There are people who believe that estranged parents who claim to suffer as a consequence of being deliberately separated from their Children by the other parent, are pathetic. Well read this and judge for yourself.

It isn’t until you experience the life-affirming joy of having a child that you understand the overwhelming sense of responsibility, but also unconditional love that enters your life. It’s simply the most primal instinct to do everything and anything for that little life.

Most humans are programmed that way.

We have no choice.

But with love like that comes great vulnerability as well as responsibility. No matter how tough you may think you are, you now wear your heart outside of your body. And unscrupulous people know this.

So any parent estranged from their child for any period of time won’t be completely at rest until reunited with them. That’s why deliberately separating a loving parent from their child as well as undermining their ability to fulfill their responsibility, is an extremely effective way of inflicting severe, constant and ongoing pain on them. It’s a way of bullying and abusing them indefinitely. But it’s clearly not in the child’s best interests and, therefore, makes no sense to anyone but the alienator who has a very different value set.

Consider this list of symptoms for a minute:

• withdrawn
• suddenly behaves differently
• anxious
• clingy
• depressed
• aggressive
• problems sleeping
• problems getting out of bed
• eating disorders
• takes illogical risks
• misses social activities
• becomes withdrawn
• changes eating habits
• obsessive behaviour
• nightmares
• drug abuse
• alcohol abuse
• self-harm
• self-neglect
• thoughts about suicide

Now consider however, that those are actually the symptoms psychologically abused children manifest. Yes, the children.

Once you’ve got your head around that, now consider how much pain the targeted parent feels knowing that someone they once loved is deliberately hurting their children in this way. They are knowingly hurting the children to hurt their former partner. Imagine that.

Parent alienation is abuse. It’s now recognised by Cafcass as such. Recent reports in mainstream media imply that one day soon it will become a criminal offence, because this abuse is a blunt instrument deliberately contrived by one parent to hurt the other by hurting the one thing they have in common still, their children.

The aim of the targeting parent is to take complete control, to permanently sever the relationship between their ex and the children either by making them back away in fear or even worse, out of guilt generated by the impact their persistence is having on the children. It is intended to remove them from their lives. To dominate them.

“It was terrifying turning up as I never knew what I was walking into and used to take me days to calm the children down and resolve the problems.”

One of our associates describes how, when he used to turn up to collect his children for the weekend, his former partner would often change the arrangements at the last minute. But rather than discuss matters with him in advance “she would often hold one of the children up in front of me and make them tell me about an event their mother had already booked for them, during the time we were supposed to be sharing. It was terrifying turning up as I never knew what I was walking into and used to take me days to calm the children down and resolve the problems”.

Yet the perpetrators play the victim in the process. Imagine the mess that makes of children’s minds when they are forced to reject the parent trying to do what’s right in favour of the one who holds all the power over them, the keys to the house, relationships with their friends, teachers etc? It’s like a hostage signalling to the rescue party that they’re ok, for fear of worse abuse.

The targeted parent certainly experiences similar symptoms to those displayed by the abused children over time. They can never rest as the empowered targeting parent constantly changes their schedules and childcare patterns at will. Their victims can’t plan, they live in a constant state of fear and insecurity about every promised call or visit or arrangement which they are powerless to influence. Worse still, they know that this fear and insecurity is calculated, deliberate and by design.

It prevents them from focusing on their careers, wellbeing and new relationships because they become obsessed with the abuse of their children. It’s a primal thing, they have no choice but to suffer.

Yet often, on the face of it, certainly at first, the perpetrator will do everything they can to ensure the children are seen to thrive. This is to maintain their story that they are better off in sole custody. And a custodial sentence it certainly is.

This is why parental alienation is the perfect revenge for the immoral perpetrator. It completely empowers them. It enmeshes the children in the same way Stockholm Syndrome brainwashes captives desperate to survive. It emotionally and often financially destroys the alienated parent. It creates a heroic narrative for new friends. But most of all, it is almost invisible to third parties who find it hard to believe anyone would stoop so low.

Yet what emotionally or psychologically stable parent would countenance it?

It is entirely counter-productive. It destroys that it purports to protect by undermining the earning capacity of the non-resident parent. It also creates a chain of problems for the children that will poison their future.

The impact on non-resident parents aside,  there is fast growing evidence that the rates of unhappiness and depression among young people is growing and at a frightening rate. With 1 in 3 marriages ending in divorce and parent alienation spreading like a virus, how many more children have to suffer the symptoms on that list before our legal and Social Services Wake up to the reality that #pas is a deliberate, sustained attack on non-resident parents which damages them and the children alike?

Parent alienation is, quite simply, a ridiculous revenge.

It is psychological child abuse.

Whatever issues the adults had between them, nothing justifies child abuse as a form of retribution and the sooner the legal system and social services wake up to this the better for the hundreds of thousands of children living this waking nightmare.