What you can do if you suspect your ex-partner is turning your children against you
Even if a divorce or separation is amicable, this will often still place a strain on the whole family.
The whole family's sense of well-being can be put out of kilter for a sustained period.
However, what can bring further heartache and anger is when one or both participants engage in parental alienation.
As any good family lawyer will tell you, this term is becoming overly used and sometimes taken out of context.
However, parental alienation is an area that many parents can experience and suffer from.
Therefore, if your partner or both parents participate in what affects and purposes are a form of psychological manipulation, then it can cause damage to the family as a whole.
Family lawyers can help you
Parental alienation can happen before a break-up, during or long after the separation has taken place.
With that said, expert guidance must be sought at the earliest opportunity to stop this behaviour before it harms multiple family members.
Negative comments
We, as adults, often hear negative comments from others throughout our lives.
However, what can make parental alienation particularly difficult to deal with is that these comments can sometimes be deeply personal; that’s because often, an ex will know the issues that you may be particularly sensitive about.
Hearing negative comments being relayed to you from your children, perhaps after spending a weekend with your ex, can hurt severely.
Not only can this affect you, but your children can be caught up in this crossfire.
This can have adverse and ripple effects throughout the family unit.
What exactly is parental alienation?
At its root level, parental alienation is a form of psychological manipulation.
It can involve a sustained effort by one parent to turn their children against the other parent.
Family lawyers can listen to you and advise you on the best route forward. In extreme cases, the family courts may need to intervene to stop such behaviour and may implement a parenting plan that should halt such behaviour.
The family courts and your appointed family lawyer can also put other practical steps and agreements in place to help prevent such behaviour from being displayed by one or both parents.
What should I do if I suspect my partner of conducting parental alienation?
Expert advice
Expert advice should be sought from a family law practice to help stop such behaviour.
It can sometimes be the case that a simple letter or e-mail exchange with your partner from a family lawyer can curb and stop such behaviour.
When a third party, such as a family lawyer, is asked to advise and communicate with your ex, this could be enough to bring this issue to a close in some cases.
Family courts
Parental alienation may become so entrenched and have been present for such a sustained period that sometimes there is no option but to take the dispute through the family courts.
We at Alun Jones Family Law can represent and advise you throughout if the dispute does go to court.
