As reported on 8 July, 2015 in Fox 2 News in Detroit, USA and 24 July 2015 in the Huffington Post, a US judge ordered adolescent and teenage children into juvenile ‘care’ for refusing to spend time with their alienated father, despite such contact being ordered by the court. In preceding hearings spanning at least 5 years, the father fought for the children’s rights and need to have him in their lives despite seemingly implacable opposition from his ex-wife.
Some would argue that the children were being punished for the behaviour of their parents, that sending them into care discounts the children’s views and violates their sense of agency and that the children cannot be ‘ordered ‘ into having a loving relationship. Furthermore, the children’s resistance is justified by their claims that they were exposed to family violence.
Proponents of parental alienation would argue that the children are not mature enough to act in their own best interest and are not authentic in their views of their father noting that an alienating parent and an alienating environment has shaped their views of him.
Furthermore, that allowing them to unreasonably and irrationally reject a good-enough parent is tantamount to colluding with child abuse and the children should not be in the position where the only way to have a loving relationship with one parent is to vilify the other.
This raises questions in the context of Australian family law, which emphasises the children’s ‘best interests’ often as represented by the children themselves. This is especially the case for adolescents and teenagers who can be most articulate about their parents and their preferred living arrangements.
The situation in the USA is generically known here in Australia, as ‘contact refusal’. The experience of many rejected parents in Australia is that their children’s views are given credibility regardless of how the children formed them. In particular, unsubstantiated claims of family violence might be accepted as grounds for the children’s own ‘realistic estrangement’ instead of alienation (Kelly, J. B., & Johnston, J. R. 2001). Children making such claims would not be sent to ‘juvi’ and would be unlikely to have a relationship with their ‘good enough’ rejected parent.
Two cases illustrate a conundrum that Australian family law might face in such a situation. In one case involving parental alienation, His Honour, Benjamin, J. in Irish & Michelle [2009] FamCA 66 ruled that the children’s views were “orchestrated” and ordered the children to receive psychological care and be predominantly cared for by their father.
Yet in the other parental alienation case, Wang & Dennison (No 2) [2009] FAMCA 1251, His Honour, Bennet, J. ruled that the children’s views were deemed credible despite the fact that “the mothers past actions have decimated the girls relationship with the father”. His Honour ordered the children into shared care but to live with the mother.
This suggests a formulation of parental rejection and parental alienation where the role of a perpetrating, alienating parent is not seen as the starting point for considering the children’s views but rather the children views and behaviours alone are the primary focus. This model conforms to the ‘alienated child’ formulation developed by Kelly, J. B., & Johnston, J. R. (2001).
Using this formulation could lead to the circular argument that the children develop behaviour and views that are accepted as authentic, plausible and reasonable in an alienating environment that predisposes exactly the opposite.
In an alienating environment, children are susceptible to formulating baseless views of a formerly beloved parent that the child then asserts they formed independently, and which are then accepted as such. It seems plausible that this was the case in Wang & Dennison (No 2) [2009] FAMCA 1251, where His Honour, Bennet, J. ruled that the children’s views were deemed credible, despite their exposure to alienating processes.
This is consistent with the work of Gardner, (1985), Clawar & Rivlin, (2013), Lorandos, Bernet, & Sauber, (2013); Warshak, (2010a), who described how children sometimes make up false allegations regarding the rejected parent in the context of parental alienation.
The bottom line is that children’s views in a context of the emotionally coercive nature of an alienating parent cannot be taken as ipso facto authentic. The missing link in Australia is the acceptance of the cause-and–effect between exposure to an alienating environment and parental rejection. The deliberate rupture of a child’s relationship with a loving parent regardless of the child’s views is child abuse and that children’s testimony cannot be presumed as authentic under such circumstances.
This does not mean that the views of adolescents and teenagers in particular should be dispensed with, especially in the context of allegations of family violence. However, this does mean that children’s views need to be carefully examined in the light of other contextual material and as part of a forensic process, rather than simply assumed to be true-or false.
STOP PRESS
In the latest development reported in the Detroit Free Press on 11 August 2015, the US judge in this matter has now ordered the father and the children into the evidence based Family Bridges parent-child reunification programme.
References
· Baker. A. J. (2007). Breaking The Ties That Bind: Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome. New York USA. W.W Norton & Company.
· Baker. A. J, Sauber, R.S. (2013). Working with Alienated Children and Families: A Clinical Guidebook. New York. USA. Routledge
· Baker, A.J, Bone, M.J, Ludmer, B. (2014). The High Conflict Custody Battle: Protect Yourself and Your Kids From a Toxic Divorce, False Accusations and Parental Alienation. USA. Harbinger Publications.
· Clawar, S. S., & Rivlin, B. V. (2013). Children held hostage: Identifying brainwashed children, presenting a case, and crafting solutions (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: American Bar Association.
· Kelly, J. B., & Johnston, J. R. (2001). The Alienated Child: a Reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome. Family Court Review, 39(3), 249-266.
· Lorandos.D, Bernet.W, Sauber R.S, (2013). Parental Alienation: The Handbook for Mental Health and Legal Professionals. Springfield. Illinois: Charles.C. Thomas Publishers
· Warshak, D. R. A. (2010). Divorce Poison: How to Protect Your Family from Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing. New York: Harper Collins.
Some valid recognition on the perspective and effect of parental alienation has been made here, however:
Often the father will be seen as ‘not good enough’ as a parent, because it is almost impossible for a father to provide a nurturing relationship to a child that fears or is alienated from the father.
It seems that from age 7 on the child’s views become increasingly important in determination of who will care for the child. The child is provided with legal representation if it is deemed necessary to supporting the child’s own view of the child’s best interest.
Emotional abuse perpetrated by a parent on a child, in the form of ‘Brain Washing’ the child might be too difficult to determine and when the emotional abuse is perpetrated mostly by the mother against the father, then this form of domestic violence is just not recognised as it is too difficult to substantiate. It should be noted that statistical analysis is not kept or available to support this view in Australia.
Alienation may be done on purpose but more likely it is the development of a primary attachment to one parent over another coupled with the morphing of negative perspectives of the other partner by the child. For example, in a society where a female often speaks about being disempowered by life’s chances and needing to care for a child as the primary care giver, the situation is unlikely to improve.
Institutional care of children is not the answer. Forcing children to live with a father is not the answer. Telling males they need to control anger is not the answer. The answer would mostly be found in providing assistance to fathers to provide a nurturing space, to support fathers to have the time to meet parental responsibilities and to assist and teach fathers to have equal emotional and physical bonding and attachment to their children. Surrogacy suggests that the maternal bond can no longer be used as an excuse for selective parenting plans adopted under ‘best interest of the child’ principles.
Of course every aspect of this conversation is subject to the parent actually wanting to participate in developing a nurturing and caring relationship with the child. It is unfortunate that the damage has already been done by the time parental alienation is recognised as happening. The result is that children who live in this condition may develop mental health conditions as a way of coping with their confused state. The prognosis is that the mental health of these children will continue into adulthood and further perpetuate a cycle of alienation with the birth of children to these parents. This very much appears to be a symptom of sickness in an affluent society where the values and achievements of children and parents are often judged and compared whereas in many other societies just surviving strengthens the attachment to available care givers.
Maternal Bonds being used… Sorry about that it’s nothing personal but after having this little person grow in you for 40 weeks it’s kind of not an excuse.. Teaching, learning emotions.. is that possible.. Slightly sexist
In the Wang and Dennison case referred to the trial Judge Her Honour Bennett J commented that ‘it is a sad fact in the family law that a determination which is most consistent with the best interests of the children can appear to reward bad behavior’ justifying it on the basis of what is in the best interests of the children is most important.
If you were to broaden the definition of Children in the Family Law Act to include all children in Australia and not just the children of the case under examination then any decision that appeared to reward bad behaviour could not be made.
When you consider that the failure of any reforms of the Family Law Act to ensure that Children spend lots of time with both parents have failed it is likely that the same fate would happen to this possible reform option.
It seems a strange sophistry that a Judge might find it ‘sad’ rather than outrageously unjust, oppressive and a flagrant abuse that in pursuit of the paramount child’s ‘best interest’ a judge finds themselves in the invidious position of validating the exact injustice, oppression and abuse that is purportedly in the child’ best interest yet is inimical to it.
This is truly a bizarre paradox, the fatal injustice of which seems to have escaped society at large.
I just cannot think of a better way for parents to lose all faith in the family law system when it rewards the abuser and places the child in the abusive situation the law so desperately seeks to ameliorate.
In 2014/2015 years 20,397 applications were filed in the Family Court of Australia yet only 1,519 first instance judgements were published.
http://www.familycourt.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/fcoaweb/reports-and-publications/annual-reports/2014-15/2014-15-annual-report-part1
So this means that more than 92 % of agreements reached and decisions made were not published. Therefore looking at the published decisions gives you a very unrepresentative sample of Family Court outcomes.
I discussed the subject of Parental Alienation with my Court Psychologist after she had retired from many years of Family Court work. She advised me that if Court proceedings continue over children then the Court will inevitabley place the children in the care of the alienator in all cases. This tells me that the judgements the court publishes are selective and not the final stage where they make orders totally shutting out one parent from a child’s life.
I am sure that any study interviewing retired Court Psychologists could yield far more meaningful information than can be gleaned from published Family Court cases.