Tag Archives: Brainwashing

Mentally abusive parents frequently abuse on other levels

What keeps a parent who is capable of damaging a child mentally and emotionally from damaging them physically or sexually as well?

Not much.

Parents who are mentally abusive lack the ability to control themselves. Which means they’re unable to contain their emotions, which then spills into doing what’s right for their child, which is sheltering them from harm– any harm. A parent who is OK knowing that their child is suffering (especially over lies that the parent creates) is a toxic father or mother, and toxic fathers and mothers are bad people who have few limits on what they’re capable of doing. 

What I’ve noticed in my own experiences and in the experiences of blog commenters is that parents who can harm kids on one level frequently harm them on others, too.

These “manure-spreading” parents are capable of damaging kids across the spectrum of child abuse: physically, mentally, sexually, medically, and educationally. To be fair, few toxic parents damage via all of the five categories.

Examples
A parent who is physically or sexually abusive is also mentally abusive. Comments are made such as:

“Look what you made me do, don’t tell anyone about this or else…”
“This is your fault because…”

Name calling also goes hand in hand with these forms of abuse.

Here’s the thing: You can’t have a physically or sexually abusive parent who isn’t also mentally abusive. Any attack on a child’s body also is an attack on their mind.

To restate something important, not all parents who are mentally abusive are physically or sexually abusive. However, they have the potential to be, and too frequently are.

Bottom line? Once someone’s an abusive parent in one of the categories, they very often abuse on one or more of the others.

[If you are curious about the use of the terms “medical abuse” (also known as Munchausen by Proxy) and “educational abuse,” click the respective links…]

 

Abusive home = Unhappy home

If you dig down to the very core of why some parents and households are abusive towards children and others are not, look at how happy or unhappy they are.

A happy parent is one who nurtures his or her children physically and emotionally. Happy people don’t molest, pass hurt feelings on to, deprive the other parent’s love from, or otherwise hurt their kids. Happy people who go through divorces or break-ups hurt just like anyone else, but they elevate their behaviors to protect their children from the adult pain.

“All abusive parents are unhappy parents, and unhappy parents are feelings-based people who act out on these feelings without regard to whether what they’re saying or doing is right or wrong for their child” – www.brainwashingchildren.com

Look at your own situation of mental abuse or even milder alienation efforts. How happy is the person who’s damaging your child? Are they an overall happy person?

Whenever I think of the environment that my child is in, I think of his home with a big giant neon sign above it flashing, “UNHAPPY – 24 hrs/day.” The nearly decade-long campaign of harming my son’s relationship with me has been so pervasive, how could such behavior come from a normal, happy parent? It can’t.

The unfortunate part is the long-term outlook. Since it’s impossible for you to change the unhappy person’s core, what are the odds of the damage being done to the children who are in their midst stopping? Quite low. The only real way to help the children that live with these negative, unhappy, parents is to have them spend more and more time with the positive, happy parent. It can be a complete change of custody in severe alienation and emotional abuse cases, to granting the “happy” parent a lot of meaningful time in the decree.

Destroying Dad’s Dignity

Thousands of fathers across America right now are viewed by their children in a disdainful, disrespecting way, brought about by badmouthing and brainwashing.

Even a father who is in jail and has done horrible things does not deserve a verbal attack. Adults can comment all they want on him, but when it comes to the kids, children should never have to encounter an adult who destroys their father’s dignity, even if that father is in jail.

The importance of a father and a mother to children is unrivaled. As such, no ex-wife, mother-in-law, or anybody else should trash the father in front of that father’s own children. Yet that’s what’s happening across America every day. Divorce and children born out of wedlock have caused many mothers to take out their hurt and anger on the “flawed” father by directly enrolling the children in their contempt and hatred.

The direct route for these bad parents to ease their hurt is to destroy Dad’s dignity. It ranges from saying how Daddy never loved Mommy, and doesn’t love the child either, to falsely accusing him of rape, physical abuse, or molestation. The most common way of lessening Daddy’s worth is by addressing him by his first name, and teaching the child to do the same. So Daddy becomes identified by his first name, “David.” Teaching a child to stop calling his Dad, “Dad,” is destructive beyond measure.

The goal is to impugn Dad’s worth as a father and as a human being. If the child is young enough, a parent can successfully diminish in the child’s eyes his or her own Daddy.

Any attempt to destroy a child’s connection to a parent should be punishable by law. But because it’s hard to prove, this kind of child abuse is enacted on children everywhere with virtually zero consequences for the abusive parent.

Destroying Dad’s dignity— or manufacturing a lie to a child that their father is not worthy of their love and affection– happens far too often. The best action for fathers at the receiving end of this is to stay the course. Stay in your child’s life. Keep the phone calls, emails, and texts coming. Document, document, and document again the abuse, and contact a lawyer if you have evidence of your ex mentally abusing your child.

Never give up!

Evidence from afar that your child is being brainwashed against you

When you’re the noncustodial parent, days and weeks go by without you being around your child or children. During this time the custodial parent– your ex– who’s hell-bent on sabotaging your relationship with your child has ample opportunity to do so.

There are some strong signs that appear in most brainwashing households. You can’t be there in person to observe all the things said, the lies told, or the subtle put-downs, so you will have to look elsewhere– to the telephone, cellphone, text messages, and emails.

The openness and normalcy of the electronic communications with your child is in most cases directly related to the level of mental abuse taking place in the other house. Evidence that your child is being coached and lied to include:

  • Your child is flat, monotoned, or sad when he or she gets your phone call
  • Your ex is often heard speaking to your child in the background (and your child will frequently cover up the phone with his or  her hand)
  • Your phone calls or texts are not returned
  • Cellphones you buy for your kid are rarely used to call you, but used routinely by your ex to contact your child when he or she is with you
  • No calls on your birthday or Father’s/Mother’s Day, and rarely or never a card or e-card
  • Your child asks you questions inappropriate for their age
  • Your child is used as a messenger by your ex
  • Your child complains about his or her last visit (usually of trivial things)
  • You rarely get a call, email, or text out of the blue from your child
  • Your child claims out of the blue that “I don’t want to see you”
  • Your child seems unable to echo any “I love you’s”
  • Your child echoes the words of your ex (words a child of that age would never use)
  • Your child refers to you by your first name, either to you directly or at home while away from you
  • Your ex refers to you when speaking to your child in the background by your first name
  • Your child will say “Why haven’t you called me” when in fact you’ve tried
  • You rarely get an acknowledgement of any cards of presents sent

How to fight this? The short answer is to call your child on a regular basis (once a week, twice a week, etc), and stick to it. Also send texts and emails, even super short ones, when you think of your child. If you’ve been unable to get through to speak to him or her, make sure you let them know that you’re excited to finally reach them. If you’ve left a voicemail, ask them “So did you get my voicemail?” That way, if they didn’t (as is likely), they’ll realize that you did reach out to connect with them. Older kids will even figure out on their own that a parent is withholding messages from them.

The big picture, of course, is to get the child into counseling. Even call Child Protective Services if your child’s emotionally wrecked. Make sure you document everything– to include tape recording phone calls (if legal in your state), logging all the times you’ve tried to reach your child, etc.

If your child custody decree doesn’t mention anything about telephonic or electronic access, then consider hiring an attorney who can make a “motion to modify” the decree. Some decrees include specific hours whereby your ex must make your child contactable. That way if your ex doesn’t comply, he or she could face the wrath of a judge.

It’s a very difficult thing to have to suffer through month after month after month, with the only let-off being when  you have possession of your child. But hang in there. Keep a steady flow of calls, emails, and texts to your brainwashed child. One day your child will see the “unhappy” parent for who she is, and your consistent actions at reaching out will be rewarded in 95% of cases.

 

Quote of the Week

Tragically, an ex consumed by revenge will gladly sabotage their child’s loving how you get pfizer viagra feelings with the inducement of false hatred.” – www.brainwashingchildren.com

Brainwashing grandmothers

Grandmothers who brainwash childrenA parent bent on destroying their own child’s relationship with the ex often have a family member quite willing to take part in the brainwashing…

The grandmother.

Over the years I’ve heard my son’s grandmother enough times to see first-hand how she’s hurting my son’s relationship with me. And I realize that what I’m hearing is only the tip of the iceberg, sadly.

Just a few weeks ago, during a long vacation, grandma tells my son halfway through (paraphrasing),

You’re on the downhill slide!

Translation: The sadness of having to spend time with the other, “lesser” parent- your father- is getting close to ending! Then you’ll be back with us and away from the monster…

Another thing she said that showed how selfish she was during one summer saying to him on the telephone how many hours until she sees him again (I can’t remember the exact number, but it was in the hundreds). And for about 5 minutes prior to that, she asked him nothing about what he was doing (we were out of the state on a trip to the lake). She went on about all the things he was missing back home! Learning absolutely nothing about her grandson’s exciting trip to a large lake…

In many families, the grandmother is the dominant figure in the entire family tree. Which is perfectly fine. But when the grandmother uses her power to aid (or in my situation, lead) the effort to sabotage her grandson or granddaughter’s relationship with his or her own parent, it’s downright despicable.

[Now, this is not to say that grandfathers don’t brainwash children. They can and do. But the reality is that in the vast majority of cases, it’s the grandmother who’s highly emotionally vested in the grandchildren, and as such if they feel aggrieved by a child’s ex-wife or ex-husband, many will go to many lengths to harm that person.]

In the process, of course, hurting not just that ex but a child or children as well.

So, how do you combat a grandmother’s actions that are harming your relationship to you son or daughter?

First, start documenting all comments, texts, voice mail messages, and actions. I use Google Docs for all my notes on the evidence of my son’s brainwashing. Then, once you have this evidence hire a lawyer and see about calling a hearing about this abuse. Now, don’t get your hopes up about the judge taking assertive action. Most family law judges are clueless about PAS*. In my case, the judge to this day has done absolutely nothing to warn the mother despite audio and video evidence, and my testimony on the stand. But you still need to make this effort– wouldn’t you like to know your father or mother held a court hearing over the mental brainwashing that was occurring while you were a child? Show some initiative that sadly too many parents lack.

Secondly, place your child into therapy with a child therapist well versed in *Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS).  This will help your child immensely in the recovery efforts. Having a neutral third party talking to the child about you can do a lot of good.

Third, and I’ll write about this soon as a separate topic, enlist the help of a person who your son or daughter really likes or loves. With some well-timed words talking about you (the targeted parent), and sharing their feelings about you, your child will now have in front of them a huge disconnect: between what they’ve been hearing about you by the brainwashing parent and grandparent for years, and what they’re hearing now from this trusted, liked person.

Last, I highly recommend the book Divorce Poison by Dr. Richard Warshak (order here). He just came out with an updated edition, and it’s terrific. It’s essentially the Bible on Brainwashing.

Don’t just think that brainwashing of children is done by parents. It’s done by grandparents too– and this double-barreled assault on the child and his or her relationship to you can be brutally effective in destroying the child’s opinions, attitudes, and feelings…

Brainwashing children: The four levels of abuse

The Four Levels of Brainwashing Children

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.

Other ways of describing the brainwashing of children

other terms for brainwashing of children

other terms for brainwashing of children

  • Teaching hate
  • Indoctrinating the child in 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
  • Stealing the child’s soul
  • 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
  • Flooding their brain with lies
  • Squashing the child’s desire for a relationship
  • Mental torture
  • Mental torment
  • Badmouthing the parent
  • Instill hatred where love once existed
  • 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, CPS, and any judges what you’re facing.

Dr. Phil’s show on Brainwashing of Children

Dr. Phil McGraw

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.

The Post-Visitation "Shakedown"

Post-visitation shakedown

Dreading the post-visitation shakedown

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.