Parental Alienation Syndrome dangerous for kids? by Amber Miller

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Parental Alienation Syndrome dangerous for kids?by Amber Miller

Ugly divorce cases become worse when parents pit children against the other parent.

    

It's a problem termed "Parental Alienation Syndrome," or PAS, and just this year the American Bar Association spoke out against it.

News Channel 11 spoke with a Tri-Cities family who says PAS placed their children in a dangerous situation.

It was a sunny mother's day out by the pool. Life is good now, but Johnson City resident Jeni Hasch says it hasn't always been like this. "In December, I was going to go to jail and the kids were going to foster care," Hasch told Channel 11.

She says her ex-husband is abusive and they were in the midst of a custody battle for their four children. Hasch says her ex claimed that she turned the kids against him.

The judge told her to pack her toothbrush, but her children wouldn't have that. They agreed to see their father.

"The kids said they would visit, but all of them together, and he refused. He lost his temper in court—kind of stalked me out of the courtroom. I had to be escorted by the guard, and that's how it ended, so that's kind of a miracle for us," Hasch said.

He no longer visits, but he's still around.

Sarah,16, says she walks on eggshells. "Anytime I see a car that looks like his, it's always just kind of like your heart skips a beat. It's just knowing that he's around and can show up at any time... it's scary."

Telling their story is a risk this family is willing to take to get the word out about PAS.

"Just because we were kids doesn't mean that we have to live in an abusive situation just because our dad has rights to see us," Sarah said.

The teenager said it’s stressful being a child dealing with an adult situation. "Knowing that you could be separated from your siblings is completely terrifying because it's like the four of us together. That's been the one constant in our lives," Sarah said.

Hasch told News Channel 11 the 2006 Judges' Manuel reads that Parental Alienation Syndrome cannot be introduced in court when it’s a proven cases of domestic abuse.

Amber Miller can be reached at amiller@wjhl.com

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http://americanchildrenunderground.blogspot.com/2008/10/dangerous-legal-tactic-at-heart-of.html

By Sol Gothard and Randy Burton

Alec Baldwin’s new book on divorce and custody promotes a controversial legal strategy that places abused children in danger. In his book “A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey through fatherhood and Divorce.” Baldwin endorses a discredited legal defense strategy called Parental Alienation Syndrome. The PAS tactic has been used by child abusers and batterers in California family courts and nationwide to gain child custody and visitation by attacking child abuse victims’ credibility – thus encouraging judges not to investigate child abuse allegations.

Children’s safety must be placed first and foremost in family courts. To ensure abused children are protected, family court judges should throw out PAS and its related language, and order thorough investigation of all child abuse allegations by trained child abuse experts in custody cases.

The PAS strategy was originally devised in 1985 by a controversial psychiatrist and defense expert witness named Richard Gardner, who marketed PAS as a defense strategy for accused child molesters and child abusers.

Playing upon the familiar that some parents badmouth each other to children in divorce, Gardner called this experience a “syndrome.” Gardner then concocted the PAS strategy to prevent child abuse investigations by claiming children were “brainwashed” into making false abuse allegations by one parent against the other. Thus PAS strategy says whenever a child discloses abuse and fear of a parent in the context of a custody dispute, they should not be believed. The PAS tactic encourages judges to assume without investigation that child abuse allegations are false, placing abused children in grave danger.

Equally disturbing are pro-child molester statements published by Gardner – including “inbreeding (incest) can be beneficial” and “Pedophilia (child molestation) also serves procreative purposes.” Baldwin quotes Gardner extensively in his 20 page chapter devoted to parental alienation.

Baldwin first championed the PAS strategy in 2007. Instead of taking responsibility for his own actions, he attempted to blame PAS as the cause for his abusive voicemail to this then 11-year old daughter, Ireland. In the voicemail, Baldwin called her a “rude, thoughtless little pig” and made menacing threats against the child.

Rather than admitting his own frightening and abusive behavior was the likely cause of his daughter’s rejection and avoidance of him, Baldwin stated in his book and media interviews that he is a “victim” of PAS, claiming his ex-wife, Kim Basinger, turned his daughter against him.

The 2006 Judges manual of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges states “abusive parents commonly blame their partners for turning their children against them and rarely take responsibility for the impact of their own behavior on the children”

While badmouthing does occur in a minority of divorces and some parents attempt to influence a child’s feelings toward the other parent, badmouthing should never be used as a reason to fail to investigate child abuse allegations in a custody dispute or to change custody. PAS puts abused children at extreme risk by causing judges to ignore their abuse disclosures.

Since it’s creating, Parental Alienation Syndrome strategy continues to endanger abused children in family courts. PAS has strategically been called by other names including “Hostile Aggressive Parenting,” “Alienation,” “Coaching,” Disparagement,” etc. But all of these phrases are part of the PAS strategy.

The PAS strategy has caused the death of at least one child. A 2006 article in Phoenix Magazine reported a 5-year-old boy was murdered in 2004 by his abusive father as a result of the tactic of PAS. When the PAS strategy was introduced into the custody case, the court refused to investigate the little boy’s please that visitation with his father was unsafe. Instead, the court accused the mother of “coaching her child to fabricate his fears.”

Because of the PAS tactic, abused children (especially in sexual abuse cases) have been placed into the hands of their abusers. The Leadership Council, a highly respected independent scientific organization, states, “It is estimated that over 58,000 children a year are ordered into unsupervised contact with physically or sexually abusive parents following divorce in the United States.” It has been reported that the PAS strategy was used in a large number of these cases.

In September 2008, Jennifer Collins, a child victim of the PAS strategy (now 23), recounted on the nationally televised “Mike & Juliet Show” how her abusive father used the PAS strategy to gain custody of her and her brother, despite a court finding of domestic violence by the father and medical evidence supporting a child abuse report that the father had fractured her 4 year-old brother’s skull.

Studies show 50 percent of abusers who batter their partner also physically abuse their children. But tragically, a 1996 study in the Family Law Quarterly found child custody evaluators did not consider a history of domestic violence as a major factor in their recommendations, but three-fourths of them cited alienation” as a major determination.

In his book, Baldwin attempts to present the PAS strategy as valid, although the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges’2006 manual states that “parental alienation syndrome or PAS has been discredited by the scientific community” and “should therefore be ruled inadmissible.” Also, PAS has not been validated by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association or the American Medical Association.

The PAS strategy has harmed thousands of abused children across the country. To protect abused children, judges should never admit evidence of PAS in custody cases and should order thorough investigations of all child abuse allegations by trained child abuse experts.

We must stop the use of the PAS strategy now. The safely of our abused children depends on it.

Sol Gothard and Randy Burton are members of the Children’s Protection Alliance. Gothard is a retired judge of the Louisiana 5th Circuit Court of Appeal and a former faculty member of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. Burton is a former prosecutor and founder of the national child advocacy group Justice for Children.

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Published on May 13, 2007 by Tri-Cities News

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Abuse and Health From the Illinois Jo Daviess County, Health Department: http://defend.dot5hosting.com/defendthechildrenorg2/id140.html

From the Illinois Jo Daviess County Health Department:
Common Myths about Child Abuse
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Incest is defined as sexual relations of any kind perpetrated by a biologically or non-biologically related person functioning in the role of a family member.http://defend.dot5hosting.com/defendthechildrenorg2/id62.html

Incest is defined as sexual relations of any kind perpetrated by a biologically or non-biologically related person functioning in the role of a family member.

One out of four females is sexually abused by the time she reaches tIhe age of 18.  About 75 percent of the perpetrators are family members. 
It  is real and not uncommon. . Children of every race, religion and economic status are abused and victims of incest.. The effects of incest don't stop when the abuse stops. There are often maybe long term effects of incest which follow the victim throughout his or her life. Some efffects are  lack of confidence, self destruction, self hatred, alcoholism, drug addiction, depression, eating disorders, the inability to trust and suicide .

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My review of PAS and PA suggests there would be some difficulty answering these questions in the affirmative,". Achimovich, Lois. (2003). Parental Alienation Syndrome Revisited.

Excerpts from page 7 Paragraph 2, 3, 4, and 5

After looking at these other theorists using the terms either PAS or Parental Alienation, Williams J. asks: "Is the methodology behind PAS and PA testable? Is their general acceptance of what PAS and/or PA mean within a profession or professions? Generally? My review of PAS and PA suggests there would be some difficulty answering these questions in the affirmative,".

He questions whether either concept -PAS or PA - is of much help in dealing with cases of alleged alienation as follows:

"There is little or no benefit brought to a dispute resolution and fact finding process whose goal is to focus on the "best interests" test by a diversion into the efficacy of a controversial psychiatric/social science term that has no common meaning in the psychiatric/ psychological/ social work fields."

And yet as Berns states:" As a rebuttal to allegations of child sexual abuse, for example, they are rhetorically elegant, using the allegation that the father sexually abused the child to establish the mother's unfitness as a parent. Allegations of PAS are, in this setting, so perfect that if PAS did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it. 33 (Her Courier)

Achimovich, Lois. (2003). Parental Alienation Syndrome Revisited. Paper presented at the Child Sexual Abuse: Justice Response or Alternative Resolution Conference convened by the Australian Institute of Criminology and held in Adelaide, 1-2 May 2003.

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/pas/2.html

The long term effects of such recommendations, which are taking place in Australia, the US and UK 29, can be grave Achimovich, Lois. (2003).

Excerpts: page 6 paragraph 7 Achimovich, Lois. (2003).

"Their paper makes starts towards a more objective consideration of children who refuse visitation. However, like Gardner, they describe characteristics of the alienated child, the alienating parent and the alienated parent, and use his constructs to engage with the problem. Very little space is allowed for showing how the allegations, particularly with regard to abuse, are found to be false. Often the expert witness is the person charged with assessing whether abuse has happened. I would contend that some expert witnesses do not have the hands-on expertise to make this assessment and that by default, mainly due to the confusion of the laws governing use assessments whether abuse allegations in divorce proceedings, they are being asked to do what is usually a state - mandated activity. In this situation many are resorting to Gardner's concepts rather than to the body literature available on best practice in assessment of CSA allegations,". 27

Johnston and Kelly give more credence to Gardner's theoretical constructs than are his due. The same can be said of the paper by Matthew Sullivan and Joan B Kelly 28, with its tenor of conviction that the exercise of authority and force will solve the impasse. Where is the evidence? The long term effects of such recommendations, which are taking place in Australia, the US and UK 29, can be grave.

Achimovich, Lois. (2003). Parental Alienation Syndrome Revisited. Paper presented at the Child Sexual Abuse: Justice Response or Alternative Resolution Conference convened by the Australian Institute of Criminology and held in Adelaide, 1-2 May 2003.

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/pas/2.html

Excerpts: "But many forms of child abuse for instance occur in private. Unless the assessment is thorough - going, rigid refusal of visits can look unreasonable. History is not enough,".

Page 6 excerpts paragraph 3 and 4

Excerpts: "But many forms of child abuse for instance occur in private. Unless the assessment is thorough - going, rigid refusal of visits can look unreasonable. History is not enough,".

Furthermore, Kelly and Johnston state that most children who are subjected to "alienating behavior" do not reject the other parent, but may be more or less psychologically disturbed by the conflict and pain of their parents and others in their social system. This takes us outside the realm of alienation and into the realm with which all practitoners in the feild are familiar - children suffering because, as Sandra Berns 26 puts it - their parents are "behaving badly". In these cases it would seem more appropriate to drop the term alienation altogether and take each case on its merits," by  Achimovich, Lois. (2003)

 

Achimovich, Lois. (2003). Parental Alienation Syndrome Revisited. Paper presented at the Child Sexual Abuse: Justice Response or Alternative Resolution Conference convened by the Australian Institute of Criminology and held in Adelaide, 1-2 May 2003.

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/pas/2.html