Children Resisting Post-
Separation Contact
With permission - © Berger and Wyse. Click on the cartoon to visit their blog. Sadly this is too serious for humour.
To help families, legal and professional systems to do better
for the children in the middle of difficult separations.
For much more go to the full version. Or go to this most compact version. Enjoy this new blog: the alienation experience
Please note that Nick Child is a keen learner not an expert. All help to improve this page is appreciated.
for the children in the middle of difficult separations.
For much more go to the full version. Or go to this most compact version. Enjoy this new blog: the alienation experience
Please note that Nick Child is a keen learner not an expert. All help to improve this page is appreciated.
WHEN LAYERS OF ADULT CONFLICT CRUSH THE CHILD
NO JOKE
The humour of Berger and Wyse's "custardy" cartoon is to highlight that high conflict family separations are never a laughing matter. Even when families face bereavement, there is usually room for warmth and humour alongside the grief. The lack of a place for humour shows that we are dealing here with some of the hardest "tribal" human predicaments outside of actual war-zones.
MORE OR LESS?
This page is an easier general summary of the very full thinking through and resources - written for a Scottish context but still covering the international field - on Scotland's Children Resisting Contact or SCRC. Please read that if you want more than this summary page has in it. An even more concise summary than this page is in Off-putting relationships: essentials of child alienation.
OTHER OFF-PUTTING RELATIONSHIPS
Separation is the context most widely considered to be where these off-putting relationship patterns happen. But for a wider range of families and individuals and for those professionals helping them, thinking about an alienation pattern - e.g. where overwhelmingly strong or needy personalities drive unnecessarily broken relationships - can be useful too in families that are not primarily presenting as high conflict separations. Pick up almost any narrative – real ones in families, communities, media or therapy, or fictional ones in mythology, drama or literature – and you will find a three-person pattern of Alienation by any other name, in imposed or chosen plots, of loves, jealousy and secrets, triangular predicaments of divided love and loyalty, that enrich or drive the story. Read more about this broader range of alienation patterns. Here we stick to family separation.
PUTTING CHILDREN'S NEEDS FIRST
Most separating parents manage to set aside their own conflicts and put their children first in supporting the children’s widely recognised need for a relationship with both their parents - as well as with grandparents and valued others in each parent's wider family. Children do best when they can have a good relationship with both their separated parents. Even when one parent has not behaved well, children still want to repair and have some kind of safe contact. When it works well, children may volunteer that they get more from their separated parents than if they had stayed together! A few parents find setting aside their conflicts harder to do in order to put their children's needs first. It only takes one parent not collaborating to result in high conflict that endures. Sometimes a parent may have good cause not to set aside the conflicts. Even where a parent has behaved badly, children mostly still want to repair and continue their relationship with the only parents they have. Sometimes a parent does not have such good cause to keep the conflict going. Remember that - with risk or with the conflict itself - it is the effects on the children that matters most. Parents are so caught up in powerful emotions and conflict that it may be up to others to work out what is best.
TRANSITIONS
The children in the middle have to cope. They can cope better than outsiders think they could, being aware of the repeating patterns of how their separated parents behave. But the evidence is that enduring high conflict is definitely bad for children. They are coping with a conflict between their parents that even uninvolved adults find hard to bridge, and which naturally affects the children more profoundly than anyone else. Children may be most upset when they transition between their tensely conflicted parents. Each parent may then take the child's upset as a sign that they don't want to see the other parent, when usually the child is wishing the transition was easier, not that they don't want it to happen, not that they are rejecting the other parent. Transition processes at handover time is a study in itself. Difficult transitions do not in themselves prove anything about a child's relationship with either parent. Transitions can be helped in their own right by sensitive detailed planning.
CHILDREN TAKE SIDES TOO
Beyond tense transitions, children faced with enduringly high conflict between their parents are likely to cope in the same way as anyone else does: they side with one parent against the other. Note that it only takes one parent set against collaborating to create high conflict for all the family. One parent can also, unintentionally and / or purposely, do far more to turn their child against the other parent. Parents are seldom equally responsible for creating the high conflict. One result of children taking sides is an overall presenting pattern of the children resisting post-separation contact with a parent (CRC for short). If they have contact with both parents, they may side alternately with whichever parent they are with at the time. The more alienated child will overwhelmingly side with one against the other. Even if regular contact continues with the rejected parent, strongly alienating patterns of behaviour can still operate. Then the rejected parent has to receive the rejection while finding a way to grow a better relationship again. Extreme unmediated differences can become an utterly miserable and emotionally abusive experience in the longterm for the children.
TWO TRIBES GO TO WAR
Over and above this separated family conflict and the child's side-taking, resisting of contact and alienation, there will then be more layers of conflict over whose views and allegations are justified. Strong feelings and responses naturally stoke the conflict even further, drawing in friends and family in a tribal form of support system on each side. The widened conflict naturally brings the matter to various legal and other professions for help. Family lawyers and family courts struggle to avoid the inherently adversarial culture of the legal system. Unless a Sheriff or Judge can soon see and determine the best way forward, the case can get more and more entrenched in court too.
CHILDREN'S VOICE ...
Rightly, children's views are now listened to much more including being part of court hearings. Often all the conflict between adults is so impossible to resolve that what the child says is taken as what's best for them. This potentially powerful role for children leads key adults to pressurise their children openly or covertly into what the adult wants them to say. Naturally dependent and immature and faced by a parent they love and fear they might lose, children can be readily persuaded to feel and say what the parent wants them to. Taking this context for the child's views into account requires careful thinking through by adults, professionals and courts. In the UK the resources for this task have been whittled down to way below a minimum required. Here is Paul Bishop's rich account that shows how skilful the worker has to be - and how essential always to consider the child's whole context and family in making sense of their expressed views, wishes, feelings or behaviour.
… ADULTS' CHOICE
Some countries (e.g. Australia) have put much more resource and skill into sophisticated ways than others (e.g. the UK). They do not directly link this process into the courts, but include the child's voice primarily for the parents to hear and plan around. Otherwise, when children experience such stress and power placed in their hands (in effect to choose which parent they side with) we know it is not good for them. See Amy Baker's book "I don't want to choose" extract here, order it here. In effect the child is looking after one of their parents when parents and adults should look after them. The responsibility unwittingly given to children, and the decisions made, may well not be in the child's best interests.
EMOTIONAL ABUSE
Just because people don't think about this situation as emotional abuse doesn't mean it is not emotional abuse. The naturally adversarial family courts - even in their more informal mode - can add yet another layer to the high conflict. Worse than that, courts do not spot these well-known patterns that happen right in front of them. They make decisions that are meant to resolve the conflict and be in the child's best interests. But in fact these decisions may actively condone the worst and possibly emotionally abusive outcomes for the child.
PROFESSIONAL DEBATE POLARISES
Finally this repeating pattern of polarising conflict is replicated in passionate debates between opposing organisations and schools of thought. These are mostly organised around which gender is more generally likely to be right and why. In any particular case, gender will of course carry major significance. But the literature makes it very clear that, in general, high conflict separations and children resisting contact or alienation patterns, all happen in all combinations of gender of parents (and children too). Of course, given the culture's gender expectations, a mother will experience their child's rejection rather differently than a rejected father might. The pattern happens to all combinations of gender - including same sex parents - but the experience is not gender neutral.
RAISING AWARENESS POLARISES
With the reservations about the terminology, the literature is still mostly found under the heading Parental Alienation. Gardner’s PA Syndrome is still a useful checklist (see footnotes here). The valid reason for making it a psychiatric syndrome is that, unless it is in the diagnostic Bibles, at least as a relationship label, it will not be taught to mental health and other helping professions. So professionals will remain unaware and it will continue to be dismissed as insignificant or nonexistent, especially in family courts. Those who campaign against PA's existence or importance are even more vociferous against these attempts to raise its mental health profile. Many now drop the ‘Syndrome’ tag, even in family courts, choosing more nuanced thinking about the behaviour patterns in each case in terms of the child’s welfare.
CHILDREN'S NEEDS GET LOST
Generalised taking of sides like this does not help to do justice to the assessment and needs of each particular family situation, remembering that there is a particular child or children in the middle of it who is most affected and least able to resolve by themselves the disturbing conflict going on. The paramountcy of the best interests of the child gets repeatedly lost in the multi-layered conflicts of all the adults, agencies, and in family courts.
ALIENATION DESCRIBED
30 years ago in the USA a particular pattern of children resisting contact was described and named "Parental Alienation Syndrome" or PAS by Richard Gardner. Defined in its pure form, this is when, consciously or not but without reasonable cause, one parent actively turns their child against the other parent, when there had been and could be a safe and good enough relationship with them. See footnotes on SCRC for more about PAS. Since that time the field has grown, matured, and become firmly established in other countries but only slowly in the UK. Most accounts begin with Gardner and PAS but (as mentioned above) starting with that can trigger unnecessary resistance and controversy. This account hopes to avoid the extra controversy.
CONTROVERSY
There has been much controversy and discussion in and outside the field. This has resulted in most people dropping the "syndrome" tag, and focusing more on "child alienation" since we should all be most concerned with the child. Most commonly now the simple term "alienation" is used for unjustified turning of children against the other parent. Where there is good reason to resist contact "alienation" would not be used. Of course parents and professionals need to use this term with great care because just throwing the word about merely adds yet another layer of conflict on top of all the rest. It is important to remember the reason for the argument, that is, wanting the best for the children. But if adult argument and conflict has taken priority, then the argument and conflict may be harming the child without any extra help. At all levels of these layers of adult conflict, the task is to think things through carefully and to de-escalate the high conflict.
NEUTRAL TERMS
To recognise the wide variation and complexity of patterns and factors, a more neutral and inclusive description of the alienation pattern may be used, such as "children resisting contact". Most often assessment does not find pure alienation anyway. The resisting of contact is seen to result from a mixture of multiple factors including factors in the child, and those from other parental reactions and limitations, further complicated by true or false allegations of risk and abuse that then need to be properly and promptly assessed. The result can be huge conflict and distress for all as these matters are played out, dragged out, and worked out by agencies involved.
TOO SERIOUS TO IGNORE
Where there has been abuse between parents or to the child, it is obviously very serious. It is essential that risks are assessed and secure plans made. Even then, the child's need for a relationship with both parents should still be attended to if at all possible. For the few families where a child has been genuinely and purely alienated from a parent with whom they did and could have a good relationship and for no good reason, this is not just puzzling and distressing for everyone including the child. Evidence now shows, in the long term too, that this is damaging and tragic for all of them, and most especially for the child. The child may loudly declare their exclusive loyalty to the favoured parent, but actually they need and benefit from something different than that. If their needs are not promptly seen and planned for, they may grow up to lose one good enough parent, and then fall out permanently with the other one when they see them as having duped them.
UNDERSTANDING HIGH EMOTIONS IN SEPARATION CONFLICT
The high conflict patterns in separation make up for being uncommon by the rapid spread of the fire and heat they can generate. The heated professional debate is mainly about gender. Yet abuse and alienation happen in any gender pattern. In the face of any particular - and therefore gendered - situation, it is extremely hard not to have gendered views take hold. But patterns of abuse and alienation can more generally be readily explained without bringing gender into the account.
GENDER COLOURS CONFLICT
Of course social structures and beliefs and patterns about childcare, services and decision-making are influenced by gender. And any individual struggling to find confidence and power or protection may use any resources available, and often those will be gendered. So men use their typical strengths, women use theirs, men and women will look to others and to agencies to support their cause. At its extreme, men and women may use abuse or violence, and men and women may use their children or the courts to gain position. Previous childhood or other experience of attachment hurt informs, sensitises and affects adults separating. And since this will have been gendered, then naturally gender becomes a hook for the repeat of being hurt. Just reversing the gender roles at separation shows the different gendered cultural expectations e.g. of childcare being women's work not men's … here's a BBC radio discussion between women who "left" their children but whose experience could be the same (except for the stigma) for fathers who "leave" their children.
So gender certainly counts in the particular situation, and it affects the wider statistics too. But patterns of abuse and alienation are not done or suffered only by one gender on only the other gender. And of course children of both genders suffer in the middle. Gender vividly colours each situation, shapes the statistics, and ignites the most heated debates. But gender is not a necessary part of a general explanation of high conflict patterns. These patterns also happen in same-sex and other LGBT separations. To read more on the gender debate and a glossary of gender terms, go to "Difficult Thinking" towards the bottom of SCRC.
A GENDER FREE EXPLANATION
Mix together universal things we know about and high conflict will result. Here are some common elements - that occur to people of all genders and ages - that explain troubled family patterns and the wider polarisations too. Read more about them on SCRC:
- Attachment patterns (i.e. love) that goes right and patterns when attachment/love goes wrong
- Attachment, attachment harm, and its repair, are all seen in this 2 min video, the Still Face Experiment.
- Remember that attachment happens at all ages and is a universal survival pattern
- So that when we fear the loss of our safe base, our feelings are a fear of losing our life, a fear of death
- Our gut responses to survive are overpowering - protest, fight, withdraw, turn or run away, or surrender
- These neurobiological "high arousal" survival emotions of fight or flight fuel conflict situations
- And they make it very hard to think clearly and behave constructively - "counting to ten" may not be enough.
- In separations, three or more are involved in a multi-layered situation of attachment threat and loss
- Any childhood or past attachment hurts shape the vulnerability, expectations and feelings at separation
- They also shape some people's aggressive or nastier ways, even our whole personalities, for good or bad
- Often couple conflict repeats earlier scenarios aggravating further the hurts of separation
- And that can aggravate the concerns to protect or make things right for the children you love.
- So no wonder that thinking and feeling can get polarised, escalated and stuck
- And no wonder that victims of earlier abuse or traumatic separation are extremely roused by a repeat
- Roused that is to mixtures of fear, defence, attack and control
- Again, these will be shaped by cultural and gendered patterns, but men and women can do any of them.
- Add into the mix and conflict the natural coercion of all childrearing (also based on love and attachment),
- Note the normal universal milder patterns of family affiliation, alliance, division and loyalty
- Add in the normal human reversion under stress to tribal thinking, support and loyalty.
- Along with how people are anyway different and have complex stories, characters and faults.
- That people have stronger and weaker personalities that come into play under stress especially.
- Then add in the normal aspects of any separation process that naturally generate vicious circles including:
- Differences between the parents about what is important for children
- Differences in parenting styles and old hopes and sore spots being touched
- Other negative perceptions in a tense if not vengeful and stressful changing separation situation
- Given there may be few or no constructive attitudes or communication channels to sort these out
- With the often adversarial social and legal processes that replace more constructive channels
- And that give a child's voice a power that invites parents to pressurise and influence what the children say
With this long list of factors laying their part within a wider system, it is not hard to explain why high conflict overwhelms some couples when they fall out and separate. Gender may shape a person's experience of all these, but all of them may happen to anyone of any gender or age. There are multiple factors here, but perhaps the best framework for families might be attachment theory. Wider social factors in more developed countries have opened up bigger arenas that play out and amplify such hurt and disturbed attachments. Where couples self-select each other and children are more exclusively raised by their parents not by ‘a village’; where parental separation is common, family law the place for disputes, and the child’s view is the decider there; then attachment loss and hurt will readily get magnified into patterns like Child Alienation. Given the long list of factors, what is surprising is that so many separating couples manage to do so well in putting their conflict aside in favour of what their children need, that is, to have a relationship with both parents. And children must be very resilient in high conflict situations to hold onto a relationship with both their parents.
ATTACHMENT THEORY
Attachment theory, of course, is one important way to get the focus on the child's needs. But it opens up further arguments in theory and for separating couples. For example, especially when parents separate with young children (under 4), there is a debate about general and specific questions about whether a child can manage living in two places, and whether it's good for them for a less involved parent before separation to have so much of the time after it. Here is Penelope Leach clarifying on Women's Hour (June 2014) the reaction to her book on Family Breakdown. Where parents are able to collaborate and where a parent (mother or father) has been involved and attached, she approves of more shared care for under-4s. The evidence she uses can be refuted by other evidence. She holds to the almost impossible ideal for separated parents of young children having a constant (not alternating) home base. Different views on attachment / main-carers are often used in family courts as part of the battle. In contrast, illogically neutral solutions like boarding school (for older children) appear as well as these hotly fought battles about attachment. In that resolution of conflict, both parents prefer to delegate to others the care of their child, hardly bothered about the question of attachment to them. Some children too prefer residential homes or boarding schools to living with warring parents.
Perhaps again it is the parents' collaboration or battling that are the more important factors (than the attachments) in whether the children's welfare is good enough. The battling usually arises from the adults' own emotions and issues, and that is by definition, not child-focused. The task is to ensure that the inevitable hurt or harsh adult business can be separated from collaborating for the child's benefit.
RISK ASSESSMENT and PARENTAL ALIENATION
It is obvious that where one parent has been or continues to be a risk to the other, or to the child, then that is a priority. Some abusive situations are totally hellish. No one denies that this is top priority and that it has to be properly attended to. The rest of this webpage is about the less obvious, less believed even, and certainly less known about patterns usually known as parental alienation, which may be defined as: a rare but striking tribal family pattern, found usually in the context of high conflict separations, where a child is shaped into rejecting their other parent and his/her tribe, even though the child previously had, and could still have, a safe and valued relationship with them. Alienation sits at one end of a scale of family patterns of alignment, loyalty and alliances. And all of those including alienation can begin and grow in families who are living together, not just when separation brings it out in public and in courts. It seems fair to assume that any and all sustained high conflict between separated parents is emotional abuse of their children caught in the middle. And there is firm evidence of life long consequences of emotional abuse resulting from parental alienation. If so, the real or alleged risks of a child from a parent need to be considered along with the knowledge of the risks of emotional abuse from the high conflict. The best recent UK summary description and research is Sue Whitcombe's (2014): Powerless: the lived experience of alienated parents in the UK and her article in The Psychologist (2014) Parental Alienation: time to notice, time to intervene.
From Linda Gottlieb's: End Parental Alienation
RECOMMENDED BRIEF RESOURCES:
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WE WISH IT WASN'T TRUE ... BUT HERE'S THE WORST OF IT IN A NUTSHELL:
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INTEGRATIVE ANSWERS TO HIGH CONFLICT
We can see from the list of factors that explain high conflict separations, how the separation and legal process and the adults various own needs override the children's needs, despite the best intentions. An integrative approach focuses primarily on the children's needs to try to achieve what some parents cannot. All legal systems talk of the paramountcy of the child's best interests. The child's best interests are for adults to contain their conflicts in order to give the child a relationship with both parents. Even if the parent is a risk or just not much good at being a parent, it may be important to secure a safe enough way for a child to have some kind of relationship with them. When a child does not have a relationship with both parents - unless there is clear reason why not - the child is being emotionally abused. There are short- and long-term effects. Children then may have to protect themselves by, for example, taking sides, covering up, and giving up, ways that look ok but are compromises and may be damaging to them.
So how can adults, professionals and agencies do better for the children by creating more integrative answers to high conflict when parents cannot manage that themselves? The commonest bad parenting of children is in the effects of high conflict itself on the children, not what one or other parent is doing. This isn't to say that a parent should just shut up for the sake of superficial peace. And it only takes one conflictual parent to create high conflict for all. Here are some ways others try to provide integrative answers:
0. INTEGRATIVE PARENTING BEFORE SEPARATION
If mothers and fathers could find more balanced ways to run their family and share the childcare, that would both reduce separation and make for a much better basis of getting separation right especially for the children when separation does happen. The gendered culture and values of parents tend to fathers delegating home and childcare to the mothers. So many fathers only discover how much they love and want to parent their children AFTER they separate. Strong feminism has found itself fighting the corner of single mothers and female victims so much that it is easy to forget that feminism's prime aim was to bring fathers more into family life (before and after parental separation). This helps women to access more of what men tend to do outside of the family. Here's a useful reminder of the original aim from leading women who support shared parenting.
1. MOST SEPARATING PARENTS ALREADY DO IT
Most separating parents - despite the long list of challenging factors - somehow manage to put their children first. They do this from common sense, from love of their children, from guidance and support from family, friends and helping services. They get informed and they may bring in services like family counselling, family mediation and collaborative family lawyers to help them. Here's a good brief guideline for separating parents: Emotional wellbeing for parents living apart. And Karen and Nick Woodall's book: Handbook for Separating Parents.
2. ENCOURAGE MORE CONFLICTED PARENTS TOWARD INTEGRATIVE ANSWERS
Make sure the parents who are heading towards high conflict get as little as possible of the ideas and offers that encourage the conflict (e.g. from adversarial lawyers). Make sure parents instead get as much as possible of the ideas and offers of working on integrative answers. One key mistake is to "wait and see". This may seem sensible when tempers run high, but it is often the way high conflict gets fixed and can escalate. The best way to avoid entrenched harmful patterns is for everyone to encourage separating parents to work their own feelings and conflicts out separately and put their children's needs first to have a relationship with both parents.
3. IMPROVE THE LEGAL PROCESS
See Ideas from "Changing the Culture" on SCRC.
4. IMPROVE RESOURCES AND SERVICES
See Summary of Nick's Ideas on SCRC.
5. KEEP THINKING IT THROUGH
Unfortunately the controversies and debate surrounding abuse and alienation creates more heat than light. See how long the full SCRC webpage is! And see the section on thinking it through on SCRC. Important headings are: The Child's View, Feminism, Patriarchy, Unequal Opportunities, Domestic Violence, Coercion of Children, Child Homicides (and interpreting other statistics properly), and Gender Debate.
6. OTHERS TO PULL IT TOGETHER
The pattern is that everyone takes sides. The need is for integrative approaches, for someone to pull things together (for the children at least) when parents cannot. Around family courts, often there is not one single person authorised to do that task and carry it through. A Sheriff (in Scotland) or Judge may be the only integrative professional. The legal process itself may be adversarial all the way, but Judges are most certainly not. Typically family courts have informal child welfare hearings that allow informal settings with parents and child. That provides a golden opportunity for authoritative integrative determination that can prevent many families from escalating their fight to higher levels still.
In many countries other workers team up with courts to assess and integrate plans - in England CAFCASS does a difficult job with limited resourcing and mixed success; Centres for Separated Families and their Family Separation Clinic work within a dedicated integrative approach; in the US and Canada there are Parenting Coordinators, and so on. Alongside these workers, and again linked to the courts, experienced therapists can still engage reluctant families required to attend.
When children are being abused, all countries have public systems to carefully assess and consider how to intervene. Children in high conflict separations, including those who are alienated and look like they're just fine, are being emotionally abused. But this fact has not yet filtered into courts and thinking. Even though adult and family court systems variably know little about this field, everyone assumes that those courts are the authoritative and best place. Yet, in Scotland, given the authority and further training, a referral to the Childrens Hearing system would be more child focused, multi-disciplinary, integrative, and cheap. See more on this novel old idea on SCRC.
We can see from the list of factors that explain high conflict separations, how the separation and legal process and the adults various own needs override the children's needs, despite the best intentions. An integrative approach focuses primarily on the children's needs to try to achieve what some parents cannot. All legal systems talk of the paramountcy of the child's best interests. The child's best interests are for adults to contain their conflicts in order to give the child a relationship with both parents. Even if the parent is a risk or just not much good at being a parent, it may be important to secure a safe enough way for a child to have some kind of relationship with them. When a child does not have a relationship with both parents - unless there is clear reason why not - the child is being emotionally abused. There are short- and long-term effects. Children then may have to protect themselves by, for example, taking sides, covering up, and giving up, ways that look ok but are compromises and may be damaging to them.
So how can adults, professionals and agencies do better for the children by creating more integrative answers to high conflict when parents cannot manage that themselves? The commonest bad parenting of children is in the effects of high conflict itself on the children, not what one or other parent is doing. This isn't to say that a parent should just shut up for the sake of superficial peace. And it only takes one conflictual parent to create high conflict for all. Here are some ways others try to provide integrative answers:
0. INTEGRATIVE PARENTING BEFORE SEPARATION
If mothers and fathers could find more balanced ways to run their family and share the childcare, that would both reduce separation and make for a much better basis of getting separation right especially for the children when separation does happen. The gendered culture and values of parents tend to fathers delegating home and childcare to the mothers. So many fathers only discover how much they love and want to parent their children AFTER they separate. Strong feminism has found itself fighting the corner of single mothers and female victims so much that it is easy to forget that feminism's prime aim was to bring fathers more into family life (before and after parental separation). This helps women to access more of what men tend to do outside of the family. Here's a useful reminder of the original aim from leading women who support shared parenting.
1. MOST SEPARATING PARENTS ALREADY DO IT
Most separating parents - despite the long list of challenging factors - somehow manage to put their children first. They do this from common sense, from love of their children, from guidance and support from family, friends and helping services. They get informed and they may bring in services like family counselling, family mediation and collaborative family lawyers to help them. Here's a good brief guideline for separating parents: Emotional wellbeing for parents living apart. And Karen and Nick Woodall's book: Handbook for Separating Parents.
2. ENCOURAGE MORE CONFLICTED PARENTS TOWARD INTEGRATIVE ANSWERS
Make sure the parents who are heading towards high conflict get as little as possible of the ideas and offers that encourage the conflict (e.g. from adversarial lawyers). Make sure parents instead get as much as possible of the ideas and offers of working on integrative answers. One key mistake is to "wait and see". This may seem sensible when tempers run high, but it is often the way high conflict gets fixed and can escalate. The best way to avoid entrenched harmful patterns is for everyone to encourage separating parents to work their own feelings and conflicts out separately and put their children's needs first to have a relationship with both parents.
3. IMPROVE THE LEGAL PROCESS
See Ideas from "Changing the Culture" on SCRC.
4. IMPROVE RESOURCES AND SERVICES
See Summary of Nick's Ideas on SCRC.
5. KEEP THINKING IT THROUGH
Unfortunately the controversies and debate surrounding abuse and alienation creates more heat than light. See how long the full SCRC webpage is! And see the section on thinking it through on SCRC. Important headings are: The Child's View, Feminism, Patriarchy, Unequal Opportunities, Domestic Violence, Coercion of Children, Child Homicides (and interpreting other statistics properly), and Gender Debate.
6. OTHERS TO PULL IT TOGETHER
The pattern is that everyone takes sides. The need is for integrative approaches, for someone to pull things together (for the children at least) when parents cannot. Around family courts, often there is not one single person authorised to do that task and carry it through. A Sheriff (in Scotland) or Judge may be the only integrative professional. The legal process itself may be adversarial all the way, but Judges are most certainly not. Typically family courts have informal child welfare hearings that allow informal settings with parents and child. That provides a golden opportunity for authoritative integrative determination that can prevent many families from escalating their fight to higher levels still.
In many countries other workers team up with courts to assess and integrate plans - in England CAFCASS does a difficult job with limited resourcing and mixed success; Centres for Separated Families and their Family Separation Clinic work within a dedicated integrative approach; in the US and Canada there are Parenting Coordinators, and so on. Alongside these workers, and again linked to the courts, experienced therapists can still engage reluctant families required to attend.
When children are being abused, all countries have public systems to carefully assess and consider how to intervene. Children in high conflict separations, including those who are alienated and look like they're just fine, are being emotionally abused. But this fact has not yet filtered into courts and thinking. Even though adult and family court systems variably know little about this field, everyone assumes that those courts are the authoritative and best place. Yet, in Scotland, given the authority and further training, a referral to the Childrens Hearing system would be more child focused, multi-disciplinary, integrative, and cheap. See more on this novel old idea on SCRC.
From Linda Gottlieb's website: End Parental Alienation.
Best Resources for Families
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Key Ideas for Change in UK
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SUMMARY OF KEY FURTHER RESOURCES
The full linked in resources that inform this webpage and thinking are in the fuller version of SCRC. The basic principle is that the more everyone learns about how separation works and can go wrong, the better. In particular the rarer patterns like alienation bring hugely useful awareness for families, professionals and the general public. Here are some of the best resources there are. First an ancient Buddhist story ….
The full linked in resources that inform this webpage and thinking are in the fuller version of SCRC. The basic principle is that the more everyone learns about how separation works and can go wrong, the better. In particular the rarer patterns like alienation bring hugely useful awareness for families, professionals and the general public. Here are some of the best resources there are. First an ancient Buddhist story ….
Mahosadha
There's a better story of the "wisdom of Solomon" as part of the Jataka Tale about Mahosadha. "In this Jataka, the young Buddha-to-be was a wise sage, Mahosadha. He earned the respect of a powerful king, who he ultimately came to advise, by settling a number of otherwise unsolvable dilemmas. In one particular case, two woman present themselves to the future Buddha, each claiming to be the mother of a particularly valuable child whose birth had been prophesised. The Buddha proposed the following solution: one woman was to take hold of the child’s head, and the other would hold its feet.
There's a better story of the "wisdom of Solomon" as part of the Jataka Tale about Mahosadha. "In this Jataka, the young Buddha-to-be was a wise sage, Mahosadha. He earned the respect of a powerful king, who he ultimately came to advise, by settling a number of otherwise unsolvable dilemmas. In one particular case, two woman present themselves to the future Buddha, each claiming to be the mother of a particularly valuable child whose birth had been prophesised. The Buddha proposed the following solution: one woman was to take hold of the child’s head, and the other would hold its feet.
The Buddha marked a line on the floor, and the women were to compete to try and draw the baby completely over the line. The first woman to pull the baby completely to her side of the line would keep possession of the infant. The floor is marked, the whistle blown, and both women begin pulling on the baby. But the real mother, hearing the baby cry out in pain at being stretched in two directions, immediately lets go, opting to give up the child rather than cause it any more pain. The Buddha awards custody of the child to the more tender-hearted woman, and the closing credits roll over a scene of domestic bliss."
The drawn cartoons seem to have been taken off-line. But here is a YouTube cartoon version with much more detail mood music, subtitles and drama added in. It's 11 mins and worth watching for how to spot an ogress from the true mother when you know how. The baby-pulling is around the middle of it. The denouement continues in the next episode here. The evil ogress is even given Buddhist therapy for her remorse.
The drawn cartoons seem to have been taken off-line. But here is a YouTube cartoon version with much more detail mood music, subtitles and drama added in. It's 11 mins and worth watching for how to spot an ogress from the true mother when you know how. The baby-pulling is around the middle of it. The denouement continues in the next episode here. The evil ogress is even given Buddhist therapy for her remorse.
Simple Diagrams
Next: Over-simplifying the complex subject of CRC/PA, these four slides show: 1. CRC as a complex field, 2. Happily separated families, 3. Unhappily separated families, and 4. Parental alienation.
Next: Over-simplifying the complex subject of CRC/PA, these four slides show: 1. CRC as a complex field, 2. Happily separated families, 3. Unhappily separated families, and 4. Parental alienation.
1. A quick glimpse of the complexity (diagrams from Child Alienation paper, click here). Multiple systemic factors. A continuum of children’s relationships with separated parents with PA at one end.
3. Genders may be reversed or different (eg LGBT couples). Relationships are fraught. Hurt upset or scared Mum wants to distance and protect herself and the kids from contact with an angry upset maybe abusive or risky Dad while the child has mixed feelings in the middle, resists contact maybe, and often just wants her parents to stop arguing. Although the Dad may throw in “PAS” this is not PA. It gives PA its bad name. PA is typically more like this >>
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2. Parents both love their child and each collaborates with the other for her sake. Their child has a relationship with both and knows they love her. Contact works fine. See Relationships Scotland's leaflet
4. Again genders may be reversed or different. Relationships are polarised into aligned and rejected. Mum is a woman with a very negative inner self esteem hidden inside an overpoweringly controlling strong outer difficult personality. This may be the only solution she knows to hold onto attachments. In the literature, she gets called Narcissistic or worse. Actively or intentionally she programmes her child to side with her to resist contact with a caring safe and previously loved Dad. The child can only resolve the split by devoting herself to her Mum’s needs and develop the denigration of her Dad. The child’s voice gets amplified by the unintended help of the family court process into a powerful choice.
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Key Resources
Here's the pick of the international reading and resources on SCRC. It's divided into three sections depending on how easy and quick they are to look at.
Resources that take a few minutes
PACT Video about abduction and alienation of three adults looking back - a 12 min edit of a 35 min video showing the more unbelievable bits of PA of alienation happening and tragic outcomes. Better to watch the whole thing (below).
Attachment, attachment harm, and its repair, are all seen in this 2 min video, the Still Face Experiment. Remember that all these attachment patterns, hurts, feelings and responses also happen in close adult relationships too.
Here's Relationships Scotland's leaflet that all separating families should be given. It simply states (with references) what children say they want when their parents split up ... things their parents and other adults and agencies seem to easily forget.
Brief video of abducted and alienated now grown up daughter, uniquely featuring a little of both parents too.
Here is the 1min 40sec trailer for Jake's Closet - it is an effective summary of some PA features. Jake's Closet, is a film of a story about alienation.
Janet Bloomfield's blog here tells of her abuse as a child by both parents before they separated, and her later adult realisation that she had been turned unjustly against her father by her mother.
The best recent UK summary description is Sue Whitcombe's article in The Psychologist (2014) Parental Alienation: time to notice, time to intervene.
Here is Dr Kirk Weir's Short Guide on Parental Alienation Syndrome
This is a wise un-hyped typically British article - it uses psychodynamic and family therapy ideas. David Pitcher avoids using the term Alienation, yet it is all about working with that as a UK family court social worker. David Pitcher (2010) ‘Do you see what I see?’ Thinking about contact in high conflict cases in Seen and Heard, 20 (3), pp 38-51, the Journal of NAGALRO.
Paul Bishop's rich account as an independent social worker ascertaining children's wishes and feelings, shows how skilful the worker has to be - and how essential always to consider the child's whole context and family in making sense of their expressed views, wishes, feelings or behaviour.
This is Karen Woodall's blog on the importance of differentiating the rare pure from the common hybrid patterns of alienation, and why it's important not to be too simplistic … including how to use the original Gardner 8 points without getting too simplistic with that "PA Syndrome" concept.
How messy it gets with wider legal systems making things worse. Here's a mother in a high conflict separation, having successfully stopped her ex-husband's alienation of her from her children, testifying in the Connecticut Hearings on Guardian ad Litem (GAL) and Attorney Accountability (8 mins).
Arlene Vetere and Jan Cooper, psychologists and family therapists, of Reading Safer Families provide e.g. in this commentary a leading UK integrated gender inclusive model and service for all kinds of abuse in couples and families - but probably not for what happens around PA.
PA is not a gendered pattern, but it often gets treated as if it was always Dads who are being rejected. Then the generally anti-men anti-fathers culture of nearly all professional services to children and families can shape what happens. Read Nick Smithers article "Dangerous feckless and disinterested" on Inside Man about his experiences as a social worker and fathers worker in Scotland. People say the same sort of thing applies in the rest of the UK and in the USA.
Try Richard Warshak's brief overview of parental alienation and his "Bringing Sense to Parental Alienation: A Look at the Disputes and the Evidence* can be accessed here and scrolling to click on CR27. In the different US culture, this paper responds to critics like Carol Bruch, who would deny the existence of parental alienation. His website has much more too: Divorce Poison page. And the Pluto page.
To get the most authoritative, multi-disciplinary and international network and journal, join the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and get Family Court Review. Costs very little as a student, which you probably are! An important development is the Parenting Coordinator role. And here is a 2011 issue of FCR that highlights attachment-based approaches to high conflict separation.
Resources that take half an hour
Here is the full PACT video (35 mins) of three adults telling the full stories of their family separation in their childhood onwards. In their cases the active alienation (two by mothers, one by a father) is added to big geographical moves or abduction - a more straight-forward step than alienation alone. They tell stories of happy relationship with both parents with no risk or abuse to them as children; then of parental conflict, and of separation.
Here's the pick of the international reading and resources on SCRC. It's divided into three sections depending on how easy and quick they are to look at.
Resources that take a few minutes
PACT Video about abduction and alienation of three adults looking back - a 12 min edit of a 35 min video showing the more unbelievable bits of PA of alienation happening and tragic outcomes. Better to watch the whole thing (below).
Attachment, attachment harm, and its repair, are all seen in this 2 min video, the Still Face Experiment. Remember that all these attachment patterns, hurts, feelings and responses also happen in close adult relationships too.
Here's Relationships Scotland's leaflet that all separating families should be given. It simply states (with references) what children say they want when their parents split up ... things their parents and other adults and agencies seem to easily forget.
Brief video of abducted and alienated now grown up daughter, uniquely featuring a little of both parents too.
Here is the 1min 40sec trailer for Jake's Closet - it is an effective summary of some PA features. Jake's Closet, is a film of a story about alienation.
Janet Bloomfield's blog here tells of her abuse as a child by both parents before they separated, and her later adult realisation that she had been turned unjustly against her father by her mother.
The best recent UK summary description is Sue Whitcombe's article in The Psychologist (2014) Parental Alienation: time to notice, time to intervene.
Here is Dr Kirk Weir's Short Guide on Parental Alienation Syndrome
This is a wise un-hyped typically British article - it uses psychodynamic and family therapy ideas. David Pitcher avoids using the term Alienation, yet it is all about working with that as a UK family court social worker. David Pitcher (2010) ‘Do you see what I see?’ Thinking about contact in high conflict cases in Seen and Heard, 20 (3), pp 38-51, the Journal of NAGALRO.
Paul Bishop's rich account as an independent social worker ascertaining children's wishes and feelings, shows how skilful the worker has to be - and how essential always to consider the child's whole context and family in making sense of their expressed views, wishes, feelings or behaviour.
This is Karen Woodall's blog on the importance of differentiating the rare pure from the common hybrid patterns of alienation, and why it's important not to be too simplistic … including how to use the original Gardner 8 points without getting too simplistic with that "PA Syndrome" concept.
How messy it gets with wider legal systems making things worse. Here's a mother in a high conflict separation, having successfully stopped her ex-husband's alienation of her from her children, testifying in the Connecticut Hearings on Guardian ad Litem (GAL) and Attorney Accountability (8 mins).
Arlene Vetere and Jan Cooper, psychologists and family therapists, of Reading Safer Families provide e.g. in this commentary a leading UK integrated gender inclusive model and service for all kinds of abuse in couples and families - but probably not for what happens around PA.
PA is not a gendered pattern, but it often gets treated as if it was always Dads who are being rejected. Then the generally anti-men anti-fathers culture of nearly all professional services to children and families can shape what happens. Read Nick Smithers article "Dangerous feckless and disinterested" on Inside Man about his experiences as a social worker and fathers worker in Scotland. People say the same sort of thing applies in the rest of the UK and in the USA.
Try Richard Warshak's brief overview of parental alienation and his "Bringing Sense to Parental Alienation: A Look at the Disputes and the Evidence* can be accessed here and scrolling to click on CR27. In the different US culture, this paper responds to critics like Carol Bruch, who would deny the existence of parental alienation. His website has much more too: Divorce Poison page. And the Pluto page.
To get the most authoritative, multi-disciplinary and international network and journal, join the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and get Family Court Review. Costs very little as a student, which you probably are! An important development is the Parenting Coordinator role. And here is a 2011 issue of FCR that highlights attachment-based approaches to high conflict separation.
Resources that take half an hour
Here is the full PACT video (35 mins) of three adults telling the full stories of their family separation in their childhood onwards. In their cases the active alienation (two by mothers, one by a father) is added to big geographical moves or abduction - a more straight-forward step than alienation alone. They tell stories of happy relationship with both parents with no risk or abuse to them as children; then of parental conflict, and of separation.
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The video was produced by Parents and Abducted Children Together (PACT). This is the anecdotal equivalent of Amy Baker's book (see below). The main point here is to validate that alienation can happen and that children suffer long-lasting effects. The strength of PACT and this video is that it is entirely child focused. It is not systemic. It does not tell us the parents' stories and wider reasons. It does not help us know why this happens or how to stop it. But it happens!
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Nick Child's Overview of Parental Alienation (pdf of slides plus notes) at London AFT conference, 25th Oct 2014.
Parents Healing from Estrangement has loads of stories and other resources.
Mothers Apart from Their CHildren (MATCH) may be helpful given the particular experiences of mothers, not all of whom are in alienated situations.
Reena Sommers in the US has set out her list of things that don't work and things that might help in PAS.
Packed with clear summaries of all aspects - Barbara Jo Fidler & Nicholas Bala, (2010) Children Resisting Post-Separation Contact With a Parent: Concepts, Controversies and Conundrums. Family Court Review, 48, pp10-47.
An anonymous and genderless blogger with a profoundly caring, neutral and reasonable account from a family viewpoint with the child in mind.
The best recent UK PhD research - with lots of telling quotes from parents - is counselling psychologist Sue Whitcombe's (2014): Powerless: the lived experience of alienated parents in the UK
Three less polemical Karen Woodall blogs on Parental Alienation on PA Treatment Routes and Decisions in the Best Interests of the Child. These are examples of her "whole family" approach, chapters for a book she's writing. She is even more richly on form from the start of 2014. Karen's keenly awaited book will be out in autumn 2014. Meanwhile here is a comprehensive published article Understanding and Working with the Alienated Child (2014)
Dr Kirk Weir, a UK child psychiatrist, has retired. His most influential research gives clear descriptions of what it says on the tin: (2011) High conflict contact disputes: Evidence of the extreme unreliability of some children's ascertainable wishes and feelings. Family Court Review, 49, 788-800 Here's a better UK published version of this work.
A key article that broadens and shows the complexity of the field: Joan B Kelly & Janet R Johnston (2001) The Alienated Child: A reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome. Family Court Review, 39, 3, 249-266 Sage.
The anonymous blogger's fine account of the child's experience of a parent with an overwhelmingly strong personality.
This is a summary of the conclusions in: Amy J Baker (2007) Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome.
An extract of the headings of Amy Baker's booklet for children "I Don't Want to Choose". Order that booklet with extra e-worksheets from her website. http://www.amyjlbaker.com
For separated families who want to make sure alienation does not get a grip, try this from Australia. Me and My Kids Click here for a free copy.
For the Scottish Government, Fran Wasoff (2007) reviewed international ways of dealing with child contact cases. But see comment in next paragraph about the danger of experts who fail to think carefully enough.
Clare Sturge and Danya Glaser created an Appendix (2000 in Family Law) = takes a minute to load. This is a kind of check list of what makes an expert an expert on children and families in abusive conflict, someone we (and family courts) can rely on to get the assessments right. Both this and Wasoff's authoritative reviews seem unaware of PA and its importance. The articles presume that the resident parent's relationship and care of the children will be fine and doesn't need attending to. So it remains for us all to continue to critique even the highest expertise in order to further improve it for children and families on the ground and facing courts.
The Custody Minefield (and its App) is a comprehensive resource for all high conflict cases. Here's their recent excellent slide show of issues and relevant case law on family courts and Child Alienation (England and Wales) and guide to their full resources.
Resources that take an hour or more
Get the always updated Kindle version of: Bill Eddy (2012) Don’t Alienate the Kids! Raising Resilient Children While Avoiding High Conflict Divorce. HCI Press
Prof Nicolas Bala's presentation on PA in Australia – click on the title (or lower down) for an audio recording of his seminar.
The most powerful textbook based on interviews with PA children grown-up is: Amy J Baker (2007) Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome. Norton: NY.
Pamela Roche (2013) Broken Lives Broken Minds. The full transatlantic harrowing story of a rejected mother of alienated children, one of whom gets several (other) hefty diagnoses and treatments for disturbance that only starts after alienation begins. Most striking is how no professional asks the most basic question: What was happening when the trouble started? This book is also important to help counter the ignorance that alienation always means rejected fathers.
There are THREE recently published (2013) recommended comprehensive textbooks worth buying and reading.
Barbara Jo Fidler, Nicholas Bala & Michael A Saini (2013) Children Who Resist Post-Separation Parental Contact: A Differential Approach for Legal and Mental Health Professionals. Oxford UP.
Baker A,. and Sauber S.R. (2013) Working with Alienated Children and Families: A Clinical Guidebook, New York, Routledge
Demosthenes Lorandos, William Bernet, and Richard Sauber (eds) (2013) Parental Alienation: The Handbook for Mental Health and Legal Professionals (Behavioral Science and Law) Charles Thomas Publishers.
Click for Douglas Darnall's website: PsyCare / Parental Alienation, featuring his revised books: "Divorce Casualties: Protecting your Children from Parental Alienation" and "Divorce Casualties: Understanding Parental Alienation, 2nd Ed (2008)"
Joseph Goldberg has coordinated educational conferences in North America for professionals and families, now accessible on the website Parental Alienation Education.
Dr Craig Childress in the USA has done most to develop an attachment-based model of parental alienation. Talking for an American context he uses that kind of terminology and (appropriately) older family therapy models, but still really helpful. Here is his website page with a 90 minute video of his presentation on the subject.
Parents Healing from Estrangement has loads of stories and other resources.
Mothers Apart from Their CHildren (MATCH) may be helpful given the particular experiences of mothers, not all of whom are in alienated situations.
Reena Sommers in the US has set out her list of things that don't work and things that might help in PAS.
Packed with clear summaries of all aspects - Barbara Jo Fidler & Nicholas Bala, (2010) Children Resisting Post-Separation Contact With a Parent: Concepts, Controversies and Conundrums. Family Court Review, 48, pp10-47.
An anonymous and genderless blogger with a profoundly caring, neutral and reasonable account from a family viewpoint with the child in mind.
The best recent UK PhD research - with lots of telling quotes from parents - is counselling psychologist Sue Whitcombe's (2014): Powerless: the lived experience of alienated parents in the UK
Three less polemical Karen Woodall blogs on Parental Alienation on PA Treatment Routes and Decisions in the Best Interests of the Child. These are examples of her "whole family" approach, chapters for a book she's writing. She is even more richly on form from the start of 2014. Karen's keenly awaited book will be out in autumn 2014. Meanwhile here is a comprehensive published article Understanding and Working with the Alienated Child (2014)
Dr Kirk Weir, a UK child psychiatrist, has retired. His most influential research gives clear descriptions of what it says on the tin: (2011) High conflict contact disputes: Evidence of the extreme unreliability of some children's ascertainable wishes and feelings. Family Court Review, 49, 788-800 Here's a better UK published version of this work.
A key article that broadens and shows the complexity of the field: Joan B Kelly & Janet R Johnston (2001) The Alienated Child: A reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome. Family Court Review, 39, 3, 249-266 Sage.
The anonymous blogger's fine account of the child's experience of a parent with an overwhelmingly strong personality.
This is a summary of the conclusions in: Amy J Baker (2007) Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome.
An extract of the headings of Amy Baker's booklet for children "I Don't Want to Choose". Order that booklet with extra e-worksheets from her website. http://www.amyjlbaker.com
For separated families who want to make sure alienation does not get a grip, try this from Australia. Me and My Kids Click here for a free copy.
For the Scottish Government, Fran Wasoff (2007) reviewed international ways of dealing with child contact cases. But see comment in next paragraph about the danger of experts who fail to think carefully enough.
Clare Sturge and Danya Glaser created an Appendix (2000 in Family Law) = takes a minute to load. This is a kind of check list of what makes an expert an expert on children and families in abusive conflict, someone we (and family courts) can rely on to get the assessments right. Both this and Wasoff's authoritative reviews seem unaware of PA and its importance. The articles presume that the resident parent's relationship and care of the children will be fine and doesn't need attending to. So it remains for us all to continue to critique even the highest expertise in order to further improve it for children and families on the ground and facing courts.
The Custody Minefield (and its App) is a comprehensive resource for all high conflict cases. Here's their recent excellent slide show of issues and relevant case law on family courts and Child Alienation (England and Wales) and guide to their full resources.
Resources that take an hour or more
Get the always updated Kindle version of: Bill Eddy (2012) Don’t Alienate the Kids! Raising Resilient Children While Avoiding High Conflict Divorce. HCI Press
Prof Nicolas Bala's presentation on PA in Australia – click on the title (or lower down) for an audio recording of his seminar.
The most powerful textbook based on interviews with PA children grown-up is: Amy J Baker (2007) Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome. Norton: NY.
Pamela Roche (2013) Broken Lives Broken Minds. The full transatlantic harrowing story of a rejected mother of alienated children, one of whom gets several (other) hefty diagnoses and treatments for disturbance that only starts after alienation begins. Most striking is how no professional asks the most basic question: What was happening when the trouble started? This book is also important to help counter the ignorance that alienation always means rejected fathers.
There are THREE recently published (2013) recommended comprehensive textbooks worth buying and reading.
Barbara Jo Fidler, Nicholas Bala & Michael A Saini (2013) Children Who Resist Post-Separation Parental Contact: A Differential Approach for Legal and Mental Health Professionals. Oxford UP.
Baker A,. and Sauber S.R. (2013) Working with Alienated Children and Families: A Clinical Guidebook, New York, Routledge
Demosthenes Lorandos, William Bernet, and Richard Sauber (eds) (2013) Parental Alienation: The Handbook for Mental Health and Legal Professionals (Behavioral Science and Law) Charles Thomas Publishers.
Click for Douglas Darnall's website: PsyCare / Parental Alienation, featuring his revised books: "Divorce Casualties: Protecting your Children from Parental Alienation" and "Divorce Casualties: Understanding Parental Alienation, 2nd Ed (2008)"
Joseph Goldberg has coordinated educational conferences in North America for professionals and families, now accessible on the website Parental Alienation Education.
Dr Craig Childress in the USA has done most to develop an attachment-based model of parental alienation. Talking for an American context he uses that kind of terminology and (appropriately) older family therapy models, but still really helpful. Here is his website page with a 90 minute video of his presentation on the subject.
Footnotes
Read more on SCRC for: Nick's Conclusions, The Test (of an effective system for CRC/PA), More Really Difficult Thinking, Gardner's Original Definition of PAS, and What Helping Professionals Can Offer
Read more on SCRC for: Nick's Conclusions, The Test (of an effective system for CRC/PA), More Really Difficult Thinking, Gardner's Original Definition of PAS, and What Helping Professionals Can Offer
NICK HOPES YOU HAVE FOUND SOMETHING HERE TO LEARN FROM.
FEEDBACK IN THE CONTACT BOX. SEE MUCH MORE ON THIS SUBJECT ON SCRC.
Forallthat.com has much more of Nick Child's stuff on it.
Nick's views are his own enthusiastic informed (but not expert) views.
The views here are not written in stone. Help them change for the better by feeding back.
FEEDBACK IN THE CONTACT BOX. SEE MUCH MORE ON THIS SUBJECT ON SCRC.
Forallthat.com has much more of Nick Child's stuff on it.
Nick's views are his own enthusiastic informed (but not expert) views.
The views here are not written in stone. Help them change for the better by feeding back.
