Many couples with children end their relationship in an unfriendly way and become adversaries for the love of their children or to destroy the other. The worst of all is that they develop a very negative decision (in many cases it has nothing to do with reality) towards the former partner ... directly affecting the children. This occurs with the parental alienation syndrome.
Parental alienation syndrome, a term coined in the 1980 identification by child psychiatrist Dr. Richard A. Gardner. This professional was the one who commented for the first time that this syndrome appears when a parent tries to turn their children against the other parent. A person who is very angry with his / her ex-partner will want to alienate their children by giving a negative image of the other parent to the children, through unpleasant comments, feelings of guilt, false accusations, etc.
They also try to be with their children all the time with the sole purpose that the other parent cannot see or be with them. Normally when a father or mother has this type of toxic behavior it is because they are not usually emotionally stable or because they have more money and are better able to face the legal challenges against the ex-partner.
How parents apply parental alienation syndrome
The sad reality is that parents poison the affection and natural love that their children feel towards their parents (both), and this causes serious emotional damage, abusive and in many cases very difficult to repair. Children can be manipulated by one parent to reject the other parent who does not deserve to be rejected or treated in a despicable way.
For a child, the biopsychosocial effects of parental alienation syndrome can be devastating. For both the parent and the alienated child, removal and denial of contact in the absence of neglect or abuse constitute cruel treatment that they do not deserve. It is a form of child abuse that must be protected by law, since it is social justice that children can know and be cared for by both parents as long as both are fully capable of doing so.
What is the alienating parent like
A father who with the parental alienation syndrome usually shows narcissistic tendencies, that is, they are highly selfish and self-centered people. They may be unable to listen to the perspectives of others. They prefer to focus what they think on what they want, think, feel and they believe regardless of what other people may feel, want, or need.
Usually an alienating parent is narcissistic and uses children as ammunition to harm the other party. They are the pawns of his battle with the sole purpose of destroying everything he can to the other parent, for having had the 'audacity' to do him emotional damage. They claim that they are protecting their children from the other parent because it is 'evil', but in reality it is they themselves who are actually causing very deep damage to their children. By using children to harm the other parent, you are already showing that you have little capacity to care for your children.
In addition to being narcissistic, there is another central element in the personality of the father or mother with parental alignment syndrome: borderline personality disorder, which is also known as emotional hyperresponsiveness. Excessively intense emotion is often expressed as anger. People with this disorder have great difficulty calming themselves down. For so when they feel bad, sad or angry, intense emotions tend to last much longer than in other people who are more emotionally stable.
By having these deficiencies in emotional resilience once they have been frustrated or disappointed, they can play the role of victim and blame others for anything that goes wrong.
These types of disorders become more evident when an alienating parent invents reality with false accusations or insults. For example, they can tell their children things like: 'Your father is selfish' when the realistic person is herself for speaking in this way of the other parent. You can also say things like: 'Your mom is crazy', when in fact it is the father who really has very toxic emotional behaviors.
This type of alienating parents or mother tries to find and put other people by their side to fight against that person so 'evil' (according to their own opinion) and they try to divide the family in a constant fight of 'me against you' or 'us against them'.
People with personality traits of this type get angry when someone does not agree with them or does not give them what they want. For example, if the couple decides to end the marriage for whatever reason, the alienating person. You will not be able to have a healthy and collaborative relationship even for the sake of the children. The only objective he will have is to destroy the relationship even if the children are in the middle. They seek to do as much damage as possible and he knows that through his children he can achieve it.
Children need both parents
No matter the circumstances, children need both parents. However, they do not benefit and in fact harm when parents speak negatively of the other parent. Children do not need to see a pitched battle between their parents, they do not need to 'love mommy or daddy more', because they just need to love their two parents in the same way, even if they have to have separate lives.
Children should never be in the middle of their parents' anger or in the middle of their power struggles. It is not right for a parent to disregard the needs of children just to hurt the other parent.
If you are going through a time where your ex is doing parental alienation, it will be necessary for you to really think about whether this is what is happening and if so, you will have to speak with your lawyer to put things into action. Instead, If it is you who is trying to turn your children against their father or mother, you will have to think again, your children do not deserve this and also, if you do, they will have severe emotional problems in the future.