IDENTIFYING PATTERNS OF AN ALIENATOR PARENT IN TERMS OF BEST BUSINESS PRACTICES THAT DISTRICT COURTS CAN USE

(I didn't have my children this Labor Day weekend so I worked on helping other parents protect their children from losing them.)

This is a work in progress.

EDUCATION AND AWARENESS TO THE COURT

ALIENATION IS A PATTERNED PROCESS. PRESENTING THE RIGHT PIECES TO THIS PATTERN IS CRUCIAL IF YOUR COURT IS GOING TO BE CONVINCED TO RESPOND. In order to convince the court that this pattern or course of conduct has been harmful to your CHILD and your relationship with your child, or is going to be harmful and needs immediate intervention by the court, is going to depend on how you present it to the court.

ALIENATION IS A HIDDEN WAY FOR A PARENT TO DE FACTO TERMINATE THE OTHER PARENT'S RIGHTS and RELATIONSHIP TO THEIR CHILD even with a joint parenting plan in place.  WITHOUT IMMEDIATE ENFORCEMENT and WITHOUT BEING REQUIRED TO USE A HEIGHTENED STANDARD OF EVIDENCE these violator parents generally get away with this campaign.

This body of work is intended to shine the light on the patterns of these campaigns and to give the courts tools to effectively deal with these type of parents. Until now these cases have eluded our courts and have allowed many, many parents to legally kidnap children.

This paper is intended to wake the courts up and to serve to stop exploitation of our family court system by these violator parents.

RAISE THE STANDARD OF EVIDENCE ON THE VIOLATOR–One of the first rules that needs to be used when dealing with a case that involves elements or patterns of alienation is to immediately raise the requirement for a higher standard of evidence from “preponderance of the evidence” to “clear and convincing evidence” and “strict scrutiny” on all accusations the violator presents.

INTERFERENCE WITH CUSTODY TIME SHOULD BE IMMEDIATELY DEALT WITH–In order for the court to respond to interference, you need to inform the court that it happened. The Court needs to respond to interference quickly. The violator should immediately be punished and primary residence go to the targeted parent.

—-CHANGE THE COURTS CAN IMPLEMENT – Make interference with child custody grounds for an emergency hearing to be heard within three days or less.

I believe that if we interrupt and interfere with the patterns of the alienation that the alienator parent will be less likely to be successful and the child will be protected from a long-term campaign of turning that child on the other parent and harming that child forever emotionally and psychosocially.

By holding parents to higher levels of evidence standards in these cases, the court is more likely to be able to identify when a parent is exploiting and distorting reality to serve their purpose of eliminating the other parent in the child's life. And by developing functions and processes for these particular cases the court is more likely to be able to protect the bond and relationship between the targeted parent and that child by knowing how to respond. ALIENATION IS A WAY TO DEFY COURT ORDERS IN JOINT CUSTODY. Alienation makes a mockery out of court orders to share the child and co-parent AND a way for violators to create EXCUSES FOR THE VIOLATIONS.

Be aware that many courts, especially in Texas, do not like the term “alienation” and do not believe in using this term. “The real issues are the conduct of parents and the response from the child. Whether it is called estrangement, alignment, or alienation does not matter — the focus should properly be placed on the behavior. The degree of official response should be tailored to the degree of behavior.” (“The Damage of Parental Alienation Not Always Obvious” by Dr. Nicholas D. Browning, Grass Valley, California)

IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION – WHY THE VARIABILITY

“In all cases, the independent variable that predicted the outcome is less derived from the facts of the case and the evidence, than it is from a knowledge of and sensitivity to how the various appointees, as well as the Judge, perceive certain issues on a personal and emotional level that have nothing to do with the law.” (Dr. J. Michael Bone, JMB Consulting, Family Court and Parental Alienation: How It Really Works” buy paper here http://www.jmichaelbone.com/family-court.html)

Having people make decisions in your case that are not educated on the specifics and details of alienation and http://www.jmichaelbone.com how it works, risks decisions being made in your case that could enable and even make the alienation in your case worse.

Because of this lack of education is why you have counselors, experts, and others in the community giving wrong advice as well.

Just because your judge might have heard of alienation before or has a predefined opinion of it from other things that he or she has heard, do not make the assumption that they have a true understanding of alienation. It is important to educate your judge as early as possible if you want to increase your chances of the judge making the right decisions for your case. There are ways to do this and go about this. I am working on a body of work for this and will let you know when that is released. This body of work is more specific and detailed with an actual organization and documentation of a case with alienation. But for now, you have the following to help guide you with creating a plan for organizing the specifics to your case and educating your judge — that I am also adding to continuosly.

IMPORTANCE OF USING PATTERN AND DOCUMENTATION:

I got the following idea to connect the alienation patterns with documented business best practices while editing my husband's new book “All The Answers,” (book of study questions for IT students trying to pass the ITIL Foundations V3 exam). I am attempting to use some of the best business practice frameworks in combination with documented patterns of alienation from Dr. Gardner distilled by Dr. Warshak, Dr. Bone's, and other research.

Dr. Bone studied under Dr. Gardner who have found that alienation is a very patterned process with very predictable results. Dr. Warshak is an expert in our local Dallas, Texas area.

If alienation is a patterned campaign then parents, attorneys, and other experts involved in your case should be able to map and connect the alienator parent's course of conduct and behavior to the patterns of alienation and be able to predict the outcome if the court does not respond by interrupting and intervening appropriately and effectively. 

Only through educating judges can we stop this insidious abuse of our children.  And the use of best business practices (for example ITIL's Service Analytics – analysis and synthesis) can help parents and attorneys and experts communicate to family courts so that they identify these patterns and associate them to alienation properly and can create parenting plans that are in an ALIENATED child's best interest. These are special cases that require special measures and particular orders. Joint managing orders are not sufficient to deal with this type of parent and joint parenting is not likely to be successful in these cases, and in fact are breeding grounds for continued alienation.

PROCESS FOR IDENTIFYING ALIENATION, PREDICTION, AND PREVENTION:

1. Analyze the AP's Pattern of Alienation Activity (related to PBA in ITIL – patterns of business activity).

(I am doing this with mindmapping software. Right now I use Freemind since it is free.)

a. What creates the PAA – the parent's course of conduct in the form of the eight elements required for alienation listed out by Dr. Bone.

THE ELEMENTS OF ALIENATION***(see below for additional comments on this section):

  1. A campaign of denigration
  2. Weak, absurd, or frivolous rationalizations for the deprecation
  3. Lack of ambivalence
  4. The “independent-thinker” phenomenon
  5. Reflexive support of the alienating parent in the parental conflict
  6. Absence of guilt over cruelty to and/or exploitation of the alienated parent
  7. The presence of borrowed scenarios
  8. Spread of the animosity to the friends and/or extended family of the alienated parent.”

 

PATTERN AND DOCUMENTATION:

PATTERN OF ALIENATION: Negative talk, intimacy loss, connectedness removed, fear instilled, excuses made for visitation blocking, critical of the other parent's parenting style, child moved and hidden and schools changed, closeness to alienated parent is penalized and fear of loss of the alienator parent (dependency on the alienator parent)

–  complete control and domination, the AP parents intensity and duration of anger and vexatiousness can help to determine the risk for becoming an AP as well.

I.     What are the roles of the AP and the Alienator Child:

      A. First the alienating parent (AP) begins with the following behaviors: (All of the following behaviors require that the AP is also violating a parenting plan. They could not do these without violating the parenting plan.) POINTER FOR COURTS: Enforcement immediately is key to interrupting this course of conduct.

1) Negative talk, frank criticism [Also known as A Campaign of Denigration] —

2) Visitation blocking – excuses made, child moved and not told where the child is, change schools, change states [Also knows as “Weak, absurd, or frivolous rationalizations for the deprecation”]

3) False allegations of abuse – critical of the other parents style – When visitation is blocked they have to give a reason for it (courts tend to consider things that cannot be proven as evidence still – need to then redirect them to what is being accused — does the accusing parent have motive to excuse illegal activity like visitation blocking) [Also known as “Lack of ambivalence” and “The “independent-thinker” phenomenon”]

4) Deterioration of relationship – the parent talks bad about the other parent within ear shot of the child, the child has witnessed the parent mistreating the other parent or talking negatively to the other parent directly. Child hasn't seen the other parent much, child been told all kinds of negative things (examples could be calling an parent mentally ill and making the children fear their well being and safety with that parent and fear that parent's ability to take care of them – fear), and told that parent doesn’t really love them or that parent abandoned them or replaced them (examples could be that child is being told they have been replaced by a new spouse and stepchild), cut out of school activities — targeted parent is now less involved in the details of that child’s life and have less in common and do not have content to ask the right questions about their daily life and now there is a loss of intimacy and eventually a loss of any connectedness at all with the child and the targeted parent (that once parent that was an object of love is now an object of hate). The child now has a DISTORTED and POISONED perception of the targeted parent.  – FEAR exaggerated fear response to displeasing the alienated parent – they have already been taught that the other parent abandoned them and so the child becomes more clingy to the alienating parent. If the child wants to be close to the alienated parent they get penalized by the alienating parent. They get clingy so that they don’t lose both parents. [Also known as “A campaign of denigration” and violations of the parenting plan] [This is a result of the court's not acting quickly and not enforcing the parenting plans or changing custody to the targeted parent to interrupt this course of conduct. Also can be a result of the court not requiring the violator parent to use a raised level of evidence and strict scrutiny to provide evidence to their distorted claims.]

B. Then the child begins these behaviors:  Once the child begins these behaviors, look for signs of brainwashing, transference, and revised history. The alienator parent can use normal teenage or childhood development and behaviors and exploit them through brainwashing, transference, and revised history. The negative talk can come in different forms and not be completely obvious to the child. It can exist through a lack of positive support for the other parent in the child's presence, observance of older children's dislike for the other parent. younger children do not understand that their relationship with each parent is separate and can be completely different than the relationship and experience that another sibling has with each parent, and can adopt the other siblings feelings and misdirected adopted view of the targeted parent. The siblings and other adults can then be used as recruited persons to do the work of the alienator parent while the alienator parent can play good parent and appear to be neutral or even encouraging the younger children to contact the targeted parent and appear to be trying to facilitate a relationship with the targeted parent after a length of time of violations and after the younger children have aligned themselves with the alienator parent. This is a deceptive tactic that is used by parents that have developed a pattern within their support group and possibly older siblings of the younger children to assist in their campaign of hatred and ultimately alienation.

1) Campaign of Denigration – and then the child openly denigrates the parent and claims to be in fear of the targeted parent. These things may have been said by the alienating parent (caused by alienating parent behavior) and then it becomes the symptom of the child. And the child begins to repeat the same things the alienating parent has been saying.

2) Weak and frivolous rationalization for the campaign of denigration – the child doesn’t want to see the parent and sometimes you will see this in an odd way – look at what the alienator parent filed for their emergency ex parte protective order hearing and temp hearing. The child’s reasons are weak – ravioloi’s, cat, please for piece of paper, — child coming up with kind of ridiculous reasons for not wanting to go and see the other parent. child receiving rewards from the other parent for refusing to see the targeted parent. Alienator parent claiming they are protecting the child and claiming they are going by the child's wishes. This is not how children turning on a parent naturally unfolds – child usually takes much more and much more severe things for them to break their bond with a parent. 

3) Lack of ambivalence – no connection with the parent at all – even normal circumstances when a child is angry with a parent they will still have ambivalence in normal situations where they have angry response and then still a connection. Alienated children there is no ambivalence. These might have been there several months before but there is no longer any evidence.

4) Independent Thinker Phenomenon – “no one told me to say this” there is already an embedded understanding that the child believes that the evaluator believes that the other parent influenced them. They tend to bring it up on their own when there has been no question as to that. They often have a list of criticisms that will be protected by saying no one told me to say these. (*and they can start to blame the target parent and start saying that is the parent that involved them — this is a form of transference.) The child can even start to believe that the things that the alienator parent did to them are things that the targeted parent did to them. Again transference.

2. PAA can change over time: Once the child becomes the alienator the parent no longer has to continue the PAA themselves, it self perpetuates. The alienator parent can then begin to appear to encourage the child to contact the other parent, and the child refuses now on their own.  They are now trained and the negative seeds have taken root in their brain and require treatment and unbrainwashing in order to change these patterns and beliefs.  The children's development and beliefs about the targeted parent have been changed and reformed to be in alignment with the alienator parent and those that follow the alienator parent — in some cases the older siblings.  These types of patterns are also seen in abuse situations where abuse cycles are perpetuated, alienation cycles too can be perpeatuated through the generations.

[The above behaviors should be tracked and understood for clarity and determination of the risk for the children of each situation to become alienated children.]

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO STOP THESE ALIENATORS?

Should AP be placed under strict supervision and change control?

a. Yes. Texas has statutes that protect children from changes and protect their association with their friends and restrict them to their communities. These restrictions need to be adhered to in cases of AP parents.

How does an AP evaluation help an organization?

  • a. The quality of service to the families can be improved
  • b. Costs can be reduced
  • c. Risks can be reduced
  • d. Complexity and uncertainty can be reduced
  • e. Tradeoffs can be efficiently resolved.

What are some areas that can benefit from early AP detection:

  • a. Parent plan design and modeling
  • b. Resources outlined for this family
  • c. Pattern Recognition and Analysis**
  • d. Classification, Prioritization, and Routing**
  • e. Detection and Monitoring**
  • f. Optimization

**Instrumentation and Information from SS812-4 and SS812-5 will be required for measuring the behaviors of the parents and understanding the relationships between the pieces of data in order to answer the Who, What, When, and Where. (All The Answers by ronbpalmer.com)

-Then fault (abnormal condition) and error (single event) creates Performance (a measure of how well something is working) through the above Service Model (component-to-system-to-process linkage that allows the impact of events to be understood from a service context. This gives the courts a way to be alerted and act on a parenting plan before a situation becomes irreversible and allows the courts to minimize the damage to the family and the relationships (All The Answers by ronbpalmer.com)

PREPARING FOR AP PLAN IMPLENTATION:

  • a. Remove children from AP's care
  • b. Plan for transition of children to targeted parent
  • c. Parenting plan that reduces or removes opportunity for alienator activities by limiting or eliminating contact of the AP with the children
  • d. Determine the length of time the AP plan needs to be adhered to
  • e. Order AP to go through an anti AP course.

WHEN DOES THIS INFORMATION BECOME KNOWLEDGE?

a. “When placed in context of patterns and their applications.” (All The Answers by ronbpalmer.com

b. Only after understanding Parental Alienation can the court put things into context

c. Only after the court makes the proper identification can the proper parenting plan be put in place.

As a framework for developing more solutions to eliminating the harmful effects of Parental Alienation through early detection and court intervention I am referring to the Service Design chapter in ITIL — Service Management as a Practice regarding functions and processes (Ron B Palmer is an expert at these and can help you adapt these to your business practice whether be court judge, attorney, or parent fighting for their individual rights), as well as other sections of this framework and other best practices. These models will allow each court and state to create their own “body of knowledge” that will provide “structure and stability” with the ability to “improve cross-functional coordination and control” and “work towards a goal and utilize feedback to self-correct” cases involved in parental alienation before permanent harm is done to a child.  These processes allow the court to be informed more quickly and have opportunity to stop the damage before it becomes permanent.

An example from Ron's newest book “All the Answers”

SD232-2 What four characteristics do processes have?

  1. They are measurable
  2. They deliver specific results.
  3. They deliver primary results to a customer or stakeholder.
  4. They respond to specific events.

If each district court in family law followed this framework according to their own unique set of Capabilities and Resources they be able to customize a parenting plan more easily and more effectively that responds to the actual individual needs of each family. [You can go to an expert like Dr. Bone, Dr. Warshak, Dr. Amy Baker http://www.amyjlbaker.com/, Dr. J. Richard Stride http://www.drrichard.org/parent-alienation-syndrome.html — there are many others, just make sure they are experts in alienation before you have them create a parenting plan for your circumstances.)

Statistics show that alienated children are more likely to have difficulty as adults with relationships after the strongest relationship known to man has been allowed to be destroyed. It is also proven that they are at higher risk of many other problems including suicide.

Judges, legislators, leaders in our communities like Rick Perry, Jane Nelson, and Dr. Michael Burgess, are examples those that need to be educated on how to better help parents protect their children from alienators. 

It is believed that alienation is one of the worst hate crimes against children by a parent that claims to love them today. Solutions and plans can be implemented to take the children out of these situations today. All it takes is convincing the judges and the leaders in our communities that alienation is psychosocial abuse and needs to be handled quickly and effectively, and giving them solutions like this article is trying to do.

NOTE:  (Please note that this paper is a living work in progress and is going to change often until it is in the form of a high level framework that can be submitted to district courts as a guideline for cases that suspect alienation. I welcome additional resources and information that can lead to improvements. After this paper is completed and finalized I am hoping that it can be used as a template for all district courts and that parents can use this paper to help them tie their evidence to the proper categories and communicate their needs to the courts effectively — ultimately serving to save our children from years and years of continued psychosocial abuse in cases where alienation goes undetected.)

***”Typically, children who suffer with Parental Alienation Syndrome will exhibit most (if not all) of

these symptoms. However, in the mild cases one might not see all eight symptoms. When mild cases

progress to moderate or severe, it is highly likely that most (if not all) of the symptoms will be

present. See, The Parental Alienation Syndrome (Second Edition), Richard A. Gardner, M.D., 1998,

Creative Therapeutics, Inc., xxv.

      The term PAS refers only to the situation in which the parental programming is combined with

the child’s own scenarios of disparagement of the vilified parent. See, Gardner, The Parental

Alienation Syndrome (1998) xx.” (http://www.yob.com/alienation.pdf accessed on 9-5-11)

RESOURCES:

“All The Answers” by Rob B. Palmer http://www.ronbpalmer.com/ (not yet released to the public – he's my husband so I had the privilege of editing and seeing this.  :O) )

Dr. J. Michael Bone Parental Alienation going to court http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=jmichaelbone#grid/uploads

Dr. Richard Warshak PA references http://www.warshak.com/alienation/pa-references/paslegal.html

Parental Alienation Syndrome or Symptom by Reginald A. Hirsch, http://www.yob.com/alienation.pdf accessed on 9-5-11 – Houston, Texas 77056, (713) 961-7800 (713) 961-3453 (Facsimile) Email: reghir@swbell.net

The Damage of Parental Alienation Not Always Obvious by Dr. Nicholas D. Browning, 2036 Nevada City Highway SUITE 307 Grass Valley, CA 95945 Phone: (530) 274-6773

Caught Between Parents blog by Amy J.L. Baker, Ph.D. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/caught-between-parents accessed on 9-10-11