Moran / McCall / Sullivan Overcoming the Alienation Crisis

33 Coparenting Solutions
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7350994-1-5
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 188 Seiten

If you've given up on achieving coparenting coordination and cooperation, this book offers help and hope for moving forward with less conflict for the sake of your children. Overcoming the Alienation Crisis is a must-have resource for professionals and parents wanting to restore parent-child relationships. Psychologists Moran, McCall, and Sullivan present a balanced view of alienation, coparenting conflict dynamics, and parent-child resist refuse problems. Drawing on decades of experience as clinical forensic experts with family court cases, they drill down into the everyday challenges and dilemmas parents face when a child resists or refuses contact with a parent. Coparents who feel like they have been fighting a hopeless war will discover new understandings about why parent-child contact problems are so difficult to resolve. Frustrating yet all-too-common coparenting situations and predicaments are presented in a Q&A format, and hands-on solutions, tips, and strategies (33 of them!) offer concrete ways to move forward with less conflict. This book will guide coparents beyond high conflict into family peacemaking. All proceeds from the sale of this book go to Overcoming Barriers, a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Moran, John

McCall, Shawn

Sullivan, Matthew

Leseproben

INTRODUCTION You may have picked up this book on the recommendation of your therapist or attorney. At this point, you are likely sick and tired of coparenting with someone you see as the problem—someone you believe deserves very little or no parenting time. Each uncomfortable interaction with your coparent seems more troubling and stressful than the last. Perhaps the conflict has even reached the point that your child is now resisting or refusing contact with you or the other parent, and your family is now in a crisis. Did you pick up this book because you are searching for a way forward that will bring some relief from the conflict and even peace—if you dare hope for that? You are not alone in searching for a solution. This is a crisis that has confounded professionals and the courts. This book offers information and practical approaches to help you and your coparent restore coparenting coordination and cooperation. We want to help you remove your children from the crosshairs of your continual conflict. We want to help you for the sake of your children. We are three psychologists who together have many decades of experience working with high-conflict parents. We regularly write professional articles and make presentations at conferences for counselors, attorneys, and judges about high-conflict coparenting problems including alienation, domestic violence, and parents with mental health conditions. We know from experience that coparenting is never easy, even in the best of circumstances. We also know that splitting up one household with children into two separate households is guaranteed to require some adjustments for both parents and children. Children challenge even the most skillful coparents. They will leave important stuff at the other parent’s house. They may do what children in intact families do and pit one parent against the other using such common tactics as, “But Dad lets me do that!” They may even embellish or hide the truth about life with the other parent. Kids will be kids. When a child resists or refuses contact with a parent without a reasonable explanation, the family goes into crisis. The resisted parent is alarmed; the favored parent is alarmed. Accusations, blame, and threats fly back and forth between parents. The child becomes distressed, if not traumatized. Polarized and often exaggerated explanations emerge to explain what is going on. Coparenting breaks down. Parents are also unable to agree on an explanation for the child’s resistance. Is it caused by poor quality parenting, alienation, the child’s exposure to domestic violence, or something else? Typically, coparents end up pitted against each other in a bitter dispute that involves extended family and legal advocates supporting one parent against the other. The peaceful, safe family nest the parents wanted to create is self-destructing at enormous costs for all. Family members find themselves in a predicament with no easy escape but involving lots of difficult choices. For example, should a coparent insist a child spend time with the resisted parent, even though the child may be anxious and fearful or potentially act out? Should a parent call the police when the coparent does not bring the child to a court-ordered custody exchange, even though the child may witness the police confronting a parent? With an alienation crisis, both parents are confronted with moral and legal dilemmas. For example, a parent may believe in complying with court orders, but also that the child should be able to choose, even though doing so violates a court order. The dilemma may be between the principles of justice and mercy. Should a parent argue about the unfairness of a situation, or should a parent focus on being compassionate and forgiving their coparent for their hurtful behavior? A parent may have to choose between a short-term priority—protecting a child from the stress of a reunification intervention, for example—versus a long-term priority such as strengthening the child’s ability to cope with difficult relationships. Children also get caught in dilemmas, like being honest versus being loyal. For example, when a child returns from parenting time, should they talk about the fun time spent with the other parent, or should they act as if the entire experience with the other parent was awful? Saving the Family Tree from a Branch Shredder Coparents want to resolve the alienation crisis as quickly as possible. Given the huge amount of information available online, it is not hard to find support for their side of the argument. But a one-sided approach to a family problem is rarely effective and usually drives the family toward a court battle. Parents often get caught up in fighting, but the critical issue is what needs to be done to protect the child from the psychological damage of an extended battle. Most parents who ask family court to resolve a resist-refuse problem are disappointed by the outcome. The courts rarely find either parent solely responsible for the problem. Likewise, the courts rarely award exclusive care and control of the child to one parent even when findings are made in one parent’s favor. When the courts are involved in these cases, a parent’s efforts to protect the child may backfire. The court may order punitive consequences if it finds that a parent is engaging in alienation or restrictive gatekeeping. The court might even change legal custody or the child’s primary residence. Our experience has been two-fold. When all is said and done, we have found that generally (1) after hefty resources are spent, the courts find it is in the child’s best interest to have a relationship with both parents; and (2) the courts will order the family into reunification therapy that offers skills development suggestions similar to those described in this book. Although trust between you and your coparent may be low and anger high, it is usually better to work together on the parent-child contact problem. Time is the enemy of any malignancy, and an intensifying parent-child contact problem is a family malignancy. Implementing the corrective strategies and tools suggested in this book may be stressful for all family members, including the child. In most situations, providing skillful, unified coparenting support for the child is far better than eliminating a parent from the child’s life or subjecting the family to ongoing court battles. Why Read This Book? Simply put, an alienation crisis is a malignancy for any family. The parent-child contact problem must be managed. Going to court is what you do when you’re down to nothing but bad choices. Our central concern is the emotional damage to children that accumulate from parent-child contact problems. Of course, parents worry about their child and want the parent-child contact problem to end. We hope this book helps parents to better understand and navigate the painful choices that confront the family in the wake of refusal, alienation, and justified rejection. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 describe types and causes of parent-child contact problems. Parental alienation grabs the headlines, but understanding what is going on with a child who resists or refuses contact with a parent requires looking at many contributing factors. Understanding is more than just asking whether the children have been alienated (the fault of the favored parent) or estranged (the fault of the resisted parent). Chapters 5 through 8 look at conflict escalation as the common denominator among families that develop an alienation crisis. Escalated coparenting conflict leads to communication breaking down and the children being trapped in loyalty conflicts. When the children are allowed to manage their divided feelings by significantly reducing or refusing contact with a parent, the parents often turn to third parties for assistance with opposing agendas. Behavioral health professionals, attorneys, police, child protective services, and others are enlisted to help the family. Too often such services are unable to contain and reverse the growing animosity among family members. Sometimes, legal and mental health professionals make it worse. Family members are trapped in polarized thinking, blame, and bitter resentment about the conflict they have had to endure. Coparenting as a leadership function for the family fails. Efforts to resolve the parent-child problem reach a stalemate, and the court is asked to make decisions that usually cannot remedy parental disputes and decision-making failures. However, the courts often order family therapy to correct faulty dynamics within the family and to restore coparenting cooperation that will lead to family peace and healthy relationships. In Part Two, we offer 33 Solutions for Frequently Encountered Coparenting Problems. Solutions are presented in a Q&A format and include the following areas: Improving your coparenting communication Responding to your child’s complaints Responding to your child’s resistance Talking to your child about their other parent Supporting your anxious child. In Part Three, Chapters 14 through 17 describe coparenting tools and strategies. We discuss parallel coparenting, a model for disengaged coparenting that minimizes coparenting contact and opportunities for conflict. We explain five shifts that parents can make to reduce conflict and restore family harmony. We also address how to reduce the resentment parents and children carry after the active phases of the conflict end. In the final chapter, we look at what makes family therapy more or less likely to succeed. INTRODUCTION: KEY POINTS Parents often get caught up in fighting about who is to blame, but the critical issue is what...