Do You Use the Term Parental Alienation in Court?

A lightbulb moment

If you are like many other parents, stumbling upon the term “parental alienation” can be a real lightbulb moment. Maybe one night in a desperate attempt to understand what is going on with your children you searched, “Why is my child rejecting me.” Suddenly you were reading about the signs and symptoms of this thing called parental alienation and it felt like the author was talking about you. How did they know all the things your ex was doing to undermine and interfere in your relationship with the children? How did the author know the odd phrases your child was suddenly spouting? Knowing that there is a name for this phenomenon and that other people are going through something similar can be not only eye-opening but also extremely reassuring. You are not crazy; this is a real thing.

Seeking legal remedy

Many parents dealing with a parental alienation dynamic when the rejecting child is under 18 years of age are involved in a legal case. Maybe the favored parent has filed a motion to allow the children to choose not to participate in visitation with you or maybe you have filed a motion seeking court assistance with your damaged relationship with your children. Of course, it seems like it makes sense to let the legal and mental health professionals involved in your case know that you believe that parental alienation is the cause of your child’s rejection of you.

Not so fast

While many legal and mental health experts believe that parental alienation is a real phenomenon that causes real harm to children, invoking the term by name is still risky and could backfire; you are suddenly viewed as the problem trying to pin everything on the other parent. Moreover, you are risking that someone will reference misinformation that exists about parental alienation, creating a negative view of you for talking about a supposedly discredited theory (Bernet, 2023; Bernet & Xu, 2022). While the misinformation about parental alienation is just that, misinformation, refuting it can become a costly and unnecessary distraction.

Tailor the legal argument to the remedy sought

There are many things you could ask of the court when seeking legal remedy for your situation. You could ask for routine outpatient reunification therapy to help you repair the relationship without modifying the parenting plan. You could ask for a forensic evaluation to identify the cause of the children’s rejection and make recommendations. You could ask for supervised visitation to have parenting time in a neutral setting. You could ask for enforcement of your parenting time. Or you could ask for a parental alienation immersion program accompanied by a temporary change of custody. You may be surprised to know that you only need to invoke the term parental alienation for one of those remedies. In many custody cases, all you need to do is establish that there is a breach in the relationship and that you seek a remedy. You don’t always need to explain what you believe the underlying cause of the problem is, and often it is better not to.

When is the time right

The only scenario to reference parental alienation by name is when you are seeking an immersion program because the program requires that the court order reference parental alienation by name, to justify the order for a parental alienation treatment.

Always be strategic

The bottom line is that knowing and believing that parental alienation is occurring can be helpful for many reasons, but it is not always necessary to explain to the court that you think it is occurring. Being involved in a high-conflict custody battle requires strategy at all levels of the process (Baker, Bone, & Ludmer, 2013). Whether and when to invoke the term parental alienation must be an intentional part of your strategy.