Have you ever heard of or seen separated parents warring over the custody of their children? It can get very messy and utterly disgraceful. Parental alienation is the psychological manipulation of a child by the other parent. In this case, the alienating parent is brainwashing the child against the other parent, who is also called the target parent. To help you recognize parental alienation, we will be diving deep into the 17 signs of parental alienation.
Parental alienation is very obvious, and its signs include signs exhibited by the child, which are a lack of empathy towards the target parent, jealousy hidden under the guise of hatred for the new family of the target parent, etc. On the other hand, the alienating parent exhibits signs like public and private defamation of the target parent and so on.
Parental alienation is not caused by anything the target parent does. Parental alienation occurs only when one parent does everything and anything to make the child favor himself or herself above the other parent. If the target parent has committed any offense like neglect, sexual molestation, etc. to the child, whatever the child feels towards the target parent is this time, not parental alienation. Let’s move on to the 17 signs of parental alienation
Signs of Parental Alienation
Parental alienation is the seed of discord and distrust sown in the life of an unsuspecting child against the other parent. This is done to win the child over in a way that destroys any relationship the child once had with the target parent.
As much as separation or divorce may be a sort of solution for irreconcilable differences between couples, the child. or children within that union should not be forced or manipulated to choose one over the other. Would it be so bad for the child to still have both parents wholly without their emotional baggage, even though they’re separated?
Studying the 17 signs of parental alienation will help us identify and avoid it. Parental alienation sometimes occurs because most people do not know that parental alienation is chargeable under the law. Check out what the law says about parental alienation. The 17 signs of parental alienation are exhibited by both the alienating parent and the child. Let’s see the signs expressed by the child first.
17 Signs Of Parental Alienation Exhibited By The Child
1. Taking the Opinion of the Alienated Parent as the Only Truth
This is the most common sign out of the 17 signs of parental alienation. Most children in broken homes believe whatever is told to them by their parents gives them the most love and attention. This is natural; if you get love and attention from someone for a good amount of time, you will always believe the person, even to the extent of excusing their wrongs.
To this unsuspecting child, the target parent is the worst sinner on earth, and no matter what he or she says to the child, the child will always find it questionable.
2. Negative Feelings for the Target Parent
The child will develop ill feelings towards the target parent because of the information given to him or her by the alienating parent. At this point, the child can’t help but develop this. Most times, if the child tries to question the alienating parent’s opinions, he is outright rebuked and emotionally blackmailed. To avoid neglect from the alienating parent, the child chooses to believe and do whatever the alienating parent says.
3. Innocent Favoritism of the Alienating Parent
Due to the influence of the alienating parent, the child innocently chooses him or her over the target parent. The child innocently believes that the actions of the alienating parent are for his or her good. In a bid to demonstrate this preference, the child may decide to make the visiting hours unbearable for the target parent.
5. Self Justification
The child tends to behave unruly and uncut towards the target parent. This behavior is always unwarranted because the reasons behind it are absurd. For instance, the child may complain about the way the target parent dresses, saying it is either too plain or too colorful.
Not only that, the child may even complain about the scent of the food prepared or served by the target parent. The child can even go on to say the food doesn’t look right or any other ridiculous thing.
All these behaviors are just to communicate dislike and distrust to the target parent, but for unreasonable reasons.
5. Jealousy felt toward the new family of the target parent
Many times, the target parent may already have a new family, and this provokes jealousy in the child. The child may think that the new family is the cause of his or her parents’ separation.
6. Ownership of Thoughts
The child may think he or she is not coerced to think badly of the target parent. The child might believe that he or she is the owner of the thoughts thought against the target parent.
7. Low self-esteem
As the child grows, he or she might feel that nobody can love him or her. This lowers the self-esteem of the child and makes him or her start slipping into depression.
8. Masking Feelings
Children from broken homes learn early how to mask their emotions. This is an important sign of the 17 signs of parental alienation due to its subtle nature. This means it can easily be overlooked or undetected. The child already experiencing detachment from both parents can choose to hide his or her feelings in a bid to not hurt the alienating parent.
This feeling of detachment is censored by the rift or gap between both parents, which makes the child torn between who to support and who not to support.
Signs Expressed By The Alienating Parents
Part of the 17 signs of parental alienation includes signs expressed by the alienating parent. They include the following:
9. Obvious Badmouthing of the Target Parent
Badmouthing of the target parent is an obvious sign out of the 17 signs of parental alienation. It is easy for the alienating parent to lash out at the target parent; this is a compound effect of the conflicts that led to the separation in the first place.
The negative part of this badmouthing is that the child is not spared from it. The child will have to bear the brunt of listening to all the negative words. These negative words have a way of distorting the image the child already had of the target parent.
10. Withholding important information about the child
The alienating parent is always the one in primary custody of the child, even while the custody case is being contested in court. Due to this sort of advantage, the alienating parent may choose to withhold sensitive information about the child from the target parent.
Information like medical history, school reports, and the like. This hoarding of information may not be known to the child and can communicate the disinterest of the target parent towards him or her.
11. Public Defamation of the Target Parent
This sign, out of the 17 signs of parental alienation, is messier than the others. The alienating parent can employ different means just to wreck the reputation of the target parent. This defamation is meant to reduce the respect of not only the child but other people as well.
There are several instances of public defamation, and one of them is going to the newspaper agencies to write articles that question the sanity of the target parent. In so doing, before any proper investigation is done, the people are already aware of the false or exaggerated news. The target parent may decide to sue the alienating parent for it, but it only gets messier and messier, especially when both parties are wealthy enough to use money to fight in court.
12. Wrongfully Confiding
The alienating parent is desperate, and this desperation to get the child on his or her side might make the alienating parent confide in the child about the failed relationship with the target parent. Most times, people confide in others to get guidance or just to ease their burdens, but in this case, the alienating parent confides in the child with an ulterior motive, which is to corrupt the mind of that child against the target parent.
13. Comparison
This often occurs when the child is an adolescent, but it doesn’t exclude the fact that it can happen to any age group. The alienating parent may verbally compare the child to the target parent anytime the child misbehaves or makes an error. What comparison does is make one resent the other person he or she is being compared to, and this can be taken to the extreme by doing whatever one can to distinguish himself or herself from the other person.
Children can be innocent, but that doesn’t mean they enjoy comparison, especially when it’s negative. Let’s look at comparison from the perspective of a child being compared to his or her age mates. If the alienating parent says something like, instead of you (the child) being like your friend, you decide to be just like your father or mother, That statement alone makes the child start feeling inferior to his or her friend and, on the other hand, hate the target parent even more.
14. Wrong Indulgence
This is very common among the 17 signs of parental alienation. To curry favor with the child, the alienating parent might overindulge the child in things that the child likes even though they are not healthy. It is a way of bribing the child. Take, for instance, a child who loves ice cream so much, and because the alienating parent wants the child to love him or her, the alienating parent goes on to indulge the child’s love for ice cream, all to manipulate the child’s preference.
15. Invading visiting hours
This sign out of the 17 signs of parental alienation shows, to some extent, the insecurity of the alienating parent The alienating parent may worry that the child might love the target parent so much more than him or her. Things like not being available for the target parent to pick up the child, going too early to pick up the child from the house of the target parent, and so on All these make the target parent have less time to spend with the child.
This makes it easier for the alienating parent to keep on deceiving the child because he or she knows the child might not ask the target parent questions about his or her relationship with the alienating parent in the short time they spend together.
16. Lies and Half-Truths
A factor that cannot be underrated is that the alienating parent is not afraid of fabricating a story filled with half-truths and lies. Then this fabricated story is fed to the child just to get him or her on the side of the alienating parent. In some cases, this story cannot be confirmed by the child due to the distrust sown by the fabricated story and the fear that it might be true.
To a large extent, even when the child is grown, he or she may continue believing that falsehood. There are cases of people who grew up believing falsehoods to the point that they couldn’t recognize the truth even if it stared them in the face. The impact of the lies only breeds bitterness in the heart of the child, thus affecting the way the child sees other people.
Some children find out the truth early enough if they are very curious, while most children find out late or in adulthood when they are forced to confront the past. Healing from this doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a while to believe people again when the ones you love lie to you for that long.
17. Isolation
Isolation can be good or bad. In this case, the child is being kept away from anyone who doesn’t support his or her motive. This prevents the child from making informed decisions. For instance, the child might want to attend a sleepover party at his or her friend’s house, but because the parents of the child’s friend have a close relationship with the target parent, the alienating parent refuses to let the child go.
The alienating parent may go as far as changing the school of the child or moving out of the house to a new residence just to cut the child from the people he or she is used to, all to force the child to end up talking to him or her about everything and anything.
By changing residence, the target parent may not be aware of the new residence, so they may find it difficult to reach the child physically. At this point, the target parent is left at the mercy of the alienating parent to bring the child to him or her for visitation, which the alienating parent may not adhere to.
Conclusion
Parental alienation is not something any good parent should engage in. It has a long-term effect on all the parties involved. The target parent may continue trying to bridge whatever gap the alienating parent creates, but it will only take time for him or her to stop if the alienating parent persists in trying to separate the child from the target parent.
With every effort the alienating parent puts in to separate the child from the target parent, he or she only grows more bitter towards life and the target parent. This bitterness can make the alienating parent lose sight of himself or herself while trying to make the target parent look bad.
The downside of sowing bad seeds is that they produce bad fruits. The child may not come out of it all without bruises, but children are often the most affected. Some may act out negatively just to hide their hurt, while others may end up feeling like they never should have been born. With these 17 signs of parental alienation, parental alienation can be identified and curbed so that all the parties involved live better.
