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Fight back against parental alienation

Having a child with someone is a major life event. When the relationship with the other parent doesn’t work out, you will still have to deal with them because of the child. Unfortunately, some people can’t handle the end of a relationship and become incredibly angry, and they may use the kids to get this anger out.

Some child custody cases involve parental alienation, which is a form of abuse that turns the child against the other parent. The angry parent will tell the children negative things about the other parent in an effort to get the child to hate the other parent. In many cases, the negative things aren’t true. When they are true, they might be embellished or framed in a way that makes the child think ill of the other adult.

Parental alienation is damaging

The parent who’s manipulating the children might think they are only hurting the other parent. The truth is that the child usually suffers more because they don’t have the relationship they need with both parents. It is often hard for children to overlook the negative things that one parent says about the other, so both adults need to be especially careful about what they say in front of the kids.

Parental alienation is sometimes associated with narcissism. The narcissist thinks so highly of themselves that they are unable to ever admit that they have done wrong. No matter what happens, they always find a way to place the blame on the other person. They harbor so much contempt against the child’s other parent, often because of the split, that they will do anything they can to harm them even if this means the children suffer.

There is also a chance that the parental alienation will carry over into other areas of the child’s life. The manipulator might exclude the other parent from things like school meetings or events that are important to the children just to make it seem like that parent is doing a horrible job with the kids.

Fighting back against parental alienation

One of the most difficult things that you might have to do in your child custody case is fighting back against parental alienation. The other parent might have pulled the kids so far to their side that the children won’t speak up about what’s going on. When this happens, your best option might be to collect what evidence you can. Even keeping a record of what’s going on may benefit you. Working with someone who’s familiar with child custody solutions in Minnesota can also help.