Are your kids suffering from parental alienation syndrome?

It’s only natural for children to love their parents. When you’re a child, “mom and dad” are the centers of your universe and you look up to them as heroes. While it’s natural for children to see the “humanness” of their parents as they grow older in incremental ways, it’s not natural for children to judge and disconnect from their mothers and fathers.

However, when one parent interferes with the other parent’s relationship with the children, it can result in parental alienation syndrome. This syndrome, identified by a child psychologist in the 1980s, refers to what happens when one parent paints a bad negative image of the other parent to their children.

Why does parental alienation happen?

It’s a tragic realization, but humans are prone to acting in very embarrassing and destructive ways. This is especially true when a love relationship goes sour. Perhaps, one parent decides to leave the other parent and get a divorce. Or, maybe one parent cheats on the other parent with a secret affair. It’s not uncommon for parents to lose their love for one another — or for one parent to do so — and for things like this to happen in a marriage.

In most cases, parents who decide to go their separate ways can do so peacefully, but in certain circumstances the divorce will turn ugly and one or both parents will wage battle. When the battle field extends into the children — due to one or both parents’ desire to speak badly of the other parent to the children — it has dreadful consequences. This kind of behavior can destroy a child’s sense of confidence while alienating him or her from one or both of the parents.

Is your ex-spouse alienating your child from you?

Psychologists suspect that parents who engage in tactics to alienate their children from the other spouse suffer from borderline and narcissistic tendencies. However, there really is no excuse for this kind of behavior.

If the other parent of your child is trying to alienate your child from you, the law may be on your side. By taking appropriate action in court, a New York family law judge may seek to intervene and organize child custody in such a way to protect your parental relationship with your child.