Parental Alienation Is Child Abuse:
Slowly but surely the awareness that parental alienation is child abuse is penetrating into society and the media. How long it will take this knowledge to penetrate into the minds of Family Court Judges in Ontario and Canada generally, is another story.
This weekend the Parental Alienation Symposium is taking place here in Toronto.
“The mission of CS-PAS, is to assist attendees in recognizing Parental Alienation Syndrome as a form of child abuse and to help the public become knowledgeable and aware of professionals that can provide solutions for intervention and treatment”.
“In 1985, Gardner coined the term Parental Alienation Syndrome to describe a distinctive family response to divorce in which the child becomes aligned with one parent and preoccupied with unjustified and/or exaggerated denigration of the other, target parent.
The phenomenon was widely observed and independently reported by other legal and mental professionals, though some contributors used different terminology, such as “Medea syndrome,” “overburdened child,” or simply “parental alienation.” In severe cases, the child’s once love-bonded relationship with the rejected/target parent is destroyed.”
The moral and emotional crime of parental alienation can be committed by either custodial parent, but as the vast majority of custodial parents in divorced or separated families are women, it is safe to say that generally, parental alienation is child abuse committed by women against their children.
The far reaching destructive scope of parental alienation and its connection to teen suicide, drug addiction and crime is beginning to be measured. It is obvious that alienating parents have mental health issues, and this too is beginning to be measured.