How are parents put into a terrible position of saving one child over another? That is Parental Alienation at work when one sibling alienates another. An alienated or excluded parent then has to choose whom to save.
Several times now clients have presented me with extreme situations where they are tenuously holding onto a relationship with their younger child whilst their older child is not only alienated from them but is actively working on their younger sibling to prevent them having a relationship with them, the alienated parent.
Imagine what such a situation is like for a young child to not only be under pressure from the alienating parent but to also be pressured by their siblings!
In several cases on which I have consulted, the only option available was to slaughter a sacred family law cow and split the siblings.
I have only come across one family report so far where a family consultant was prepared to recommend that the siblings be split apart on the basis that the alienating siblings were endangering the others. In many cases family consultants rather than assess parental alienation instead ‘blame the victim’ and assess that the alienated or excluded parent has contributed to their own alienation. They then make the easier recommendation that the ‘status quo’ be maintained, sometimes recommending that older siblings be allowed to make their own choice about spending time with their alienated parent! I think you can guess what decision they usually make
What is going on to allow such an extreme situation? What makes our family law system so helpless that they simply give up when a family becomes ‘too hard’, effectively turning a blind eye to child abuse?
Most of the major researchers of Parental Alienation such as Baker. Amy.J, Warshak.R, Reay.K, et.al report on unconditional, reflexive support of the alienating parent as a key characteristic of alienated children. Adolescents and teenagers are at particular risk because their developmental stage leads them towards developing their own identity and makes them inclined towards black and white judgments.
Alienating parents can manipulate their older children into an emotionally dependent relationship with them. Essentially, an alienating parent co-creates a false or delusional reality and identity between them and the children in which boundaries between parent and child are blurred, at a crucial time in the child’s identity formation. This process is called “narcissistic inflation” (Childress.C).
I have observed that older alienating siblings are committed alienators and provide effective cover for the real alienator-the parent. This can fool family consultants who are unfamiliar with Parental Alienation. They then see the children as manifesting the symptoms of a dysfunctional family system, rather than identifying that they are perpetrating the abusive work of an alienating parent. This requires forensic psychology worthy of the most twisted Agatha Christie crime thriller to uncover.
Alienated parents have little option but to confront the awful reality that they have to make a ‘lifeboat’ decision, the ‘lifeboat decision to save the children they can and let the others go.
enlightment says
Sibling alienation is Abuse. it is a continuum of parental alienation. A fitting reference from dictionary definition vocalulary.com is: ‘a continuum is something that keeps ongoing over time. the continuum of events occurring in succession, leading from the past to the present and into the future’. to my understanding Sibling abuse is any form Verbal Emotional Physical or sexual abuse of one child by a sibling. sibling abuse is just as serious as parent/child abuse and causes a great deal of harm to the child and the damaging effects often extend long into adulthood.(from John Caffaro PHD in his book on Sibling abuse Trauma assessment & intervention strategies.) In my family, I am an alienated mother, with four of my six adult children, alienating and excluding their elder brother and sister because of their unconditional and reflexive support they have given me and for standing up and saying NO to family violence. As their mother I have witnessed the abuse and it has caused so many traumas and suffering to all my children, with long term psychological scars. On the basis of this knowledge of the harmful effects of sibling abuse I applaud the family consultant in their approach to child welfare practice and policy. In their assessment and intervention, that the siblings be split apart on the basis that alienating siblings were endangering others. Shine the light on sibling abuse, for in many instances sibling abuse id disregarded or goes unnoticed without any adult or legal intervention. I believe if my children had had unconditional and reflective support with early family interventions 14yrs ago, my now adult children would be able to use discernment, to see and understand the dynamics of alienation and to make informed decisions on how to have a healthy sibling relationship.
Stan says
The situation you describe is awful. You and the children who supported you have paid a high price yet have gained so much by standing true to yourselves. Your other children have allowed themselves to be harmed and injured by effectively colluding with the perpetrator. Without realising what they have done, they are morally sanctioning the abuse perpetrated against you and their siblings. This is the confused moral compass that alienated children are sometimes left with. This is why we so often say in family violence settings that the best thing you can do is to leave not just because you may need to in order to save your own life but in order to save the moral lives of your children whether they support you or reject you. You have to make it unacceptable to be treated in this way and this is what you did. It was the best thing you could have done for your children-even if it meant they are lost to you.
This is a major issue with sibling alienation; that the alienated child is no longer distinguishable from the alienating parent. This is why they can become such fanatical acolytes of the AlienatingParents.
I agree with you that interventions are often inadequate or too late. I have seen too many situations now where alienating children are set up in positions of power by our family law system when they are no more than teenagers or even adolescents. I do appreciate what a tall order it is for a family consultant to recognise the family has been totally destroyed and that they have to save those who can be saved. This means that the children may have to be split apart for their own salvation. This is a very difficult assessment to make, one I had to make all by myself because there was no family consultant with the courage to do it. Indeed, I see the courage with which you have had to find in yourself, when you were all alone.
Marieanne says
I stayed with my ex husband for 22 years. Behind my back his mother and he had run me down to my children. I knew my husband was abusive and aggressive, but he always had excuses for his problems and a way of making me feel sorry for him. What I had no way of knowing was that he and his mother where systematically destroying the children of the family and destroying me (destroying me he and his mother quite clearly enjoyed). I lost everything I owned and had worked for. Most importantly I lost my four eldest son’s to this evil, which is exactly what it is. If is is any consolation from what I know now alienators are usually personality disordered individuals. This does not make it easier for the victims who’s lives are destroyed by them.