Is It Alienating Parenting, Role Reversal or Child Abuse?: A Study of Children's Rejection of a Parent in Child Custody Disputes

• NCJ Number: 213050
• Journal: Journal of Emotional Abuse Volume: 5 Issue: 4 Dated: 2005 Pages: 191-218
• Author(s): Janet R. Johnston; Marjorie G. Walters; Nancy W. Olesen
• Date Published: 2005
• Length: 28 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Part II of Implications of Parent-Child Boundary Dissolution for Developmental Psychopathology: "Who is the Parent and Who is the Child?"

Annotation

This study explored ways that parenting may be compromised in high-conflict, divorced families specifically in cases where a child aligns with one parent and rejects the other parent after divorce.

Abstract

The results support a multi-dimensional evaluation of children’s rejection of a parent, with both parents, as well as vulnerabilities within the child, contributing to the problem. The most prominent theory as to why children reject a parent puts the blame almost entirely on an embittered, divorced spouse who systematically programs their children to do so. When highly conflicted, custody-disputing families enter the court with a child who is reluctant or refusing to visit a parent, they set in motion an adversarial system that seeks evidence to prove definitively whether the allegations of family abuse and poor parenting are well-founded or whether the allegations can be dismissed as symptoms of spitefulness, hostility, or strategic ploys. This study of custody disputing families tested competing hypotheses about the correlates of children’s alignment with one parent and rejection of the other. References and appendixes A and B