Is your child sidelining you? Or do your kids perceive you as a bad parent for no good reason? This situation is alarming! You must check if your kid shows signs of parental alienation.
Parental alienation is the act of one parent turning their kid against the other for unjustified grounds. Usually, the child is brainwashed or fed unreasonable justifications intentionally to turn them against the other parent. This is a critical situation because it can harm a child’s relationship with their parents and take a toll on their mental health.
Relationships are quite complex. It’s not easy for any of the parties to run things smoothly. But sometimes, the grudges that partners hold towards each other are used to build a more profound relationship with a child wrongfully. Today we’ll talk about signs of parental alienation and its impact on the kid’s mental health.
Table of Contents
What Is Parental Alienation?
With an increasing number of family separations, the term ‘parental alienation’ has sparked a fire in the dictionary. Although this term isn’t new, it is now being used as a dime a dozen.
Parental alienation is an intentional attempt of one parent (mother/father) to make the other parent (usually referred to as ‘targeted parent’ in this case) feel disgusted by their kid or kids on unreasonable grounds. This is done to garner the vote of trust from the child and harm their relationship with the targeted parent. Several strategies are followed to ruin the parent-kid bond successfully. Although it can occur in any family, this situation is majorly noticed in legal proceedings such as divorce, family separation, or custodian rights.
Signs Of Parental Alienation: Children
We often tend to overlook kids’ behavior or don’t take it seriously. But
signs of parental alienation are better identified as soon as possible. Here are 5 signs that act as an alarm for you:
1. Your Kid Speaks Bad About You
Even after going nine yards to make your kid/s happy, it’s an alarm if they have an ugly mouth for you. Are you wondering about your child’s unusual inclination towards one parent and growing distance from you? This can make them believe whatever bad they hear about you.
As a result, your child will start blaming you for bad things that ever happened in the family. They will look down on you and speak disrespectfully about you in any given situation.
2. Your Kid Doesn’t Share About Their Regular Activities With You
This is a typical sign of brainwashing a kid with negative and false information about the targeted parent. Kids don’t open up about their routine activities with the targeted parent. For instance, they won’t tell you how they are performing in school if they are feeling well or not, or who they meet regularly, etc. This happens because the child either fears your temper, hates you or doesn’t trust you anymore.
3. Your Child Doesn’t Like To Call You Mom/Dad
This is another sign of parental alienation that you must not ignore. If your kid refrains himself/herself from referring to you as ‘mom or dad,’ it means they have developed a feeling of hatred towards you. In such a situation, they won’t like you to meet their friends or go out with you. You might even notice the kid/s making excuses when asked to perform a certain activity with you.
4. Your Child Doubts Every Single Thing You Do
Do you sense that your child is having difficulty trusting your words or actions? This means you have lost their trust. It is a sign of parental alienation because they have become this way, even without a genuine reason. It can result from your partner’s or a third party’s wrongful strategies and explanations to manipulate the kid and turn every situation against you.
5. Your Child Never Listens To You
When we don’t perceive a person as a good human, we tend to overlook whatever they say. The same goes for kids who are being the victim of parental alienation. Kids with such syndrome usually cut all ties with the targeted parent and try to avoid situations where they have to do as directed by them. They show a revolt against you and your suggestions and even do the opposite of what you said/wanted.
Signs Of Parental Alienation: Partner
Here are 8 signs of parental alienation that will alert you about the alienating parent or partner (one who strategizes against the targeted parent):
- Twisting stories in their favor or against the other (targeted) parent.
- Giving false narratives for genuine reasons makes the targeted parent stand in deep water.
- Using another person’s name on records.
- Exaggerate targeted parents’ mistakes to disgust them.
- Support the kid’s wrongful acts to rake in their trust.
- Eavesdrop or ask kids about their conversations with the targeted parent.
- Use the targeted parent’s disciplinary acts as a reason for the kid to hate them.
- Buy kids whatever they ask and whenever they ask.
How Does Parental Alienation Affect A Family?
If we humans could have understood the meaning and essence of the values we were taught as kids, situations like parental alienation would have never occurred. For instance, we all have studied to live in unity and harmony. But today, parents find it so hard to resolve a fight or issue that their kids face the repercussions of their wrongful deeds, so much so that they don’t shy away from using wrong tactics on their own family.
But sooner or later, the kid will become mature enough to understand things and see how their alienating parent (who tried the strategies to get the kid on their side) used them. Even if not, that parent will always struggle to find their inner peace and live in the fear of being caught. On this note, let’s see how parental alienation can take a toll on the major parties involved:
Children
Children who fall prey to parental alienation tend to live in fear all their lives. They always feel uncomfortable whenever people bring up their family’s past or issues. Furthermore, they develop a feeling of self-loathing and become too sensitive to people’s judgments. They often become too harsh on themselves and the people around them, both physically and mentally.
Kids who have to choose between their parents have a hard time trusting people and start isolating themselves a lot. They can even indulge in toxic activities like alcohol consumption, smoking, drug abuse, etc.
Targeted Parent
The parent who gave their whole heart to their kid/s; when they have to see hatred in the eyes of the apple of their eyes, they go completely heartbroken. They can suffer from depression and indulge in self-destructive behavior, even making suicidal attempts.
It gets quite hard for them to face society, and they tend to go beyond their limits in an attempt to meet the criteria of a ‘loving parent.’ The life of such a parent who had to eyewitness the signs of parental alienation in their kid/s is hard to explain. Some parents get so depressed that they become walking dead, which means, alive but not joyful or lively.
How To Deal With Parental Alienation?
It’s a biting a bullet kind of task to deal with parental alienation. For one thing, the child who gets manipulated might overtrust or favor one parent, so it’s least expected from him/her to clearly see through the situation. But you must make efforts to try your level best to explain your points clearly to the kid because although they might not be mature enough to understand you themselves, they do think of situations critically when elders make them understand. If you are forbidden to communicate with your kid/s and have no hopes, pray because prayers can change the unchangeable.
Quick Look
Relationships are not easy to run smoothly if the family lacks the respect of being human towards each other. But sometimes, even minor acts develop misunderstandings and are hard to get through. However, if this leads to separation, most people use parental alienation to safeguard custodian rights. The above article has stated how parental alienation can be identified, what signs of parental alienation children and the alienating parent shows, and how hard it impacts the lives of people.
