prove parental alienation in the UK?
If you suspect your child is being alienated from you, or have had advice that this is so, you will need evidence of their unjustifiable rejection of you along with proof of manipulative alienating behaviours by the other parent.
This, if you are making an application to the Family Court, needs to be presented in a structured, evidence-based manner to the court.
CFS and other agencies can assess and work with your family to create change. We write evidence based and professional reports which you can use to argue your case. You will also need witness statements.
As Courts focus on evidence of behaviour, not labels, you need a report that is balanced and which looks beyond the presenting behaviour and assesses holistically.
Judges also prefer a report that doesn’t just ‘report’ but which uses proper analysis, backed up by research and referencing case law where appropriate to make workable recommendations and keep the child’s best interests as the primary focus.
At CFS we consider these reports as crucially important and so we take time to write them and we also support each other in considering the best outcomes.
A thorough and competent report can assist in determining the future of your family relationships.
We see our reports as primarily for the child rather than for the Court.
Can keeping a child away from the other parent backfire?
Very much so.
Denying a child a relationship with a parent causes serious emotional damage to children including increased anxiety, depression, and substance misuse, while also leading to long-term relational damage and difficulty in forming relationships.
A quote from a Judge sums this up well…
“No matter what you think of the other party, these children are one-half of each of you. Remember that, because every time you tell your child what an ‘idiot’ his father is, or what a ‘fool’ his mother is, you are telling the child half of him is bad” (From a divorce ruling, Judge Michael Haas, MN, USA, 2001).
If you are found to be doing this and you are unable or unwilling to change this behaviour there can be legal consequences such as a Judge transferring the child’s residence if this is the only way they can be sure of having a relationship with them.
This is because alienation undermines a child’s sense of identity, disrupts their connection to family, and can (evidence tells us) lead to a backlash where the child later rejects the alienating parent.
Also, children alienated from a parent are at a significantly higher risk of alienating their own children in the future. The lack of healthy relationship models, as well as well documented and frequent struggles with emotional regulation are the reality for alienated children who go on to be parents and they are at high risk of perpetuating the patterns of manipulation and rejection they themselves experienced.
For what reasons can you stop a parent from seeing their child?
You can stop a parent from seeing their child only if the child’s safety and well-being are at risk. There ultimately needs to be proper evidence, not just a worry about risk.
If the child is being abused, neglected, harmed by substance misuse, being involved in criminal activity, or subjected to behaviour by the other parent that poses a threat to the child’s physical or emotional health then these are reasons you can restrict their contact.
In emergencies, you can act to protect the child, but you must promptly seek legal advice and potentially a court order to formalize contact restrictions and you will need to prove your actions were for the child’s protection not for any reasons to do with your relationship with the other parent.
Can I call the police if me ex won’t let me see my child?
You can but it’s probably not the best course of action. The police treat these as civil matters, not criminal ones, so contacting them could escalate the situation without resolving it. You should consider that your child may well be with the other parent when the police visit, and this is not ideal
The exception to this is if you suspect the child could have been abducted, but again, specialist legal advice is again the best option.
Is parental alienation a mental disorder?
Parental Alienation is no longer a formal diagnosis in the DSM-5, ( this is the Diagnostic Statistical Manual, which lists currently recogised mental illnesses ) though related concepts like “child affected by parental relationship distress” (CAPRD) and “psychological child abuse” are included.
Whilst parental alienation is not explicitly listed as a disorder, assessors, including psychologists and ISWs undertaking reports for the Family court, can and do refer to related relational problems or child psychological abuse within the DSM-5 when addressing these complex family dynamics.
CFS social workers are encouraged to use an analytical approach to presenting behaviours and this can include close exploration of the family background of the parents with whom we work.
We often find schisms and traumas including the existence of mental ill health or personality disorders in the childhoods of these parents. This can help us in understanding why we are encountering the issues we are seeing in the family under assessment.