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INFORMATION - REGIME
A much overlooked part of the people dynamics in a family law dispute is what Ryan Thomas has called the 'Regime', these are the friends and family members that mostly unknowingly support the Alienation of a child from one of the parents. The Regime can supply: money, housing, various goods and clothing, child minding, supply of substitute parent, and moral support. Often this support is based on lots of distorted and false information taken in good faith as truthful by the Regime members. The failure of modern counselling and Family Law systems to deal with the Regime is a predicator of their failure.
We all want to care for our own family so when we hear from a son or daughter, a cousin, a sibling etc going through a divorce so many terrible stories done to our relative we feel saddened and want to help them. It is a natural reaction. We have to be very careful to keep out of the fight because every extra person that helps out one side encourages more help on the other side. It is pouring fuel on the fire of the dispute.
You may have a relative who has always from your interaction with them come across as a decent person and a loving parent however they may have a psychological disorder such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder or one of the other disorders in the Cluster B family of disorders such as Borderline Personality disorder or worse. Dr Craig Childress explains how these distorted minds are able to win ordinary people over using a web of lies and deceit in his Flying Monkey Newsletter.
Narcissist Sam Vaknin explains his deep understanding of narcissism in the following video:
The award winning UptoParents program which is made up of many professionals such as Psychologists, Mediators and Lawyers advise grandparents to keep out of the marital fights of their divorcing children to prevent disputes from getting bigger. The same reason applies to other relatives and friends of people who are divorcing.
Anyone dealing with a separated parent projecting negativity about the other parent to people such as Doctors, Social Workers, Psychologists, Lawyers, Judges, Teachers, Police, neighbours etc have to be very careful not to be drawn into the web of the Alienator's Regime. Someone who is intent on Alienating a child from the other parent will sound very genuine and convincing. There will often be gaps in their story that just don't seem right. Don't take in any information from them without verifying it. These people will do whatever it takes to achieve their goal.
The supporters of the 60 minutes child abduction mother from Italy to Australia realised they had been lied to.
Anyone with any experience with disputes can tell you that if any independent person hears one side of the story by a person in a dispute they will usually feel much sympathy for that person. This provokes a natural desire to want to help. If that same independent person could erase that story out of their mind and listen to the other person's side of the story that would provoke a natural desire to want to help that person.
What is happening is that it is human nature to want to win a dispute and the way of doing this is to get support. The main way you gain support for your case is to present to other people the issues that you feel the other person has done wrong. You do not present to other people the issues that you have done wrong. The more important it is for you to win the dispute the more inclined you will be to selectively present the facts. The more important the issue is to you, the more prepared you are to distort the facts or tell outright lies. Sometimes this is done consciously and sometimes unconsciously. To some people the ends justify the means when it comes to disputes.
Most people would presume that the parent who seems to be the most composed and level headed during a custody dispute is likely a better parent than one who seems stressed and highly anxious. Experts such as Harvard's Dr Steven Miller advises us that exactly the opposite is the case.
A family is comprised of mum, dad, kids and extended relatives such as grandparents, uncles aunts and cousins. Even once parents separate children should have a relationship with each other and each parent. If they don't, the structure is pathological. To quote Dr Childress, 'cutoff family structure is ALWAYS pathological. There is no such thing as a “healthy cutoff family.” ' If you see a structure like this you need to do what you can to help those involved, especially the children.
THE THINGS YOU SHOULD NEVER BELIEVE ABOUT THE OTHER PARENT
The other parent does not love the child.
The child hates the other parent.
THE THINGS YOU SHOULD CONSIDER AS FALSE UNTIL YOU GET LOTS OF PROOF TO THE CONTRARY
During a custody dispute:
-The other parent physically or sexually assaulted the child;
-The other parent put the child's safety at risk;
-The other parent's standard of care is neglectful;
-The other parent is mean and nasty to the child;
-The other parent cares more about their boyfriend girlfriend than the child;
-The other parent has major problems with cleanliness, alcohol, gambling, police etc;
-The restraining orders are for genuine violence not power and control;
-The other person is not really the other parent.
After contact has been totally cut off:
-The other parent is dead;
-The other parent is in prison;
-The other parent was violent;
-The other parent abandoned the child;
-The other parent does not care about the child.
You need lots more proof than other people who may just be repeating 2nd or 3rd hand what the Alienator said.
An Alienating parent and the Family Court and Child Support Agency put enormous pressure on the Targeted Parent with many Targeted Parents suffering a kind of PTSD. Everyone needs to make allowances and support them. If they have genuine parental failings, help them not demonise them.
SELL THE BENEFITS OF CONFLICT FREE JOINT PARENTING
If you hear negative stories about the other parent use this as an opportunity to sell the benefits of a child having a conflict free upbringing and lots of time with both parents. You could do this by telling them some of the positive statistics referred to on this website or you could see how much they know about the subject. If they are too consumed about the fight or focussed on themselves you will readily be able to determine this by their answer.
In the above video, Family Court Judge Michael Scopelitis states among other things, '...the parent goes in claiming to be supporting the best interests of the child when in fact what they are trying to do is further their own agenda...the child is just a pawn....litigation destroys a families ability to work anything out together...'
The best thing you can do is inform the other family members and friends of both parents of the importance of a child having a conflict free upbringing and lots of time with both parents. Please refer them to websites such as divorcepizza.com which are quick and easy to read as well as other sites giving more information if they have the time and interest to learn.
Parental conflict is something that doesn't go away. It means that children may not be able to share special lifetime events with both parents. This can cause them a lot of embarrassment amongst their friends and it hurts them deep inside if both parents do not attend:
-birthday parties;
-milestone birthday parties such as 18, 21, 30, 40, 50;
-support if a pet such as a cat or dog passes away;
-support and encouragement for school and college examinations;
-support and encouragement for sports events the child is participating in such as grand finals;
-support and interest with them going to the high school Ball or Prom;
-school and college graduations;
-medical procedures especially if the child is very sick;
-getting their first job;
-prom nights;
-farewell and welcome home from their first overseas trip;
-engagement to be married;
-marriage;
-birth of their own child;
-birthdays for their child.
Flying Monkeys – The Minions Narcissists Use To Do Their Bidding
Family Courts in Western society have evolved by people lobbying to policy makers for changes in Family Law whenever a group can muster up enough support to introduce the change sought. Sometimes these changes cause people to be under compensated in fairness or overcompensated in fairness. Depending of course on what your view of fairness is. The end result is that people are never happy with the outcome and more and more variations to the system keep being added.
The end result of all these changes is not to make the system any fairer, it just makes the system more complicated. The more complicated it is, the longer it takes for disputes to be resolved and the most costly and damaging it becomes for everyone.
A Family Law dispute involves:
-children;
-a person's lifetime financial security;
-all a persons assets;
-a persons job;
-a persons friends.
For some reason the system has evolved to be a winner takes all outcome and there is usually no penalty for the most appalling behaviour such as Alienating a child or telling lies. In fact these behaviours and wilful disobedience of Court Orders are openly rewarded.
See Katy Faust's video above on how to deal with parental conflict at grand children’s birthdays.
Sadly even when the Alienating parent dies many children are still too emotionally cut off from the other parent and end up with no parent at all at these milestone events.
The most concerning thing about Parental Alienation is that the research shows significantly increased chances of Alienated children themselves becoming alienated from their own children.
In the video above Amanda Sillars was kidnapped at a young age from Australia and taken to America to live with her father. Her father said many disparaging things to Amanda about her mother damaging any chance of her having a relationship with her. Despite eventually tracking her mother down and meeting her in her twenties, Amanda never got to connect with her mother before she committed suicide.
Amanda became a parent herself, however she lost contact with both of her own children due to Parental Alienation.
Parental Alienation is intergenerational like many social problems and needs to be tackled as early as possible to minimise the damage on current and future generations.
King Solomon's approach of threatening to split the baby as a way of quickly finding the person who truly cared for the child offers much wisdom beyond the vision impaired glasses of many of today's policy makers.
It is so easy to want to take sides of a Family Law dispute because no-one wants their friend or family member to loose. The problem is that in a Family Law dispute everyone losses. The direct cost of lawyers and associated costs is enormous. The loss of time spent going to court and preparing for hearings could be much better spent caring for children and earning income. The biggest damage however is the damage to children.
If you allow yourself to be drawn into supporting one side of a Family Law case, you may help that parent to win however what you will definitely contribute to is a major and often devastating effect on their children.
Don't allow yourself to be drawn into the dispute even if it is just listening to what sounds like a genuine story about what the other parent has done. It could just be part of a smear campaign looking to enlist supporters based on false or distorted information.
You might look at a relative thinking what a fantastic and loving parent they are. Don't. Every parent in a Family Law/Parental dispute is a soldier at war. Some of them will do anything they can to win and that includes using the kids as pawns. You just cannot tell based on how you have known them from the past.
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