What is Reunification?
When Parents Become Polarized
Couples often make decisions to become parents for many reasons, usually with tremendous hope and trust in what the future will bring. With the divorce rate in the US hovering around 60% and the rate of breakups among non-married couples fallog in the same general range, the basis for believing in the odds of long-term connection seems naively optimistic. The basis for that optimism is neuropsychologically well-understood, but that is the subject for a different blog post.
This post’s emphasis involves the consequences when the dissolution of a couple’s relationship spills over in ways that impact the children in ugly and lasting ways. Sadly, one way that the post-divorce relationship can evolve is toward behavior by one parent with the children involving deliberate and sustained behavior that alienates the children toward the other parent. There is much research on the topic of parental alienation. Typically, the battles that revolve around the alienation process end up becoming embroiled in the legal system. More importantly, the impact of alienation hits hardest on the most vulnerable parties to the polarization/alienation process: the children.
What is Parental Alienation
The research literature and legal statutes define Parental Alienation as:
A situation where one parent engages in an active and ongoing “campaign” that puts down and diminishes the value, significance, and involvement of the other parent in the children’s day-to-day lives.
The result of this negative campaign is that the children, depending upon their ages, often internalize the views of the alienating parent as though the views were “their own”, a process that has come to be called the “independent thinker” phenomenon. The emotional consequences to the children are that they become allied with one parent willing to use the children’s vulnerability and impressionability against them, and to create for the children a “loss” of the other parent, which instills a lasting sense that the children were emotionally and physically abandoned by the other parent. In addition, because of the vulnerability of the children, it is not uncommon for them to reach a conclusion that they were abandoned by the alienated parent because there was something wrong with them (i.e., “there must be something wrong with me that my parent would treat me this way,” without appreciating they’ve been set up to harbor that view).
A situation in which the alienation can spread throughout a family system to include aunts, uncles, and cousins, and even the network of social connections that renders the alienated parent a persona-non-grata within that larger social system. This is the modern equivalent of ex-communication or the Hester Prynne character of the “Scarlet Letter” novel created by author, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Again, the consequences for the children and the alienated parent are lasting and devastating.
It should be noted that in situations involving clear evidence of bona fide abuse of the children by one parent, the concept of alienation does not apply. In those situations, active estrangement from the offending parent by the children may be necessary and healthy to avoid further physical or emotional harm from being perpetrated.
Long-term Consequences for Children
A significant factor that impacts children’s physical and mental health, in addition to predisposing them to increased illness risks as adults, involves the presence of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). ACEs include exposure to poverty, hunger, abuse, high conflict divorce of their parents, natural disasters, and more. The higher the number of ACEs to which a child is exposed, the more likely they are to show mental health and physical illnesses as children. They are also at much higher risk of illnesses as adults (cardiac disease, digestive disorders, headache, etc.) and to also show higher rates of depression, drug/alcohol use, criminal behavior, divorce, and challenges establishing healthy, stable, and trusting relationships with adult partners.
To mitigate these risks, involvement of divorcing or post-divorce parents in effective, action-oriented therapies can help establish between them the ability to communicate together well enough that the children don’t unwittingly get used as pawns. Various therapies can be selectively utilized, ranging from couples therapy, to individual therapy for at risk children, to family therapies involving the whole family system, may be indicated. Moreover, when active alienation of one parent by the other, reunification therapies can make a positive difference, often with the backing of the family court system.
As with most health related concerns, prevention is more effective than are efforts to clean up the messes that ugly divorces and breakups cause all the parties involved, but especially the children who get swept along in the process by their parents. A rule of thumb is to avoid unnecessarily burdening the children with the struggles, failures, and emotional challenges experienced by the parents.
If you are facing a parental alienation situation, don’t hesitate to reach out to me at www.parentsatcrossroads.com or call me at 612-930-2423.