Parental Alienation Syndrome Is a Very Real Issue!

PAS ‘parental alienation syndrome’ has long been recognised in the USA but its only in recent years that the UK has started to more readily recognise the issue – although, it can be a very difficult thing to prove because of its subtle and nonvisible nature.

Parental alienation is a situation in which one parent uses strategies – often referred to as ‘programming’ to distance a child from the other parent and it is recognised as a form of abuse.

A study published in 2020, by ‘Good Egg Safety CIC –a leading child safety campaign organisation, stated that out of 1,500 responses from separated parents, almost half report not seeing their children for over 6 months. In many cases the separated parents had not seen their children for years. 58% of those canvassed had experienced breaches of court orders and 80% had experienced adverse health arising from the stress of the situation.

The report identified the kinds of abusive behaviours, following separation, that wreak untold damage on tens of thousands of children every year such as isolating children from the target parent, grandparents and the wider family through denigrating and devaluing. This was often achieved by making false allegations; often made in front of

the children.

A spokesperson from ‘FNF’ ‘Families Need Fathers’ stated, at the time the report was published, “with almost half of parents separating before their children leave school, it would not be an over-statement to say that the situation has become a child wellbeing issue of epidemic proportions.” 

If you are separated or divorced and have found that ‘for some reason’ your once loving children don’t want as much or indeed any contact with you, talk to RJS Family Law.

We can help get a degree of clarity on the situation and hopefully bring about a situation where both you and your children enjoy some meaningful time together.