One of the worst things a parent can do in a custody case is to alienate a child from the other parent. Alienation can be challenging to prove to a judge in a courtroom. However, the target parent, the school teacher, the therapist, the guidance counselor, the coach, will uniformly see the offending parent’s conduct. There is no way to effectively hide it. In litigation, the alienating parent will attempt to camouflage what they are doing.
If you suspect a parent of alienation, keep careful list of everything your child says or does, or that the alienating parent and his/her family and friends say or do, that causes you to believe alienation may be occurring. You will need to identify the suspected conduct and its consequences if you want to show the other parent, your attorney, a custody evaluator, or a judge, that your child is being alienated from you.
Parents in a happy and intact relationship need to keep their emotions in check and monitor what they say and do in the presence of their children. Through the process of separation and divorce, any number of stress points in a person’s life can become intense or develop where none had ever existed or had even been anticipated. Parents must be vigilant in their effort to identify and properly manage their own reaction to whatever levels of stress, anger, disappointment, success, or financial challenges, they experience on the road their new life will traverse.
The guiding principle and imperative for children everywhere is what is in “the best interests” of each individual child. That is the lens Maryland law demands judges, parents, attorneys, therapists, teachers, doctors, and others to look through when attempting to determine the best interest of a minor child. A parent may be so angry or mentally impaired, for any variety of reasons, that their best interest lens is no longer focused on a child’s best interests. A parent in that situation can become focused on damaging the other parent or even their own child. An alienating parent will attack a child’s emotional bond to the other parent, other family members and friends. An alienating parent may also alienate a child by fostering a bond with a child that is forged in order to allow them to be manipulated. As a result, both bonds are available to a parent who is unable to act in their child’s best interests, to manipulate the child or the other parent.
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