Parental Alienation: When bad-mouthing a parent costs you contact with your child

Divorce and parenting disputes can be emotionally charged, but parents should think twice before using their children as weapons in their conflict.

A recent court judgment serves as a stark warning to parents who attempt to turn a child against the other parent. In a decision delivered on 13 July 2023, a father of an eight-year-old boy was prohibited from having any contact with his son for a period of three months after experts concluded that he had systematically alienated the child from his mother.

The court considered reports from a clinical psychologist and a curator ad litem appointed to represent the child’s interests. Both experts found that the child displayed clear signs of parental alienation syndrome and recommended that he be temporarily removed from his father’s influence.

According to the evidence, the father had negatively influenced the child to such an extent that the child’s relationship with his mother was in serious jeopardy. The experts described the child’s environment as psychologically chaotic and emotionally unstable. They warned that continued exposure to the father’s conduct could result in the child either becoming a “tactical liar” or becoming so immersed in the father’s distorted belief system that his own emotional and psychological development would be severely compromised.

Particularly concerning was the finding that the child was beginning to display symptoms associated with a shared psychotic disorder, where he had adopted his father’s irrational beliefs and had become convinced that his mother and maternal grandparents were harmful or dangerous.

The court did not spare either parent from criticism, describing them as “two rivalrous small children trying to convince authority figures that they are the ones being victimised and who should be favoured.”

Ultimately, the court accepted the recommendations of the experts and ordered that the father have no contact with the child for three months. Thereafter, contact would resume only under strict supervision, limited to two hours twice during the week and two hours over weekends. The purpose of the order was to allow the child to rebuild a healthy relationship with his mother and to ensure that future contact with the father occurred in a structured and monitored environment.

This judgment highlights an important principle: children should never become casualties in their parents’ disputes. A child is not a messenger, a bargaining chip, or a weapon to be used in a custody battle. The courts will always place the best interests of the child above the wishes and grievances of either parent.

Parents involved in care and contact disputes should obtain sound legal advice before making decisions that may ultimately harm their children—and their own relationship with them.

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