Know More About Parental Alienation

By Dennis Gac

Parental alienation is just another one of the numerous reasons why the problem of divorce has grown so serious in contemporary society today. In medical terms it is termed as PAS or Parental Alienation Syndrome. This is yet another of the side effects that bitter divorce proceeding usually has on the minds of impressionable children. A man called Richard Gardner in 1985 coined this term. He used the term to describe a process of increasing alienation or distance between a child and his/her parents. In such situations a child displays an increasing amount of hostility and a critical attitude towards the other parent. Now this syndrome can occur for a variety of reasons. One of the main ones is because the other parent usually indoctrinates the child to indulge in such behavior. Now the other parent can either directly or indirectly encourage this attitude of parental alienation.

Again, some numbers which have been thrown up by Gardner reveals that the alienator in parental alienation syndrome cases is more often than not, the mother. The fathers are usually accused of different crimes by the mothers and these accusations all directly or indirectly influence the attitude of the child towards the targeted parent, regardless of whether the accusations are true or not. Parental Alienation has become a favorite tool used by couples to win custody cases. However to be fair, it has been noticed that of late, men are also playing an equal role in alienating children from their mothers.

For quite a long time, Parental Alienation Syndrome had not been accepted as a valid point in custody cases. However, of late, courts in the United States have accepted it while in the United Kingdom, it still awaits recognition. However, there is still a great deal of controversy about the existence and scientific validity of the Parental Alienation Syndrome. It has been widely criticized universally. Even the APA or the American Psychological Association has been very cautious about adopting any stance on the issue of parental alienation as a valid psychological condition. The Association has often criticized the misuse of the syndrome as well.

At this point we are really not qualified to comment on the nature of the Parental Alienation Syndrome. However it is true that one bitter spouse to indict another often uses it. Children as usual, are the worst affected, as they fluctuate back and forth between both parents without really knowing what is happening. Again, the mothers are still discriminated against, as being the perpetrators of PAS. They are often accused of unjustly accusing the fathers to get the child on their side. The male parents often end up with a raw deal, especially if sexual allegations are made against them.

Though it is true sometimes, at other moments, they are just an expression of hate and revenge. For this dicey nature perhaps, PAS is still being denied any official validity. The fate of this still remains to be seen and as always, nothing but time will tell.

About the Author:

Dennis Gac represents Father Rights Organization which helps fathers to regain their children's back into their custody. If you wish to know more about father rights just visit the website http://www.fathershelphotonline.com and more information about father rights.

Get Your Divorce Questions Answered

By Dennis Gac

The world has begun to grow extremely selfish these days. People do not think twice before contriving ways and means to destroy their elements of hate. Even their loved ones are not spared in this game of hate where they are used as pawns to win against enemies. It is more upsetting to see this being enacted between separated couples who blame each other for almost everything to let out their anger, frustration and hatred.

Mothers and fathers do not hesitate to make their children the centerpieces of such dirty mind games that they play against each other. To get what things that they want, like custody for example, mothers fling false allegations of child sexual abuse at the fathers. To counter it, men often come up with allegations of infidelity and the like. The worst thing about false allegations is, it is very difficult to prove them either wrong or right. The process of authenticating such claims often takes months and often years of legal procedure.

There are certain developments in judicial history that led to these eventualities. False allegations were encouraged after the passing of the Mondale Act of 1974 or the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). This Act was designed with the intention of investigation and subsequent validation of child abuse claims. People looking for revenge were eager to use this as a tool to hurl false allegations at each other. Now, this does not mean to imply, that, during divorce proceedings all claims made a re deliberately untrue.

Instead, it is definitely true though a lot of these accusations do hold ground; a lot of them are made for the sake of it. Unfortunately, the fathers have to bear the bigger brunt in these cases. Using the maternal complex to win over juries, mothers have often made false allegations against the fathers, concerning alcoholism, sexual and physical abuse and so on. Under therefore mentioned Act, CPS workers are entrusted with the task of evaluating and proving such claims, and often professional pressure and fear of erroneous consequences have led them to pass biased decisions.

Two symptoms have been identified in false allegations being used in divorce proceedings. Firstly, the Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) in which the child is alienated from one parent by the other. Secondly, the Sexual Allegation In Divorce (SAID) whose consequences are highly erroneous. In this kind of a false allegation, one parent is accused by the other parent of sexually molesting the child. Quite obviously, it is the father who suffers the social outrage because in our society sexual molestation is considered to be one of the most severe and unforgiving crimes. Amidst all this mudslinging due to false allegations, it is the child who suffers most and eventually grows up as a traumatized individual with psychological ailments. The saddest part is that, caught up in their own little worlds, people forget the fact that they are stooping as low as using their own children to be the puppets in their dirty little games.

About the Author:

Dennis Gac is the founder and President of National Brotherhood of Father Rights. http://www.fathershelphotonline.com offers a membership organization which gives Fathers unlimited consultation for a period of one year and that can guide Fathers throughout their entire court cases.

Get To Know How Deal with Child Custody

By Dennis Gac

One of the saddest points in a divorce is having to battle over child custody. That is, parents fighting over who gets the lion's share of the child's attention and affection? Living in a time when every second couple we know is getting divorced, these custody battles are usually a very familiar sight. These battles revolve around visiting rights, who gets to stay with the child and who becomes the visitor and so on. It is usually a very distressing deal for the parent who loses the battle and has to adopt the role of an occasional passer by in the life of his own child. It has been seen however, that over time, the concept of child custody, or rather, certain ideas about it have undergone a sea change.

The idea of child custody, just like many other issues, had patriarchal overtones to it right up to the middle of the19th century. It was universally believed then that only fathers could be a true parent to a child. This view could not, probably, be countered, because the impression of women being the quintessential "single mothers" had not yet emerged. But with the turn of the century, common perceptions changed, thanks to the intense female empowerment and emancipation movements. Soon, with fathers spending more and more time out of doors working for livelihoods, mothers were considered to be the more caring and responsible parent.

This has a different effect as well. Soon the fathers began to protest against this maternal bias and believed that they were being unnecessarily being excluded from the lives of their own children, through no fault of their own. They wanted custody of their own children as well. They argued that it was unfair to idealize the maternal love as all powerful and all encompassing. It was generally felt that custody should not be awarded on the basis of gender, but the intrinsic attributes of an individual, like his/her sense of responsibility, duty and so on.

Post the Great War things took a different turn altogether. The arguments considering gender bias were finally paid heed to. Until then, custody had been a completely gender based issue. But now for the first time, the concept of joint custody came into being. Both parents would have an equal share in the lives of their children. There are two types of custody that is legal custody where parents have an equal right to take decisions concerning their children. The second is physical custody where the children divide their time equally between both parents.

Therefore, quite understandably, more emphasis has been given to shared legal child custody and not to physical custody. A general pattern is indicated here. Women, quite unfairly under certain circumstances, are being given more preference when it comes to child custody whereas the fathers are left marginalized in the entire legal battle. In a bid to address such prejudice, men are now willing to take up a number of legal and socio-political actions, thus ending such unfairness for good.

About the Author:

Dennis Gac represents Father Rights Organization which helps fathers to regain their children's back into their custody. If you wish to know more about father rights just visit the website http://www.fathershelphotonline.com and more information about father rights.