Parental Alienation Behaviors you need to understand - Dr. Amy Baker

hi everybody this is Tracy today I've got a very special guest for us dr. Amy Baker is a nationally recognized expert in parent-child relationships especially children of divorce parental alienation syndrome and emotional abuse of children she's the author of eight books and a coach on parental alienation she's featured on TV and she stood up as an expert witness to protect the rights of alienated parents everywhere she's also a researcher that has created peer-reviewed articles but changed the way the medical and legal profession look at parental alienation syndrome we must remember that everything abusers do is about control they hate to lose and they love to further torture their victims if you're dealing with a parental alienation case then you're gonna need to hear this so let's welcome dr. Amy Baker thanks forward to our conversation you're welcome I just want to talk about like that divorce is usually pretty ugly and and and it brings out the worst in people but sadly that children are used as pawns to control their exes and the amount of crazy that happens during divorce can you make anybody's head spin but knowing that my audience deals with the additional layer of narcissistic abuse some of the things that North that parental alienation isn't is is the ways that they can manipulate a schedule or having clothing Wars and messing with the child's support or even disciplining the children differently so while these are not currently alienation features they are tactics that are used and they're just shady parenting so if those aren't parental alienation what is parental alienation well first of all I'm not sure I'm willing to say that those things are not alienation when alienation is any action attitude or behavior on the part of one parent that can foster a child's unjustified rejection of the other parent so we can't make a list and say fighting over clothing or discipline is or isn't alienation it's really how the parent does it in other words if a parent says I can't believe your mother let you wear that dress that's ridiculous she obviously doesn't love you or she wouldn't have let you dress like that that's alienation it just happens to be about clothing on the other hand a parent could just say I forbid you to wear this outfit or that outfit I don't care what the other parent says that's not necessarily alienation so alienation is anything that can result in a child believing that the other parent is unsafe unloving and unavailable and there's many many ways that one parent can behave that can foster in a child the belief that the other parent is unsafe unloving and unavailable that's really helpful to know thank you for clarifying that is there any links to people who ally innate and personality disorders that personality disorders especially cluster B that's borderline sociopathy and narcissism that those three provide a psychic platform for alienation in other words a parent who has one of those three personality disorders has difficulty separating their needs from the needs of the child so that once they devalue the other parent oh I'm not married to that jerk anymore so they devalued their former spouse it's hard for them to see that the children might benefit from that relationship even if they no longer want a relationship with that parent that's why narcissism sociopathy and borderline can result in alienation that's really helpful to know and I know my people are dying to hear that from you so thank you I work really closely with the domestic violence world and two words that they don't like narcissists and parental alienation they don't like narcissists because they don't care what they're labeled they care about the behaviors and with parental alienation they don't like it because of all the false claims that abusers use against their victim and it seems like this is a tactic that gets used quite often and I have a friend whose husband had accused was accused of assault sexually assaulting their daughter and so as retaliation he claimed parental alienation so how often does this false claim thing happen and does it affect the real cases I'm very very sympathetic to the problem of false allegations of parental alienation I don't think that a battering husband should be able to get away with saying oh it's not that I'm a batterer it's just these kids have been alienated from me by my ex so I'm highly sympathetic to that my problem is I don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater in other words there are false allegations of sexual abuse but nobody would say therefore let's say that sexual abuse doesn't happen so yes there might be false allegations of parental alienation but the solution isn't to say let's never talk about alienation or let's pretend that it never happens the solution is to have proper diagnostic and assessment tools so that we could look at a family and say dad beat up mom in front of the kids kids are resisting contact that does not meet the criteria for alienation and let's look at another family dad didn't beat up mom mom has engaged in alienation strategies kids are behaving like alienated kids that does meet the criteria for alienation so there are ways to tell looking at the behaviors of all the parties the rejected parent the favorite parent and the kids whether it's alienation or not we don't need to throw but construct simply because there are false allegations I agree I agree and to me as I work with the coalition against domestic violence i i cringe whenever they don't want to hear the word narcissist or any cluster B personality disorder they know that they're involved but it's something that because of the rules of we can't judge we can't you know claim that they are that we can't diagnose them they have a difficult time getting funding if they say the word narcissist and I think that has got to be changed and I know that you're working towards that so I think that while it's true or it's probably true we don't actually have all the data but let's say that it were true that most alien aiders were narcissists and we don't have that research sewn up but let's pretend for a moment that we did I still wouldn't be willing to say because you're an alien aider you must be a narcissist or because you're a narcissist you must be an alien aider so from my point of view understanding the relationship between personality disorders and alienation is helpful from a treatment point of view it's helpful for the targeted parent to understand how did this happen why was i attracted to a narcissist how did that play a role in the choices that I made how can I hopefully not marry and have an ARCA have children with the narcissist next time but I don't think it's essential to know whether any particular alienator is a narcissist I do believe that alienation is best detected through the behaviors the actions and attitudes of all of the parties the favorite parent that rejected parent and the kids yeah I agree so let's quickly talk about the court system because people are confused is parental alienation syndrome emotional abuse is it domestic violence is it considered child abuse well in the United States you know I'm sure you know is no one single determination about what the courts capital T capital C believes and that's you know until it there was a case in the Supreme Court at this point it's judged by judge some judges totally understand alienation they understand that it's a form of child abuse they treat it like a child protection problem not a child custody problem but I have testified not just in the same state but in the same County not just in the same County in the same courtroom with Judge a in one room and in judge be in another room and I have seen tremendous difference between those two judges and how receptive they are to testimony about parental alienation so it's really a judge by judge a factor at this point there are there is no the courts understand or the courts don't understand yeah and that's that's that's very similar to any kind of abuse where the legal system just doesn't have a criteria they don't have a basis like these are the rules this is the laws this is how we identify them and as you said it's a judge by Judge kind of decision and that puts the victim if you were in the wrong room at the wrong time that puts the the abused victim in a very bad place where there's no standard and the girl walking down the hall next to you just won her case and your judge didn't help your case that much right so judges have tremendous judicial discretion and that's because there's a law called the best interest of the child so it is a federal statute that says when two parents can't agree about the custody of a child the judge is supposed to make the decision based on what's best for the child not basically it's not about what's right or fair for the parents or what the parents wants it's supposed to be the job but where it gets complicated is every state has their own best interest of the tribe statute so every state has a law that says when two parents can agree on custody the judge makes the decision based on the best interest of the child and here are the factors the judge should pay attention to when deciding what is in the child's best interest so in one state you might have five factors in another state it might be thirteen factors it's varied state-by-state but where it gets even more complicated is no state statute tells the judge how much weight to give each factor so let's say you have a particular list of factors in Minnesota and in Minnesota it happens to say the parents ability to support the child's relationship with the other parent is a factor but so is the child's preference so what do you do if the child prefers parent a but pick so that goes and parents a favor but parent a isn't able to support the child's relationship with parent B so you have two factors one in the favor of one parent one in the favor of the other the judge has no there's no rule for how to weight those factors if we could say to judges this is the order of importance that the most important thing is not the child's preference or which parent lives closest to the child's school or something like that the most important factor should be the parents ability to support the child's relationship with the other parent so if we could move the legislation towards the back then I think we would have greater consistency I would hope that we could get to that place one day because this is an important issue and children's lives depend on this and these decisions that judges are making and something that we know about narcissists is that they are charming they very often use the court system to further abuse their victims and charm the judge and a victim is left with their mouth open and in shock not really knowing how to defend themselves so what kind of criteria does the court use to tell who's lying and who's not I will add to that that not only do they charm the judges but they charmed their own attorneys they charm the guardian ad litems they charm the city evaluators that's the biggest problem is the custody evaluations tremendous weight to the recommendations of the custody evaluator and imagine the custody evaluator who has a visit scheduled when to have a parent and child come into their office and on Monday they have mom and the kid and on Tuesday they have dad and the kid so the custody evaluator opens the office door to the waiting room and there's the favor parent with the trial they're sitting next to each other their heads are tilted together they're looking at something together they're smiling there's a warm easy atmosphere between them that parent if they're a narcissist is charming they're calm cool and collected they know how to make good eye contact they make a good first impression now imagine the next day the custody evaluator opens their office to the waiting room there's the favorite parent and child in the waiting room they're not sitting near each other there's tremendous anxiety and tension in the air there's hostility between them the favorite pair of the rejected parent is anxious agitated she's afraid that she's losing her children so she creates a very very different first impression she doesn't make good eye contact she interrupts because she's so eager to explain no no you don't understand my kids are really mad at me they're you know this is just alienation that's the other parent the custody evaluator often makes recommendations based on how they feel in the room with the parents in the room with a favorite parent who let's say their narcissistic calm cool and collected they have the preference of the child making good eye contact not interrupting very they make the evaluator feel good about themselves that's what narcissists are able to do on you know in in a first-impression setting so the custody evaluator says no wonder the kids want to be more with dad he's so relaxed he's fun they look so happy together I wouldn't want to spend time with the mother she's an anxious wreck while she does his interrupts me she doesn't she's so nervous her legs are jiggling I feel uncomfortable with her no wonder the kids don't want to be with her so then the custody evaluator will make recommendations in part based on their clinical experience with the parent and then yes that does get replicated in the courtroom where favorite parents are better on the stand they make good eye contact they're relaxed they look like they're you know at ease with themselves and again the rejected parent is edgy angry interrupting bad eye contact and so they don't make a good impression so and and that's really how the victim ends up getting blamed for the problem because evaluators and judges will think to themselves this bad behavior that I'm seeing on the part of the rejected parent they think that's the cause of the child's rejection they don't understand that it actually end up being response to the child's rejection that makes a lot of sense yeah as we go out of the courtroom and and can we talk about the impact on the child because I have so many friends that have lost their children or their fighting for them and the payment is overwhelming and the stories that I have heard are horrific and we all understand that the impact on the child what message is this sending when what parent alienates the other one what's a message to the children well there's many messages but the fundamental underlying message is that the other parent is unsafe unloving and unavailable and when kids think let's just use dad as the rejected parent in this scenario if the child thinks you know dad is a bad guy he's worthless he's stupid everything he does is wrong what a jerk he has nothing to offer me when kids think that a parent is worthless and damaged they end up internalizing part negativity to themselves because they do think gee dad as part of me either genetically or help raise me so if dad is garbage then I'm partly garbage too and then in addition the underlying alienation message is the other parent is unsafe and loving and unavailable so if the kid thinks dad doesn't love me kids often think well if a parent doesn't love me I must be unlovable you know they int they again they're they're not narcissistic it's called ego centrism so children think that they're the center of everything right so if they spilled milk and then the next day the parents get divorced they think the parents are getting divorced because they spilled milk it's just the way a child's mind work so when mom tells you know little Johnny your father doesn't love you if he really loved us he wouldn't have moved out just he's a sort of classic example the kids end up thinking I'm a bad boy I'm not lovable so at the end of the day when a parent turns a child against the other parent they're really turning a child against themselves Wow that just makes the whole core for parental alienation so important because it is the child that will take that on into their life and make decisions based on that feeling of lack feeling of no one loves me it just it boggles my mind so I know that you have eight books out and I know that you have talked about the 18 different types of things that people look for can you just give us one or two that would indicate parental alienation for a moment and say when we're trying to figure out if a child who's resisting contact with the parent if that child is alienated or not we use the four factor model so there's four things that need to happen for us to say you know Johnny who doesn't want to go visit his mom anymore is alienated so the first is that there was a prior positive relationship between the child and the parent that the child is now rejecting so that means that that parent was an adequate parent a normative parent they were involved in loving not perfect but good enough that the child was able to have an attachment with that parent the second factor is that the now rejected parent did not engage in abuse or neglect if they did we would not call a child alienated if they are rejecting a parent to abuse them parenthetically most kids don't if you don't reject even abusive parents but if they did we wouldn't call them alienated okay that's factor 2 so factor one prior positive relationship factor to absence of abuse or neglect on the part of the now rejected parent factor 3 I think this is what you were referring to is that the favorite parent has engaged in some does not have to be all of the 17 primary parental alienation strategies right 17 not 18 it's starting to keep our numbers straight along so there are 17 behaviors that research shows are the kinds of behaviors that can foster a child to reject a parent who didn't do anything to deserve the child's rejection and then the fourth factor is that the child is exhibiting 8 behaviors that are unique to alienated kids and when you see all four of those factors that take into account the behaviors of the child and each from the parents when you see those 4 factors that child is alienated not anything else that's the best explanation for a child rejecting a parent when all four of those things are in place that makes sense and you can see how that would definitely forecast you know beyond the leaf I mean I would have thought that a parent that had abused their child and maybe beaten or sexually abused him that the child would want nothing to do with them but knowing that they don't necessarily reject them but then you've got this clear case of idle want to talk to you you're evil and the conflict between the two is a clear indication that's good to know yes especially if the other things are in place in other words there was a prior relationship absence of abuse the favorite parent is engaging in behaviors that can foster a child to reject a parent and then the child is exhibiting these eight specific behaviors even kids who have been abused by a parent don't exhibit towards that parent so we're really trying with this four factor model to carve out alienated cases from cases of domestic violence or cases of abuse because we would never want to say that a child who's rejecting a parent because that parent molested them or beat them is alienated we would never want to be careful not to absolutely there's a fine line there so what if ice to have for a parent that is co-parenting through this process what should they be doing if they've got to send their parent there their child off to the alienator or you know how do they deal with it well so that's of course like the subject of a whole book so I'll try to just pull out a couple things so the first thing is I think you have to start as a parent with a hypothesis not an assumption so if your kid starts to be difficult with you it's easy to assume oh my X is alienating my kid from me but the truth is it might be based on on your own behavior with your child so first and foremost you need to make sure that you know your parenting appropriately that you're fair that you're kind that you're respectful that doesn't mean there's no rules but that the rules and regulations in your household are implemented like I said in a way that's kind fair and respectful so that you don't necessarily assume every time your kid gives you a hard time that it's because of the other parent so that's the first thing I would say the second thing is it's also important to make sure that you're not antagonizing the other parent in other words are you engaging in alienation which is fostering anxiety and the other parent that's making them engage in alienation make sure that you're not engaging in the 17 primary parental alienation strategies make sure that you're being appropriately respectful of the other parents parenting rules and regulations even if you don't agree with them that's the hardest thing for Co parents what do you do if you believe in health food or you're a vegan or whatever and the other parent is giving your kid junk food or what if you are very conservative in the way you want your kid to dress and the other one's letting undress in crop tops and hot pants you know the bottom line is you really don't have a say anymore in what your kid eats and wears or all the other things what time they go to bed what kind of movies they watch within reason parents are allowed to have very divergent parenting styles and you should not denigrate the other parent choices that is worse for your kid than letting them eat candy or wear hot pants even if you you know that's really not your preference so those are the two first big pieces of advice the first is look at yourself and your own parenting and the other is make sure that you're not antagonizing your ex then let's assume you're clean you're not engaging in alienation you're really on top of your parenting and your kid is still reacting to you in unexpected ways challenging your authority that's not you know developmentally you know expect it or saying things like well you never listen to me or whatever doing things that make you think the other parent is engaging in alienation the first thing you should do is create a journal and really start documenting it what day what time exactly what the kids said of course you don't want to do that in front of the kid you know so you have to sort of keep it in your head and then go into the bathroom and sort of write it down or dictate it into your phone you need to start how often is this happening what is the context and then if you if you see multiple alienation strategies happening it's time to get an attorney you know it's that that is sort of the number one thing to do as soon as you realize alienation might be a problem a common mistake is to wait until it's either too late your kids are completely you know alienated from you they you know you're not even having any access or all you're doing is fighting or the other parent files a motion against you in which case you basically have two weeks to get an attorney get them up to speed and to respond to the motion so it's better to have a parental alienation attorney ready to go in case you need them to either file a motion or to respond to the other parents motion because it's hard to get a good attorney when you're very very stressed so the next thing I would say is do everything you can to protect yourself from false allegations of physical abuse sexual abuse and neglect so that means no corporal punishment absolutely you cannot put your hands on your child can anger ever if you feel that you're gonna lose your cool you walk out of the room because the minute you slap your kid or Pat them on the bottom and anger you're gonna have a physical abuse claim against you likewise with sexual abuse don't get under the covers with your children don't be naked with them don't take showers with them naked be super mindful don't talk about their bodies and inappropriate ways don't have sex with your new significant other if they can hear you you have to be I don't want to say a prude but very mindful don't have pornography available make sure that you have all the proper controls on your phones these are the things that can come back and haunt you later likewise with neglect make sure your kids always wear seatbelts and helmets don't leave them home alone don't leave them in the car make sure that you are squeaky clean then I know this is a very long-winded answer it's good it's good then you get to the alienation proper so all of that other stuff is sort of the preamble to what do you do if you think your ex is engaging in alienation there's a set of alienation specific parenting strategies that parents need to learn so that they don't take the bait by that I mean your kid goes to spend time with your ex they come back and they say something you stole my college money you never listen to me you didn't want me to be born you beat me when I was a baby it doesn't matter what it is you don't know how to boil water it could be from the ridiculous to the extreme the number one mistake the targeted parents make is thinking to themselves my kid is mad at me because they believe something about me that's not true and what I need to do is to correct the misperception no no I didn't steal your money I didn't beat you as a baby blah blah blah and that will fix the problem and that's intuitive that's what a normal rational person would do my child believes a lie I just need to tell them that lie isn't true that doesn't work in alienation cases so I tell parents in those situations you are not allowed to say that's not true that's a lie who told you that you know that's not true did your mother put that idea in your head anything like that results in the child thinking let's say dad's the alienator and mom's the victim dad's right all mom does is yell at me so the response is not to say oh well if you think I stole your college money I must have stolen it and this is where targeted parents get stuck because they think they only have two options either get angry and argue with their kids no no I didn't do that or they should give up and say well if you think I did it it must be true and what they're missing is a whole set of parenting strategies that allow them to relate to their child in a way that corrects the misunderstanding without arguing with them and that's in my book co-parenting with the toxic ex and it's also the bulk of my coaching parents will say well my kids said this what do I do and because what I want to do is just pull out the bank statement and tell them I didn't steal the college money where I tried that and huh that didn't work you know I and I can tell them no that never works because it's not getting at the underlying problem when your child says to you you never listen to me or you don't know how to boil water or you stole my college money what the kid is really saying is don't you love me and so the answer has to be designed to address the underlying feeling that the child has that the parent doesn't love them wow that makes so much sense so if they are co-parenting that is the book that they should be getting your co-parenting book so that they can learn these strategies and I know that you do coaching and can you just tell us how people can get in touch with you and how they can further learn about this because this is such a small snippet you've got all these books on it we want to lead them to the right information with the Toxic but it's really parenting when you have a toxic ex because the book is not so much about how to relate to the other parent as it is how do you relate to your child in a way that doesn't allow the poisonous message of the other parent to infiltrate your relationship with your child so it's really about inoculating your child from alienation so that is the number one book I would recommend for parents who have kids under 18 their kids are still going back and forth they're getting drawn into this alienation drama and they need some typing skills the coaching just takes it to the next level so first they read the book and then they're like yeah I get it in general but what do I doing my kid says blah blah to me and so the coaching is really about taking the principles in that book and applying them to a specific situation and so the coaching there's information about all my books and my coaching on my website and the directions for people who want to get coaching with me are on the website step one email me a to-do list a3 do that it's pretty it's pretty basic okay and and we'll put the URL to your website it's Amy JL speaker right well we're gonna send people there and I really appreciate your time I know that you are a busy woman and you've got a mission here and we are all in support of everything that you do because you are helping so many of my own people and so many people all over the world so I want to thank you so much from the bottom of my heart to everyone out there that's gonna learn something from this and maybe get them headed in the right direction to where to go for support and help well thank you you know we're all we're all doing our piece you know yeah we are so thank you so much welcome take care well I hope you guys liked that I know that dr. Amy Baker has been an influence all over the world and she knows what she's talking about so if you are dealing with this kind of parental alienation or you even suspect it then start to get help don't mess with like putting your head under the covers and not facing it this is the fight for your children and if you don't fight and if you don't know how to play by the rules of this legal game then you risk something that you don't want to pay the cost of and that could be losing your children I have a friend and I told her that I would share her story because she did lose her children about years ago all three of them to an abusive husband I've interviewed her on my channel and she hasn't seen them in years and I asked her what advice can she give someone who is like her who has lost them already and she said never stop fighting never stop fighting to let people know to raise awareness for this cause give it your all because one day those kids are going to turn around and look and they're going to see that you never gave up on them that you never stopped fighting Carolyn is trying to change the laws she is doing everything that she can in her power so that no other parent is subjected to the horrific ending that her story has had so far so if you were in the situation where you've lost her kids and you just don't know what to do start to make noise the bigger the noise the better and it's to raise awareness for this terrific terrible type of abuse so if you like this video this is Tracy I appreciate it if you come in subscribe to my channel and that's all I got thank you so much

Channel: Tracy Malone

Views: 80,685

Keywords: Narcissist Abuse Recovery, narcissistic abuse, mental abuse, tracyamalone, tracy malone, amy baker, parental alienation, narcissism ted talk, divorce, parental alienation syndrome, co-parenting, dr amy baker parental alienation, parental alienation court, parental alienation documentary, parental alienation and narcissism, child custody, the nurturing coach, parental alienation signs, Narcissist Abuse Coach, International Narcissist Abuse Coach, LifeCoach for Narcissist Abuse

Id: 418Cdoun0Os

Length: 36min 58sec (2218 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 15 2018