A parent in California recently wrote to tell us that A Family’s Heartbreak: A Parent’s Introduction to Parental Alienation has been a great source of support and has helped him tie together concepts from other parental alienation books and articles. But the part of his letter that surprised us the most was this –
“I really appreciate the humor. On some of your anecdotes I laughed until I cried… at this stage humor is the best medicine for me.”
They (whoever ”they” are) say laughter is the best medicine so with Mother’s Day coming up here’s an excerpt from the book that we hope helps alienated Mom’s and Dads through a rough day. It’s about my son Jared:
“… Jared was too smart for the third grade. He ended up skipping a year in school but not before having problems with his third grade teacher. For discipline, this teacher made Jared write down all the counties in the state. We lived in Pennsylvania at the time. Pennsylvania is a big state. Jared spent a lot of time writing.
Jared didn’t mind rewriting the counties over and over again. He enjoyed the exercise so much he started writing down the counties even when he wasn’t in trouble. He always had a fresh copy of counties to hand in to his teacher when he needed one. He also had plenty of copies to sell to his classmates when they were in trouble. When his teacher finally caught on to Jared’s entrepreneurial approach to the third grade, she wasn’t amused. She didn’t give Jared high marks for his understanding if supply-side economics either.”
Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mom’s who aren’t with their children this Mother’s Day. Please remember that parental alienation isn’t about whether or not you were a good Mom. Parental alienation is about the other parent’s unresolved emotional issues.
Tags: Jared, Mother's Day, Parental Alienation, reviews
This is good, although i can’t agree with this 100 %, some mothers contribute to their own alienation, you cannot blame the other parent saying they have unresolved emotional issues. Without going into a bunch of details, some parents do things that put their child at danger and some parents abandon their child at a young age and then decide 5-10 years later that they want a relationship with their child.
I think that the 80/20 rule applies for pretty much everything in life. I also agree that it’s not always the other parent 100 percent of the time that has emotional issues. However, one has to keep in mind that the whole concept behind parental alienation is that the parent who is feeling alienated has done enough research to end up on this site. One would hope that they have done enough research to understand what parental alienation is and has diagnosed based on their own experience when they are going through it.
For all of us survivors of Parental Alienation, we have also gone through the process of blaming ourselves first, asking “what could I have done or do differently?” and “I don’t deserve this” exercises. At the end of the day, the child is living with the other parent who is clearly not supporting a relationship for their own reasons – mostly due to the fact that it’s the only way to hurt the other parent.
From one survivor to another, the battle is never over and won’t be unless both child and alienated parent are united. I dream about this day and will never let go of that dream, at the same time I live in a “world of pain” that is undescribable to someone who hasn’t walked a mile in my shoes.
Whomever started this site – Thanks for the forum to have some open, honest discussion.