What is Parental Alienation? A strategy whereby one parent intentionally displays to the child unjustified negativity aimed at the other parent.
Blended families become more and more common as time goes on. Divorce rates are increasing. Not to mention the number of children born to unmarried couples, that do not get included in the divorce rate statistics.
I have said before there is not a person on the planet that makes you more happy, sad, or hurt your feelings worse than your children. Unfortunately, we live in a society today with so many parents who are not together, that kids are raised to think they can choose whether they want a parent in their life. This is unfair to the child and to the parent. Most of the time the kids are encouraged to alienate one parent. Since when did it become standardized to allow a child to decide if they want two parents or just one?
I will share with you what a child counselor said to me once. Parents need to remember you don’t have to like each other, that’s okay. BUT your child is half you and half their other parent. If you are encouraging your child to not love the other parent, you are encouraging them to not love half of themselves. You can be as mad as you want at the other parent but keep that to yourself! Your child/children do not need to know your personal feelings about their other parent. They don’t need to know why you split up. It does not matter to those child/children what parent did what. What does matter is that your child/children know that they have two parents that love them no matter what. Period.
Not a single person on this planet is perfect. That includes being a perfect parent. I know for sure I am not perfect. I know that I have done things that have hurt my kids emotionally, but never intentionally. I know that my kids get frustrated with me from time to time. Guess what? They frustrate me too sometimes. It is okay to have disagreements and get frustrated with others. I also know that my kids get frustrated with their dad from time to time too. When they come to me with a frustration about their dad, I must consciously make a choice not to engage in negativity about their dad to them. I do not do this because I like the guy or want to defend him in any way. However, I do love my children more than anything and defending him helps them. Therefore, that is what I do. Let me give you an example or two.
My children’s dad is notorious for not inviting them to things. His side of the family will plan a fun outing and not invite my kids. The kids always find out and always get their feelings hurt. My response to my kids every single time is: I’m sorry, I am sure he will invite you along next time. Even though they know, and I know this is complete BS, it is my way of not talking poorly about their father to them. They can vent to me because they know that will be my response. I could go in the other direction. I could them that he is just an ass and should have invited them. That if he cared he would include them. Tell me, what good would this do my children? They are already feeling left out. So, if I choose to go the negative route, I am making them feel worse than they already do.
My son is helping a friend of his with his racecar this year. My son’s dad and his whole family have always been big into racing. So of course, my son is trying to engage his dad in joining in the excitement of the race season with him. Last night my son told me that he has invited his dad out to the last two races and got an excuse that his stepchild was too antsy to sit through them the first time and the second invite no response at all. My son’s feelings were really hurt. So of course, he vented to me about it. I again start out with: I’m sorry buddy. It is still early in the season I am sure he will make it out to few races with you still this year. While I don’t even believe the words that are coming out of my mouth as they are being said, it seems to somehow calm him. Again, I could go the other route and say ugh your dad is such an ass. I don’t understand why he can’t just be there for you. One more time…. What good would this do for my son?
Mama’s our job is protecting our children. They call us mama bears for a reason. If you think that talking badly about your child’s father in front of them is protecting them, please watch their face closely the next time you do it. I promise you, you will not like what you see. Even if for a split second it crushes them while they think you are not looking. We need to do better for our children. We have co-workers, friends, family, neighbors, social media followers, and significant others we can talk to about our children’s other parents. Please utilize these people if you need validation in how you feel or need to vent. Do not, I am begging you, DO NOT say anything negative to your children about their father.
I recently rewatched the movie Stepmom. This movie was released in 1998. If you are struggling with your ex bringing another woman into your life. Please watch this movie. Trust me I know how difficult it is to watch another woman step into your child’s life. Wowza! Talk about a whirlwind of emotions! But I constantly remind myself. The more people that love and support my children the better for them.
I went through a very toxic stage after my divorce. I am going to explain my side. Now those of you that know me, know that I hate excuses. But sometimes it is what it is.
After my divorce, I obviously didn’t know what I know now. I made a lot of mistakes talking poorly about my children’s father to them and in front of them. At this point I was exhausted, doing literally everything on my own and getting nothing but heart ache and stress from this man. Not to mention he refused to make time for the kids. He was drinking a lot during this time and would call in the middle of the night to start fights with my daughter. This always resulted in me getting woken up in the middle of the night to a crying child. Even during this time, I tried so hard to catch myself before I said something, but sometimes it just came out. We are all human. I can’t change it. But I did learn from it. I have used what I went through, did and changed to try to help others.
When my children’s father got with his current fiancé, I remember my son specifically saying he didn’t like her and was not going to even meet her. Yes, I wrote that correctly. He had not even met her and claimed to not like her. As he was headed to his weekend with his dad to meet her for the first time, I pulled him aside. I simply asked him to give her a chance. I explained to him that maybe she is great, maybe you will love her, maybe she will be a great friend to you. He agreed and left for the weekend. I had a good cry because mamas this is hard! But you know what he gave her chance. Any opinion he formed of her was he left my door was that of only his, without any influence of mine. Let you tell you, for me that was freeing for me. Low and behold he enjoyed his weekend and decided he liked her. Now I have no idea who this woman is. I do not speak to her, nor hangout with her. But after over a year of them being together, my kids both really like her. You know what, I trust my kids. If someone is not good for them, they can decide that without my influence. I will always be their mama, but this woman came into there life and in my eyes that is one more person cheering them on. Why would we not all want this for our kids? In the movie I mentioned earlier Stepmom, there is a part in the movie where the little boy looks at his mom and says he will hate the dad’s new girlfriend if mom wants him to. That is heartbreaking to me. But I see it all the time. I see kids looking to their parents to find out if they should or shouldn’t like someone.
I have also been on the other side of this. I was the “other woman” in the kids’ life. My ex had three kids from two different moms. I spent a lot of time and money on the kids. I always included them as if they were mine. My two were a little older than them, so my daughter especially would take them to do special things too. I saw a lot of what their mom was doing and saying as something I would have done early on in my divorce. I get it. It is hard to watch another woman interact with your children in any kind of a mom manner.
About a year into our relationship, I could tell something was changing in the kids. They were starting to open up a lot more and speak negatively about their mom. Which was really weird. We always just reassured them that their mom loved them. Yet it continued. Well, another year later we found out why. Mom was trying to alienate dad from his kids. So, they were learning that talking bad about the other parent gave them attention and praise. Therefore, when they would do it on our end and not get the same response, it was confusing to them. These kids went from the happiest, go with the flow kids to the saddest, most angry kids I have ever seen. It was literally one of the saddest things I ever watched unfold before my eyes.
Instead of handling the kids having another woman in their life (me) with grace, she mastered that Hot Mess mode. I treated these kids so well and with such grace. They were not my kids. I did not discipline them, that was their dad’s job. I cooked for them, took them to do fun things, read them bedtime stories, played games with them, bought them things, and really just tried to make their time with us as memorable as possible. Disclaimer: Yes, I do this with my own kids as well. I love these children like my own. These moms got so mad at all the fun the kids were having they started the alienation process. How sad for these kids.
There were several times we would be doing something with the kids, and they would be so excited to tell mom about the fun they had that day. Whatever her response was on the other side crushed them. They quickly became sad and/or angry by the time they got off the phone. Why would any mom want to take their child’s joy away? I can tell you as a mama we don’t. Sometimes we are stuck in Hot Mess mode so badly when it comes to our kids, we do not even see what we are doing to them.
If you are stuck in hot mess mode when it comes to sharing custody or co-parenting. Please, please, please reach out to me. I have seen more harm done to kids in these situations than anyone would want to. I probably have a story for any situation that will give you some sort of clarity.
If you really want to reach Goddess mode, encourage your children to have relationships with all parties involved on both sides. To be a true goddess you must do right by any of the children in your life. I am not saying this is easy, but this comes back to love yourself, respect yourself. Alienating another parent is a sign of weakness and insecurity. If you are weak and insecure, you are not even close to Goddess mode. You are loving yourself enough to feel secure in your role in the life of your children. Do not let them pay the price for this.
