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(8/2010) Parental Alienation: There's No Co-Parenting HappeningAug 11, 2010 (Basil and Spice - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Writing a monthly column on parental alienation for Basil & Spice is both challenging and rewarding. The challenging part occurs when I am staring at a blank computer screen with a deadline approaching and all I have to show for my efforts is an almost empty bag of Chips Ahoy. The reward usually comes just before I reach for the last cookie and the inevitable sugar-induced coma. At this point the Blog Content gods take pity on me and drop an idea for the upcoming column right in my lap. Here's what I mean. As I was staring at the blank screen that would become this column, AOL News and NBC's Today Show were kind enough to run a story about a mother who was reunited with her children 30 years after she received a mysterious phone call saying they had died in a car crash. If you saw the story I'm sure you were touched by the Mom's heartwarming reunion with her children. But if you, or someone you know, has ever been an alienated parent, I'm sure you were also saddened that the media did not raise parental alienation as a potential reason for the estrangement. Mom thought her children were dead. The children's father told the kids that Mom abandoned them, was dead, in the Army, or the Peace Corps. "His story always changed," said Karen Cason, one of the children. The father said his ex-wife never called him after the divorce to ask for their children back and that he didn't know about the phone call carrying the news of the fatal car crash. Let's give Dad the benefit of the doubt. Let's say he didn't know about the phone call and never received a call from his ex-wife. But if I'm the reporter, I'm questioning him about everything else. Did he ever try to contact her? Was his phone number listed, and did he let his friends and family know that if his ex-wife called, they should put her in touch with the children? What about the conflicting stories he told his children about Mom? And finally, did he ever feel bad that his children never knew their Mom, or have any empathy for an ex-wife who didn't know anything about her children? We all like happy endings, but if parental alienation was the reason for this estrangement there might have been a happy ending years ago if people understood the issue. Alienating parents typically do not co-parent with their ex-spouses. They don't exchange contact information or help the children stay in touch with the other parent. In fact, alienating parents don't follow any court orders designed to keep both parents in their children's lives. Alienating parents are also impulsive and deceitful -- using any lie that makes sense in the moment without worrying about what was said in the past. And above all, alienating parents have no feelings of empathy, sympathy or guilt for the people they are hurting. So thanks, AOL News and the Today Show, for the story idea. However in the future I promise to come up with my own topics if you don't settle for the easy happy ending and instead take the extra step to educate the world about an issue keeping countless children and parents unnecessarily apart. Mike Jeffries is the author of A Family's Heartbreak: A Parent's Introduction to Parental Alienation. Formerly a journalist and currently a corporate communication professional, Jeffries articles on parental alienation, divorce, parenting and advocacy have appeared in Counseling Today, Woman's Magazine, The Richmond County Bar Association Journal, Children's Voice Magazine, CRC Children, and at Womansdivorce.com and Dadsdivorce.com. He has also discussed parental alienation on radio programs in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom; and on CNN, at ChildrenToday.com and in Best Life Magazine. The A Family's Heartbreak: A Parent's Introduction to Parental Alienation website is located at www.afamilysheartbreak.com. Jeffries and A Family's Heartbreak: A Parent's Introduction to Parental Alienation can also be found on Facebook. Parental Alienation 2010: You Are NOT Alone i" To see more of Basil and Spice, go to http://www.basilandspice.com/ Copyright (c) 2010, Basil and Spice Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com, e-mail [email protected], or call 866-280-5210 (outside the United States, call +1 312-222-4544). |