If you are the targeted parent, peace in the storm is a must. Children long for love from both parents regardless of the parent's relationship status. It is unfair to give the child an ultimatum of choosing a "side" of one parent over the other. Although it is challenging to avoid questioning your child about the negative discussions about you in their home, it is crucial for you to maintain a healthy relationship with your child.
Here are some helpful tips you should keep in mind in this difficult time: 1. Learn not to criticize your child(ren). Such as, "you're no good, you're a dummy, you'll never mound to anything, you're lazy, all the money I've invested in you for nothing, etc." 2. Avoid asking the child about the alienated parent's whereabouts, relationships and or activities. 3. Continue to love your child with your actions. Caring the needs of your child is as simple as cooking for your child, washing their laundry, playing outside, and reassuring them of your love and protection for them. 4. Build a positive relationship with your child. Continue to show interest in their homework, school activities, sports, and or what their hobbies are. Learn more about your child and all the surprises that awaits for you to discover. 5. Refrain from questioning your child if there are any negative discussions about you in their home or by other family members. 6. Avoid discussing adult topics such as child support, money topics, putting responsibilities on them to make adult things happen such as registering for a particular event or to bring you paper work. Be sure you have another form of communication with the alienator that avoids the urge for you to put any form of adult responsibilities on your child. 7. Enjoy and have fun with your child. All the positive that comes out of you will diffuse all the negatives your child has heard about you. As your child continues to grow, and becomes more independent, they will soon see how your relationship with them is growing strong and healthy. Your child won't be able to deny the positive bond between the two of you. To educate yourself on parental alienation,register for our workshop by clicking here. California Family Visitation
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"Time. What is it?" - Benjamin Frankin
Your mind is constantly making decisions, coming up with new ideas and things to do. You wake up Monday morning and move fiercely into the task of trying to achieve "more than you can handle" things on your list. Although you have fantastic ideas, you achieve almost nothing to create revenue. Let's say for example you want to create a beautiful herb garden. You watch YouTube "how-to" videos, bookmark several websites on your laptop, write about it on Facebook, and speak on the phone for 1 hour with your best friend about your new idea. You immediately jump into your next agenda of washing your car. Spontaneously looking online for a new seat cover, floor mats, and a car vacuum. Approximately 8 hours have past and the sun is now setting. How much of your time did you actually spend in creating cash flow revenue? Your cash flow ideas are waiting next on the list for another day. Learning better time management and sorting your agenda will cut your time in half and narrow in on top priority business revenue strategies. Although, some may argue that a new seat cover will do the trick as you have a potential new client sitting right next to you. "I have a feeling your father really never loved me or wanted to have kids. He's just fighting for child custody to have child support out of me." This sounds all too familiar. A hurt mother who has recently found out that her ex-husband had a 2-year affair with the front receptionist at his office. As many emotions running high in this mother's life, she often reflects her pain onto her children. This type of alienatator has an agenda to keep her children away from their father and to give them "her side of the story." All to common in our communities, we see and hear parents either purposely campaigning or naively speaking negatively about the other parent.
Parental alienation has not only short-term but lifelong effects in people's lives. Often, children begin to see the "side" of the parent's hurt and may feel obligated to side with one parent over the other. As a result, children arrive to the targeted parent's visits with anger or refusing to be part of any visitation time. This societal topic happens far too common but not recognized as a major issue in families. Children become hateful, angry, negative, etc, towards the targeted parent in which makes the relationship with the parent far too difficult. Sadly, many targeted parents attempt to fix the problem with the end result of fueling the fire as children continue to rage against them. |
Author(s)Blog Team, California Family Visitation |