Recently a client complained that she thought her husband was turning their children against her. Over the course of several months since the couple separated, whenever the children returned from a visit with their father, she said they seemed angry and were physically and verbally abusive toward her. She felt as if her relationship with the children was steadily deteriorating. She felt helpless and confused. Does this scenario seem familiar to you? What my client, and perhaps even you, experienced is called "Parental Alienation" or "Parental Alienation Syndrome".

Parental alienation is any behavior by a parent, either the mother or father, whether conscious or unconscious, that could create alienation in the relationship between a child and the other parent. This behavior can be mild and temporary or extreme and ongoing. Parental alienation is harmful to both the child and the target parent and can leave long-lasting emotional wounds. It is one of the top tricks and threats used by an angry parent against the other in a divorce situation.

Equally harmful and devastating, parental alienation syndrome is a disturbance in which children are preoccupied with deprecation and criticism of a parent. This denigration is unwarranted or exaggerated.

To prevent and stop alienation, you must first learn to recognize the three types of alienators. The symptoms and strategies for combating each type are different. Na�ve alienators are parents who are passive about the children's relationship with the other parent but who will sometimes do or say something to alienate. All parents occasionally fall into this category. Active alienators know better than to alienate, but their intense hurt and anger cause them to impulsively lose control over their behavior or what they say. Often, the active alienator feels very guilty about how they behaved.

Obsessed alienators, on the other hand, have a mission to destroy the target parent. This type of behavior is extreme and emotionally poisonous. An obsessed alienator will try to rewrite family history and brainwash the children. They employ such tactics as character assassination of the other parent, false inducement of fear, incitement of shame and the deliberate denigration of the children's relationship with the target parent.

There are no winners when one parent alienates the children against the other. Parental alienation forces children to take sides and become allies against the other parent. Such behavior is never in the best interests of the children. In fact, children caught in the middle suffer severe losses of love, respect and peace in their formative years. Sometimes the child will lose the alienated parent forever and undergo terrible emotional trauma.

Alienated parents often suffer heartbreaking loss of their children through no fault of their own. In addition, they often face false accusations from their alienated children that they choose not to counter with the true facts. Sometimes the parents are powerless to show that this cruel and covert aggression is even occurring or has occurred.

Divorce is never easy on children but if you are dealing with a spouse who you suspect is alienating your children against you - don't just sit back - TAKE ACTION AND DO SOMETHING! Educate yourself on parental alienation, meet with an attorney who has experience in this area, talk to a therapist to prepare yourself emotionally, get counseling for your children, get the court system involved and request a Guardian Ad Litem be assigned to your case. BE PROACTIVE and call us to learn how you can successfully deal with your ex-spouse to minimize the emotional damage and restore a healthy relationship with your children.

Twice in the past four months I have had to defend false accusations of abuse in child custody proceedings. While it is understood how both judges and the Courts choose to "err on the side of caution," refusing to grant an "accused" any parenting time with the child is a hard pill to swallow - after all, aren't we supposed to be innocent until proven guilty?

Using false accusations of abuse to gain an advantage in child custody proceedings is a horrible thing to do to a child; it's one of the top threats and tricks between angry litigants. False accusations should be taken very seriously by the Courts, and should be viewed as strong evidence that a parent has little concern for the child's mental well-being, and cares even less about the child's relationship with the other parent.

While both mothers and fathers have brought false abuse allegations in divorce proceedings, mothers seem to be more likely to be believed. In one noteworthy case I read, a young child told her father of improper touching by a babysitter, and he reported the allegations to the authorities. When social workers investigated, the mother accused the father of molesting the daughter. These accusations resulted in a long legal battle, where the father had to fight for even limited access to his daughter. During the father's four-year legal battle, the mother was diagnoses as mentally ill, and was temporarily institutionalized. When social workers wrote their report fretting that the father might gain custody as a result of the hospitalization, the Court dug deeper and eventually found the charges were false.

Historically, parents who complained of false accusations were ignored. However, recent studies illustrate how common false allegations are. In Canada, an analysis of child abuse allegations revealed that 60 percent of accusations were related to marital breakup and two-thirds of those cases found no evidence of any abuse.

If you face false accusations of abuse, you are likely to face a costly and difficult legal battle. The most rewarding part of my representation in these matters is when the judge begins to see the lack of credibility of the parent making the false allegations and begins turning the case around in favor of my client. My advice to clients is that, in the end, the truth always prevails. If you're stuck in the middle of a baseless allegation of abuse, it is strongly recommended that you obtain the assistance of an attorney who has experience fighting this long battle.

Once a Guardian Ad Litem has been assigned to your case, find out in advance what the evaluator's procedures will be so that you can prepare yourself emotionally as well as with any collateral information you wish to introduce into the evaluation. An example of such information is a list of people with whom you'd like the evaluator to speak. Once you know what to expect, you will be more comfortable with the process. Generally, evaluations will consist of some combination of the following:

• Meeting with each parent and each child alone to learn family history, individual developmental histories, concerns, and desires for the outcome of the dispute, strengths and weaknesses and how each parent thinks about the child individually.

• Observing parent and child interactions to ascertain their relationship. The evaluator often makes observations in each home so that the child is comfortable and the situation is as realistic as can be given the anxiety-filled circumstances.

• Speaking with others who know the parties, especially the children.

• Psychological assessment using standardized and open-ended questionnaires.

• Assessing extended family and community networks of family members through discussion with family members, community sources and/or observation.

  The methods used in an evaluation are designed to provide the Court with information it needs to determine a child's best interests when the parents cannot make the decisions for themselves. The concept of child custody evolved over the years from a presumption in favor of fathers to one in favor of mothers throughout the 1800's, with the term "Best Interests of the Child" introduced in 1881. In response to changing social conditions that have brought more parity in social roles between men and women, gender is no longer viewed as the basis for deciding child custody.

  Judges now give different weight to several factors that have been delineated as important. The Court will consider any and all of the following factors: the quality of the emotional ties between each parent and child, the capacity of each parent to love, educate, guide and raise the child; the capacity of each parent to provide food, clothes and medical care; each parent's special abilities and particular disabilities, the psychological functioning and developmental needs of the child, whether you're dealing with an angry child, the child's need for stability and continuity with regard to past living conditions, the parent's values regarding parenting, the potential for inappropriate behavior or misconduct that might negatively influence a child, a parent's capacity to encourage the other parent's relationship with the child and the wishes of the child when the child is of sufficient age to articulate a well-reasoned preference.
  

When a client comes into our offices asking me about whether he or she should file for sole custody, it always makes me skeptical right from the start. Is this parent truly acting in the best interest of the child or are they acting in their own best interest by trying to get more child support?

Other attorneys may advise their clients to do this, but it often only makes the situation worse. Moreover, getting your children from Friday night to Saturday evening isn't how to define a weekend. A weekend should be Friday after school until Monday morning before school (I'm a proponent of using school or other neutral spots as pick-up and drop-off points as it eliminates the issue of contact between contentious parties). You really need enough days to allow a smooth transition between homes and have the children get comfortable and spend regular time. Many of the judges we appear before are finally recognizing that blocks of time are needed to parent a child. Hours of time are not enough. So make sure the judge gives you enough time with your children and forget about the label of sole custody versus shared parenting time.