Brainwashing Children

Parental Alienation Syndrome to be highlighted on ABC’s 20/20

Posted on 14. Dec, 2009 by admin.

ABC News’ show 20/20 will be featuring a segment this Friday, with a brief appearance by Dr. Richard Warshak, the foremost author and psychologist on parental alienation syndrome, aka “children brainwashed to hate a parent.”

From Dr. Warshak’s site,

I expect this show to have a major impact in educating the public about the suffering of children who have been turned against a parent, and about what can be done to help ease a child’s transition back to a rejected parent.

The segment will be anchored by 20/20 reporter Chris Cuomo. This topic, mental child abuse, is vastly misunderstood by parents, therapists, judges, and lawyers alike, so I’m excited that it will be in front of a national audience. Dr. Warshak is the foremost authority on parent-child alienation, so ABC did great in choosing to interview him.

The segment should air in the first hour of the 2 hour show (9-11pm EST).

I expect this show to have a major impact in educating the public about the suffering of children who have been turned against a parent, and about what can be done to help ease a child’s transition back to a rejected parent.

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Brainwashing children: The four levels of abuse

Posted on 08. Nov, 2009 by admin.

The Four Levels of Brainwashing Children

Brainwashing children to despise a parent falls into one of four categories of severity:

1. Glancing insult
2. Direct attack
3. Relationship assault
4. Relationship-ending coaching

Glancing insult
The glancing insult, also called a “drive-by put down,” is a derogatory remark said to the child about a parent. These are off-the-cuff remarks whose purpose is to instill doubt and negative opinions about the target parent.

Examples include:

“She’s picking you up at 6pm, if she’s even on time”
“So your father didn’t seem to care much about what you thought, huh…”
“You know I love you more than anyone else in the world does, don’t you?”

Direct attack
A direct attack is a slew of words plainly at plainly disparaging you, and thus your relationship to your child.

Examples:

“Your father is an inconsiderate jerk”
“If your mother wasn’t such a messed up soul, your time with her would be much more fun”
“Your mother is a terrible mother, that’s for sure. I can’t believe she did that—what a moron”

Relationship attack
When the source parent tries to harm the parent-child relationship by attacking visitations, minimizing telephone and email contact, and insinuating that time spent with the target parent is bad for the child.

Examples of what such parents will do:

Being “unavailable” all week to receive phone calls from the target parent to the child
Not returning any calls, texts, or emails made by the target parent
Telling the child, “You have complete family here with me and your Dad (step-father), yet he’s again ripping you away from us this Christmas”
Telling the child, “You only have 5 days left with her, then you’ll be back and safe with us.”
Withholding letter, postcards, and emails from the child

Relationship-ending coaching
The most deplorable thing a parent can do to their child is the final step, coaching the child on how to completely break off contact with their own parent.

Some of the things the source parent will teach the child include:

1. That once the child is 18, he/she no longer has to be in contact with the target parent anymore, and is encouraged to do just that
2. That once the child is 18, if a boy he can change his last name to something different like his step-father’s last name
3. That once the child is 12, he/she can go in front of a Judge and state how awful the target parent is, and of the desire to move in with the source parent and not be with the targeted parent at all anymore

Wrap-up: Take the high road
You’ll sometimes feel overwhelmed at correcting the brainwashing being inflicted upon your child. A brainwashed child will act in truly heart-wrenching manners, and you’ll often not even recognize him or her anymore.

But hang in there. Read this blog, discuss with other loved ones your frustration, and read the book “Divorce Poison,” take your complaint in front of the Judge in your case, and you and your relationship will be rewarded one day for your refusal to take part in counter-attacking the other parent.

Be a loving parent, don’t discuss the other parent in a negative light—ever—and take the high ground. Lastly, find a good child therapist who does “play therapy” with children, and you’ll be doing the right things to slowly undo the damage done to your child’s mind.

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Quote of the Week (#3)

Posted on 09. Sep, 2009 by admin.

Any attempt at alienating the children from
the other parent should be seen as a direct
and willful violation of one of the prime
duties of parenthood.

- J. Michael Bone & Michael R. Walsh

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Other ways of describing the Brainwashing of Children

Posted on 26. Jun, 2009 by admin.

other terms for brainwashing of children

• Teaching hate
• Attack on the child’s soul
• Parental alienation
• Sabotaging the parent-child bond
• Aligning the child against the parent
• Poisoning the child’s mind
• Inducing false hatred
• Crushing/killing the child’s spirit
• Relationship is under attack
• Erasing or rewriting the child’s good memories
• Bashing the parent
• Denying a loving relationship
• Programming
• Mental torture/torment
• Badmouthing the parent
• Campaign to destroy the parent-child relationship
• Mental or psychological child abuse
• Emotional child abuse
• Denying the child the love of one of his/her parents

These phrases can be helpful in describing to your child’s counselor, your lawyer, and any judges what you’re facing. My favorite is the last one.

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Quote of the Week (#2)

Posted on 15. Jun, 2009 by admin.

Children want to be loved by both of their parents. – www.brainwashingchildren.com

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Quote of the Week (#1)

Posted on 10. Jun, 2009 by admin.

alienating home = abusive home

An alienating home is an abusive home – Mel Feit

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Dr. Phil’s show on Brainwashing of Children

Posted on 10. Jun, 2009 by admin.

Dr. Phil McGraw

A few months ago I watched with interest an episode of Dr. Phil that dealt with the topic of brainwashing of children by a parent. Dr. Phil summarized the bad parental behavior that hurts children, and I jotted down the main points he made. Here they are:

• Using child as pawn
• Talking bad about the other parent
• Using child to gain information
• Transferring hurt feelings and frustrations onto the child
• Treating the child like an adult

All of them are great points. In my case every single one of them are being done. How about you? It’s my guess that a parent that you see deploying at least two of these actions is likely to be doing all five.

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The Post-Visitation “Shakedown”

Posted on 03. May, 2009 by admin.

When your child is dropped off with your ex following your weekend or other multi-day visitation, a brainwashing parent will usually give your kid(s) a post-visitation “shakedown”.

The goal of the parent doing this is to extract all the details, looking for those that put the other parent in bad light.

The poor child knows the parent wants to hear only the bad (nevermind that he/she just learned how to, say, ride a bike for the first time during this visit). So the child states the case the alienating parent wants to hear, often exaggerating or even lying.

How do you combat this? You can’t, mainly because you know it’s going on but you can’t prove it. Moreover, you simply can’t control the other parent’s behavior. So what you do is not think about the “shakedown” event. As long as you’re being the best parent you can be and do not engage in the awful behaviors the alienating parent is, you’ll come out fine in the end. And the child will remember the campaign against you eventually, and how fraudulent it was.

This, in turn, turns into the brainwashing boomerang.

It’s a shame what parents will do following a child’s time with a parent. The attempt to strip the bonding moments down and label them something different is without question child abuse.

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Brainwashing Tool #2: Using the child as a spy

Posted on 31. Mar, 2009 by admin.

Using the child as a spy

Parents who are indoctrinating their children to spite the ex will also enlist the child to become a surrogate spy. This can range from simple information about the ex’s new girlfriend, all the details of every breakfast and dinner (“what did you eat? What restaurant did he take you to?”) to doing complete hard drive searches looking for bank info, emails, or incrimining web sites.

Vindictive ex’s would love to be able to rummage through your home to get interesting details on your life, including any and all “dirt.” They’re still very angry from the divorce or separation. But since they can’t break into your house without risking jail time, they recruit your child to act as a spy on their behalf.

This is very damaging to the child, for a number of reasons. First, it makes the child believe that the parent and their house can’t be a normal environment. There must be something wrong with it if one parent needs all the details of what’s happening there. Second, it teaches that it’s OK to be sneaky and spy on somebody. Remember, kids model their parents’ behaviors. So a continuance brain bath in spying around a parent’s house for information to share with the other parent is very damaging to the child long term.

Finally, by aligning the child in this manner, the vindictive ex slowly tears down the bond that exists between the other parent and the child. This intentional act of abuse on the child is terrible– it creates conflict and discomfort in a relationship where little to none even existed!

Parents that do this are terrible parents. Period.

When you catch your child reporting everything back to the other parent (I discovered mine through child therapist progress notes), it’s time to let the child know that you understand they want to “help Mom/Dad, but reporting back everything you do in such detail isn’t fun for them, it upsets the other parent, and it makes you work too hard, having to carry around a mental note pad every day.” Or words to that effect.

Don’t embarrass or punish the child, or the behavior will continue and get even worse. Point it out without pointing a hard finger, explain why it’s not a fun or positive thing to do, and then drop it.

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When your ex places your child into counseling after every visit

Posted on 01. Mar, 2009 by admin.

Because time with you is damaging, of course!

I’m experiencing in my case severe programming in a desperate attempt to sever my son’s relationship with me. One of the things my son’s mother does is place him into counseling after every father-son time we have. That’s right, usually the very next Monday or Tuesday after the Sunday evening exchange he is placed into child therapy. This has been going on for many months now.

It’s very frustrating to see my 9-year-old son go from a highly enjoyable visit with me (my tactics in fighting back the brainwashing are slowly working, thank God), to being dropped into counseling.

I set myself an appointment with the child therapist a day after my son was placed there, and the therapist said there were no issues in my son’s nearly 3 weeks with me.

So why was he brought in? Counselor couldn’t answer.

I believe that his mother thinks that time with me is harmful to him, that my being in his life is harmful to him, and that the way to “recover” from the awfulness of spending time with a (unwilling to be acknowledged by her) loving father is to get help from a therapist.

Unfortunately in my case the therapist is completely clueless to the brainwashing mother is doing– so clueless that he denies any active brainwashing is going on! Just some “influencing” in my son’s mind. By whom? I ask? “Perhaps a parent”… Please… This after the countless stories I’ve told him and the video and audio tape showing my son’s anguish. It’s a “he said; she said” thing according to him.

When an ex places your child in counseling after nearly every visit with you, what message is that sending the child? That being with you is not a normal, OK thing. That obviously something not good or harmful certainly happened to the child during that time.

It’s sick.

If this happens to you, you need to be assertive in standing up to the child therapist on what exactly it is he or she is treating. See what codes are being documented on the billing to the insurance company. Sit in on sessions like I have, and take good notes. There are many incompetent child therapists out there.

In my case, the therapist didn’t have much to say, and even prevented me from seeing the progress notes when I asked to see them– he needed to see legal proof of my rights to see them. Can you imagine any divorce decree where a parent is specifically denied access to medical records? Amazing.

My battle is just beginning with that incompetent child therapist. Never assume that a therapist knows what he/she is doing and isn’t aligning with one parent over the other. Get your own trusted child therapist always.

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