April 25th, 2010: Parental Alienation Awareness Day

April 25th will be International Parental Alienation Awareness Day. Countries such as Canada and Australia will be holding events to commemorate the day, and 15 U.S. States have signed proclamations recognizing the day.

Few people know what parental alienation is until they have to deal with it during a divorce and custody battle or someone close to them experiences it for themselves. In Canada, the day will be organized by the Parental Alienation Awareness Organization, who aim to educate anyone possible (including the public, police, religious leaders, schools and parents themselves) on the effects of Parental Alienation and how it is becoming perceived and accepted more and more as a form of child abuse.

Parental Alienation is the slow “brainwashing” of a child into not wanting to speak to, see or spend time with the other parent. It is typically done by the primary custodial parent, but the parent doing the alienating might be unaware of the complete scope of their actions and how it affects their child, which is why April 25th has been made as such. Parental alienation It can be subconscious or deliberate, and may not always be a parent doing the alienating. It could be a relative or another adult that the child trusts.

A study reported by the Faculty of Law at Queen’s University in Kingston found that mothers are twice as likely as fathers to alienate children from the other parent, although this is likely because more women end up with custody of their children. However, a small amount (just under two per cent) of cases studied found that a parent who only had access to a child was still able to alienate the other.

The study also found that the Ontario family court system only began to recognize parental alienation in 2005, but is not yet prepared to call it a “syndrome”, preferring that mental health experts determine the full extent of the damage done.

In only 10 per cent of cases from 1989 to 2008 was custody swapped from the alienating parent to the alienated parent, and 26 per cent of cases were ordered to go to counselling for the alienation.

Email This Post Email This Post


By michael - Last updated: Sunday, April 18, 2010
Filed in Divorce, Divorce Lawyer • Tags: , ,


Health Professionals ask for Screening of “Parent Alienation Syndrome” Claims

Child being assessed for Parent Alientation SyndromeFeeling like your child’s psychologist might be a bit biased during your custody dispute? They’d like your ex-spouse to give your complaint the go-ahead before it’s taken seriously.

The National Post reported on Monday, March 22 that a group of leading health care professionals and lawyers has submitted a request asking that Canadian Family Law begin to limit the amount of complaints filed against health professionals such as psychologists and psychiatrists during lengthy custody battles.

The request alleges that the complaints are sometimes frivolous and asks that any future complaints be either screened by a judge or even the winning parent, as well as asks for the establishment of a regulatory system to ensure that any complaint deemed frivolous is thrown out before it can be fully investigated.

While the report was submitted in Canada by Canadian health care professionals regarding Canadian cases, these suggestions for improvement are loosely based on United States law.

One can imagine the frustration of being involved in a serious custody battle and attempting to lodge a complaint against a biased health care professional, but then being required to submit it for review by the ex-spouse before it is taken seriously.

The complaints say that the losing parents of custody cases are creating a “major social and legal problem” by preventing such experts from conducting more important work.

The reason many of these complaints come to pass is because the “losing” parent may feel that the health care professional is biased and thus acting unprofessionally. With an increasing number of parents facing Parental Alienation Syndrome, this could be a detrimental strike against parents who are fighting to be in their children’s lives.

Parental Alienation Syndrome is when one parent essentially “brainwashes” a child to no longer be interested in any contact with one parent. The best recourse for the alienated parent is to have the situation evaluated by a mental health care professional. If that professional assumes the “brainwashed” child isn’t in a bad situation, what recourse would the parent then have?

The paper states, “it feels like a professional sucker punch and has no correlation to the skill, experience and savvy of the assessor” whenever one of these complaints is made.

Despite this, the Canadian Equal Parenting Council told the National Post of situations where these professionals may spend entire days in the home of one parent while merely an hour with the other parent in their own office. “There are some assessors we have heard multiple complaints about,” said the Council.

Email This Post Email This Post


By heather - Last updated: Monday, March 22, 2010
Filed in Child Custody in Ontario • Tags: ,