When kids get caught in the middle

from Mike Murphy sender time Sent at 13:15 (GMT-04:00). Current time there: 13:16. ✆ to mthompson@edmontonexaminer.com cc AB PAAO , jeremy swanson , info@nospampaawareness.org date 27 June 2009 13:15 subject Column on Parental Alienation "When kids get caught in the middle" mailed-by shaw.ca

Melanie:

http://www.edmontonexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1627762

The behaviours you have outlined are only too typical when it comes to this abuse of children by a parent who hates the ex more than they love the children and who may have a personality disorder.

The end result for a child is emotional pain and confusion which may last a lifetime. Broader awareness of this is essential in trying to identify it and indeed prevent it.

Thank you for publishing this article.

Michael Murphy

Children of divorce are often forced to choose between mom and dad

Her mother rewrote her history. Our daughter thinks I came into her life in Grade 2.

Posted By Melanie Thompson, EXAMINER STAFF

Updated 2 days ago

(EDITOR’S NOTE: The names in this story have been changed in order to protect “Jenny.”)

Ben no longer sees his daughter. He has lost all contact. A separation from his spouse forced their daughter to choose one parent over the other.

Jenny chose her mother.

Ben always had a normal father-daughter relationship with Jenny. After the separation, Jenny remained with her mother but Ben maintained a regular bi-weekly visitation schedule as agreed to by himself and his ex-spouse.

Things were going well. But soon he began to notice changes in Jenny.

HASN’T GIVEN UP HOPE

Now, seven years after the separation, she doesn’t want him near. She doesn’t want to go to his home for visits. She doesn’t want his birthday gifts.

Ben has almost given up all hope for a relationship with his daughter.

Jenny is caught in the middle of a case of parental alienation, which commonly occurs among divorced families.

This condition is described by the Parental Alienation Awareness Organization (PAAO) as a group of verbal and non-verbal behaviours by one or both parents that are damaging to children’s mental and emotional well being. Children are manipulated or brainwashed into choosing one parent over the other.

Often, one or both parents will badmouth the other, refuse visitation, and lie, among other aggressive behaviours, which alienates the children and forces them into an unhealthy position of having to choose.

Ben says that is exactly what happened between himself, his ex-spouse and child.

“Her mother re-wrote her history,” Ben says. “Our daughter thinks that I just came into her life in Grade 2, although I’ve been in her life since the day she was born.”

The separation occurred when Jenny was eight years old. Ben and his daughter were closer than ever. But Ben says the bi-weekly visitations began to fall apart when his ex-spouse began to alienate Jenny from him by refusing to allow his visitations.

Lawyers and the court system became involved. A custody battle ensued.

A child psychiatrist was hired to assess Jenny when claims were made by his ex-spouse that Jenny was traumatized and afraid of Ben.

Ben remembered a suggestion his lawyer had made to take videos and photos of his time spent with his daughter to prove they do indeed have a normal relationship.

“I put a video camera up on a shelf at my mother’s…,” Ben says. “It was directed at the couch, and on the video camera it shows Jenny (and I). We come in the door, and she’s laughing and giggling and chasing me with a water pistol. It shows us watching a movie.”

Ben provided this video as evidence. The judge ruled in his favour and ordered that his ex-spouse receive counselling.

Ben says she did not follow the court order, and things have gotten worse since his case was passed on to a new judge.

“I thought, with court orders, people are going to be held accountable for their actions,” says a clearly-frustrated Ben. “But when it came to that, (the judge) just said to her lawyer, ‘Your client simply refused to go.'’ He didn't do anything.”

“I thought all judges were trained in this. That doesn’t appear to be the case.”

ANOTHER CHANCE

Ben hasn’t seen his daughter for almost a year and is awaiting another chance in court to fight for his right to see her.

“They say wait, your child will figure it out when they grow up. But what about all the time in between? All that time is lost.”

Most people aren’t aware of parental alienation until they experience it first-hand. But Ben hopes that by telling his story, more people will recognize parental alienation as a form of child abuse, and maybe other parents won’t have to fight so hard to simply be with their children.

For more information about parental alienation, visit http://www.paawareness.org.

mthompson@edmontonexaminer.com

New York Times ~ Keeping Divorced Dads at a Distance

Op-Ed Contributor

By STEPHEN PERRINE

Published: June 18, 2006

EVERY other weekend for the past four and a half years, I've spent three precious days with my two adolescent daughters. We play tennis in summer, ski in winter, travel when the school schedule allows. But no matter where we are, we're all keenly aware of the thin membrane of secrecy that keeps us from being as close as we were before their mom and I divorced.

Like most divorced fathers, I'm caught in exactly the kind of nightmarish situation that experts on stress say to avoid — a great deal of responsibility, but very little power. I'm the major source of support for my children; my financial obligations are set by the state, and my wages automatically garnished. (If I lost my job tomorrow, and couldn't keep up with my payments, a warrant for my arrest would be issued within two months.) But my influence over how my daughters are being raised is limited, sometimes by decisions their mother makes that I have no input into, and sometimes by their allegiance to her when she and I are at odds.

In fact, there are times when these two girls, whom I've loved for a decade and a half, seem like little strangers to me. They'll forget to tell me some detail of their lives — or downright lie if they have to — so I won't feel sad that I've missed something they shared with their mom, or raise issue over some decision she's made with which I might not agree. As a result, I sometimes come away from visits or phone calls feeling shaken, saddened and angry.

My ex and I have been to court over support issues, and we've been to court over custody issues, and the legal battles inevitably trap our children in the middle and force them to choose sides. Sadly, this is exactly what not to do if you want to foster a loving parent-child bond. In a study by a child psychologist, Robert E. Emery, divorcing parents were assigned — by flip of the coin — either to mediate or litigate their custody disputes. Twelve years later, he found, that in families that went through mediation, the noncustodial parent was several times more likely to have weekly phone contact with his or her children.

Unfortunately, the system that our government has set up essentially forces divorced parents into litigation. We need to bring children and their divorced parents, especially fathers, closer together by revisiting our reckless support and custody laws, and the haphazard approach we have toward enforcing them.

Since 1998, the federal government has provided matching funds based on a percentage of money the states collect in child support — a powerful financial incentive for states to mandate and maximize support payments. As a result, parents are discouraged from negotiating a settlement: only 17 percent of current support agreements deviate from state-imposed guidelines, even though studies show that when couples set their own support figure, it's more likely to be paid (and tends to be higher than the state's figure).

And the court's involvement doesn't stop there. If Dad gets a raise, Mom takes him back to court to get more money; when Dad suffers a financial setback, he sues Mom to get his support decreased. Each time, the acrimony — and the legal fees — grow.

But while courts will jail men who can't meet their support payments, mothers who interfere with a father's custodial rights rarely face similar penalties. Often, the only recourse for a dad who wants to see his children more often is to sue, and sue and sue again.

Some fatherhood advocates argue that when mothers fail to carry through on a custody ruling, they should face fines and imprisonment, just like fathers do. That's started to happen: last fall, an Arkansas court sentenced a woman named Jennifer Linder to six months in prison for "willfully and wantonly" refusing to obey visiting orders and awarded custody to her former husband. But sending more mothers to prison can only result in more anger, and more confusion and alienation for the children in question. What is needed is less court involvement, not more.

The first step toward fostering a father and child reunion is to make private mediation of the parenting provisions (physical custody, legal custody and visiting) the standard procedure. Allowing parents the chance to negotiate their support — and possibly give fathers more of a say in how their support is spent — will decrease the vitriol, and let fathers feel more like parents, not just paychecks.

Second, we need to enact and enforce sensible penalties for interfering with visits. Jailing a mother is no way to solve the dispute; neither are financial penalties that hurt her ability to care for the child. But mediation — perhaps compelled by the threat of financial penalty — might be the solution. It's estimated that one in five children of divorce has not seen his or her father in the past year. Without substantial rethinking of our current support and custody law, children will continue to be alienated from their fathers, and lawyers will remain on hand to soak up the resulting legal fees.

Just this month, I received a summons to attend a custody conference at the Allentown, Pa., courthouse, and another letter informing me that an accounting error has left me short on support payments, and that my passport may be suspended. I want to shield my daughters from these harsh truths. So these are the secrets I'll be trying to keep from them as we gather together for Father's Day.

What secrets will they be keeping from me?

Stephen Perrine, the editor in chief of Best Life magazine, is the author of the forthcoming "Desperate Husbands." He appeared on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" about this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/18/opinion/18perrine.html?_r=2&ei=5070&en=a18337e5be22629b&ex=1151380800&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1245967691-AawyapSgpLG2F9dBwT0VoQ

Broadsides by Antonia Zerbisias responds to Christina Hoff Summers on Burly Men

Burly men

''Mens Rights Now,'' whose handle always cracks me up, suggests somewhere in the comments on some other post that I blog this piece of propaganda by a right-wing think tank type for an ultra-conservative publication.

Well, you know how I just live to please guys like Men's Rights Now.

Anyhow, the piece is about how unemployed ''burly'' men in the US -- who, admittedly, have been hit hard by the decline in construction and manufacturing jobs -- are supposedly being shortchanged by some grand feminist conspiracy to keep them from benefiting from stimulus spending by President Barack Obama...continued here

http://thestar.blogs.com/broadsides/2009/06/burly-man.html

Broadsides by Antonia Zerbisias tries effeminately and unsubstantially to respond to one of the pioneers of true feminism, Christina Hoff Summers, since taken over by Victim Feminists like Zerbisias who is an intellectual light weight in comparison. No doubt AZ cut and pasted her retorts from other blogs rather than do any of her own research. I posted the following on her blog today but didn't think she would have the gonads to allow it be seen. It is, after all, the socialist Red Star she works for who have no journalistic standards for their blogging reporters.
It is, of course, in jest but if you think about it these victim feminists have no clue about how they have arrived at their station in life but go on thinking they are oppressed by men when, in fact, its all about their own choices.

I and some friends are lobbying the UN to create a feminist state in an under populated area of Africa. This state would use the most recent scientific methods for victim feminists like Zerbisias to produce sperm from stem cells so they don't need men to reproduce. This would give them wider CHOICE although it will be harder for them to order up sperm from males who are a minimum of 5"11" (irony intended) the current standard. The UN will provide a peace keeping force (consisting mostly of men of course) to protect them for 10 years while they train their own defence force. We will call this force the FDF for want of a better term. At the end of this 10 year period they are on their own unless they CHOOSE to sign an agreement with a patriarchal state for mutual aid. Given it is unlikely they will do this we are also taking bets on how many New York Minutes it will take for this Victim Feminist regime to be overtaken by an Africa tribal culture unsympathetic to victim feminist desires.

Egregious Parental Alienation of an American Child in Brazil

Sean Goldman is still a hostage in Brazil as the kidnapping step family still tries to abuse him while manipulating the Brazilian Justice System. CBS had a segment on their morning show this week with the kidnappers which was stunning in its naivete. They gave these Brazilian abusers a platform to try and justify the kidnapping and emotional abuse of a young boy.

The following is a Today Show Interview held June 25/09 after the CBS session where the interviewer has done some actual research.MJM

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The DV Conference of the Decade This Weekend in LA--Will I See You There?

This is just a reminder of a posting I made last year about this conference. It should be pivotal and may help to further debunk the Victim Feminist mythology so prevalent.MJM

The DV Conference of the Decade This Weekend in LA--Will I See You There?

June 23rd, 2009 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & Families

Join me this weekend at the domestic violence conference of the decade here in Los Angeles--"From Ideology to Inclusion 2009: New Directions in Domestic Violence Research and Intervention"

If you mention "Glenn Sacks" or "Fathers & Families" at the door, you get a $100 discount and pay only $295. This includes a catered brunch, two breakfasts, lunches and afternoon snacks, plus two evening receptions with live entertainment.

The conference begins this Friday (6/26) at noon and goes through Saturday and Sunday. Register at the door at 10 AM on Friday or 7:30 AM on Saturday.

Some of you may remember that I wrote extensively about the 2008 conference, which was fascinating and informative--to learn more, click here.

The conference is presented by the California Alliance for Families & Children and co-sponsored by The Family Violence Treatment & Education Association.

Details are below.

Groundbreaking Research and Evidence-Based Treatment Models From the Titans in the Field

June 26-28, 2009
The LAX Marriott
Los Angeles, CA

Featuring World-Renowned Experts From the Editorial Board of the New Peer-Reviewed Journal, Partner Abuse by Springer Publishing Company

With Special Guest Appearance by Erin Pizzey (Founder of the Shelter Movement, pictured below)

Full Schedule Brochure with Abstracts & Presenter Bios as well as info on how to register for the conference can be seen here.

Presenters include:

Murray Straus, Ph.D.
Deborah Capaldi, Ph.D.
Don K. Dutton, Ph.D. (pictured, right, photo by Kevin Graft)
Daniel O’Leary, Ph.D.
Sandra Stith, Ph.D.
Richard Gelles, Ph.D.

and numerous others.

Topics include:

Etiology and Risk Factors
Dynamics of Partner Violence
Working with Abusive Women
Services for All Victims
Partner Abuse in a Cultural Context
Partner Abuse and Family Law
Assessment
Couples and Family Therapy
Neurobiology and Attachment
Effectiveness of Batterer Intervention Programs
Prevention
Q & A With the Experts

New Fathers 4 Justice UK ~ Angry dad takes protest to rooftops

Published Date: 25 June 2009

Meppershall dad dresses up as court jester in fight to see his daughter

An angry father who has been banned from seeing his teenage daughter for the past 15 years, took drastic action by protesting for fathers' rights on a tower rooftop.

60-year-old Roger Crawford climbed to the top of the Carfax Tower in Oxford where his estranged daughter and wife live, where he dressed up as a court jester and protested against the family court system.

He took part in the protest last Thursday afternoon, along with a another New Fathers 4 Justice member, who dressed up as the Incredible Hulk.

Mr Crawford, of Shefford Road, Meppershall, held a banner over the roof top saying ' Fathers are for life, not just conception' and another with a message to his daughter saying 'Heather' and 'My love for you.'

He told the Chronicle: "I have been through the courts to try to get access to my daughter, but I am allowed no contact with her when I have done nothing wrong.

"The court system really is a compete joke, they seem to punish non-resident parents and that's what they have done to me.

"They have stopped me seeing my daughter for no good reason."

He added: "I am extremely angry with the whole process and I will keep protesting in Oxford in the hope that Heather hears about it and maybe one day will realise how much I care for her and how much I want contact with her.

"But I'm not doing this for me I'm doing this for fathers everywhere. It's just not right how they are treated."

Mr Crawford who has already protested twice in Oxford this year, was denied access to his now 17-year-old daughter Heather, when his relationship broke down.

He carried on seeing her until she was two and half years old, but was denied access after that point by her mother.

He went through the court system, but despite a High Court judge ruling that full access should be given to him, the family court in Oxford denied him any access to Heather.

He added: "Not being allowed contact with Heather has just been awful.

"I would describe the feeling as a living bereavement.

"Of course no parent should ever have to bury a child I understand that must be awful, but it is it similar.

"In some ways it's worse because you know that your child is out there and you're not allowed to contact them.

"I will never give up hope, that's what keeps me going and I know hat there is a powerful bond between a parent and children and that just shouldn't be broken.

"I just hope that one day Heather will realise that as well."

A video of the protest has been posted onto popular website YouTube. (ed note see below)