Actions of an Alienating Parent

• Doesn’t inform you of upcoming school activities (especially unexpected ones)
• Expresses no enthusiasm for fun events you’re doing with the child (vacations, amusement parks, etc)
• Limits child’s cellphone and computer usage, so you’ll rarely get a call, text, or email
• Accomplishes a post-visitation shakedown, extracting as much info as possible to find negatives
• Able to hold resentment towards young, innocent children (ie, your children from another marriage)
• Never calls you when the child is sick or taken out of school
• Teaches the child adult things to tell you, such as “I don’t feel comfortable about the duration of our summer visitation, Dad”
• Labels themselves the “good” parent; labels you the “bad” parent
• Tells the child false stories about their childhood
• Tells the child in vivid detail how he or she was victimized by you (while taking no blame at all for the divorce)
• Teaches the child how to lie to you (coating their little hearts with false malice and scorn)
• Diminishes your extended family’s worth
• Neglects to have the child call you for your birthday, on New Year’s Eve, or other important dates
• Refuses to help the child reach and call/email/mail cards on relatives’ birthdays on your side of the family tree
• Uses child’s cellphone as a leash
• Never gets the child excited about seeing you
• Reminds the child of all that he or she will be missing while with you and away from them
• Inflicts his or her unhappiness onto the child (as alienators are deeply unhappy people)
• Attempts via a lawyer to reduce visitation to that even below family court minimum standards
• Takes the child out of state without a peep, while demands precise details whenever you travel with them
• Monopolizes the child’s time for hours on the phone (if you let them)
• Views any event in the child’s life– a distant Aunt’s birthday, a friend’s birthday, etc– as more important than their time with you
• Teaches the children from their current marriage to despise you
• Informs children of alienator’s plans for them past 18 (you’ll go to college at X, and will stay here with me)
• Is jealous of anything fun and memorable you do with the child (as they view the good times as a threat)
• Gripes about things you’re doing as a parent to the child, but says nothing to you about it
• Has outbursts around the child (extremely dramatic ones)