What Constitutes Parental Alienation?

In the Colorado Springs area, if you are fighting for the custody of your child or you need to modify a child custody order and your child’s other parent has alienated your child from you, schedule a consultation at once with a Colorado Springs child custody attorney.

After your divorce, if your ex-spouse is alienating your child from you, or if your ex is violating your custody and visitation rights, it hurts everyone involved. Parental alienation almost always damages a child emotionally and psychologically.

Parental alienation manipulates and sometimes intimidates a child into believing the other parent is a bad parent and the cause of all the child’s problems. Parental alienation is not linked in any way to actual child abuse when children reject abusive parents as a self-protection strategy.

What Should Parents Know About Parental Alienation?

In the Colorado Springs area, if you are fighting for the custody of your child or you need to modify a child custody order and your child’s other parent has alienated your child from you, schedule a consultation at once with a Colorado Springs child custody attorney.

After your divorce, if your ex-spouse is alienating your child from you, or if your ex is violating your custody and visitation rights, it hurts everyone involved. Parental alienation almost always damages a child emotionally and psychologically.

Parental alienation manipulates and sometimes intimidates a child into believing the other parent is a bad parent and the cause of all the child’s problems. Parental alienation is not linked in any way to actual child abuse when children reject abusive parents as a self-protection strategy.

What Are the Signs of Parental Alienation?

According to Psychology Today, parental alienation may be a factor in up to fifteen percent of the divorces that involve children in the United States.

A parent can alienate a child in several ways, such as undermining or criticizing the other parent in front of the child. Richard Gardner, a child psychiatrist, first used the term “parental alienation syndrome” in 1985 and listed what he called its several behavioral components:

  1. Alienated children are hostile to the targeted parent, deny anything is good about that parent, and refuse to communicate with the parent. Their explanations for this hostility are trivial or frivolous. They may make wild, mendacious claims about the parent.
  2. Alienated children automatically and reflexively support the alienating parent, may even perceive that parent as perfect, and will not consider the other parent’s viewpoint.
  3. An alienated child may insist that rejecting the targeted parent is a free choice and deny that the alienating parent has influenced that choice. However, alienated children often repeat word-for-word phrases used by the alienating parent.
  4. Rejection of a targeted parent may include that parent’s family. The child may reject and avoid uncles, aunts, and grandparents simply because they are members of the targeted parent’s family.

What Are the Long-Term Effects of Parental Alienation?

Parental alienation constitutes emotional child abuse. The potential long-term effects of such abuse on a child’s life can be destructive. Some of the long-term effects of parental alienation have been reported by child psychiatrists, including:

  1. a compromised ability to establish and maintain personal relationships
  2. a lowering of the child’s self-image
  3. the loss of self-respect
  4. depression, guilt, and anxiety over their role in destroying their relationship with a parent
  5. lack of impulse control (which may turn into delinquent behavior)
  6. educational problems and disruptions in school

Over time, alienated children typically have a conflicted or distant relationship with the alienating parent, and as adults, alienated children are at high risk of becoming alienated from their own children.

How Do Family Law Attorneys Help Parents Deal With Parental Alienation?

In the Colorado Springs area, it is essential to discuss your case promptly with a Colorado Springs child custody attorney if your child’s other parent has alienated your child from you and your custody and visitation rights are at risk due to parental alienation.

When you seek to modify the court’s child custody order, your attorney must show the court how your ex-spouse has contributed to and fostered parental alienation. Your attorney should document – as fully as possible – how your child’s other parent turned your child against you.

Your attorney should then offer the court suggestions for remedying the situation. Your attorney may even ask a child psychiatrist or a mental health consultant to be an expert witness. Parental alienation cases are often challenging because:

  1. Parental alienation is difficult to prove.
  2. Parental alienation is also difficult to disprove.
  3. Even if parental alienation is proven, solving the problem is challenging.

What is a Colorado Court’s Leading Priority?

Every child has a right to a healthy, positive relationship with both parents. When a Colorado court hears a case involving a child, the child’s best interests become that court’s highest priority.

When you make a legal response to parental alienation, if you ask the court for custody or more time with your child, you and your Colorado Springs child custody lawyer must prove to the court that finding in your favor will facilitate the child’s best interests.

A child custody lawyer at The Lux Law Firm can help you assess your options and help you take the most appropriate legal action.

Let The Lux Law Firm Advise and Represent You

If you are a parent in or near Colorado Springs and you believe you have been a target of parental alienation, to change your court-ordered child support or custody arrangement, you should be advised and represented by the award-winning team at The Lux Law Firm.

The Lux Law Firm serves families in Colorado Springs and throughout El Paso County. We handle divorces, child custody and child support disputes, and domestic violence cases. We have substantial experience resolving the most difficult family law disputes.

To learn more about your rights if you are a target of parental alienation, schedule a free case evaluation with The Lux Law Firm by calling 719-451-7469. We’ll review your case, outline your options, and take aggressive, effective legal action on your behalf and your child’s.