Remember that your children need the love of both parents!
Remembering little Sophia and Serena Campione with Bubbles of Love!
Nearly everyone knows a couple who has divorced and used their children against each other. But not many people know there's a name for such behaviour, and fewer still know it is a particularly damaging form of child abuse. Parental Alienation (PAS) is a conflicted family dynamic that draws a child into siding with one parent, changing a previously good relationship with a now rejected parent in order to do battle in family court.
This year marks the 6th Annual Parental Alienation Awareness Day – April 25, 2011, and this year 21 countries will be participating. The tragic case of the Campione murders in Barrie, Ontario has once again put our flawed Family Law System and Child Protection Agencies in the public eye. Sophia and Serena Campione did not have to die. They died because our government failed to protect them. This is the most extreme kind of PA possible. This is a case of a mother that hated her ex-husband more then she loved her children.
Family courts in Canada are starting to recognize the seriousness of the manipulation of young children and are reversing custody as a result. And last year Brazil introduced a new Law that defines and punishes parental alienation; Brazilian Law 12.318
With awareness we can educate to create understanding and through understanding legislative changes can be made to create environments reducing the conflict which creates this behaviour. One of the first must be changes to the Divorce Act making shared and equal parenting a rebuttable presumption for fit parents. Those who daily supervise or provide mental health services for children will be better equipped to recognize why children exhibit certain responses.
On April 25th I will be hosting a Bubbles of Love Event in Barrie, Ontario at Centennial Park Playground in ‘Kempenfeld Bay' in remembrance of little Sophia and Serena Campione.
For more information please visit; www.paawarenessday.com
Or send me an email at; completewellness@sympatico.ca
Paulette MacDonald
Alliston, Ontario
What Countrys will be PARTICIPATING
Austria, Australia, Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, England, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States
To Visit the PAS WEBSITE
Click Here
Click here to view the 2011 Proclamation status's, and download any proclamations.
Click Here for All Events in 2011
EVENTS PLANNED:
Bubbles of love
noon
Se Brentwood Park Portland, Or., USA
contact: todd maudlin, toddmaudlin@yahoo.com
Come out and have fun blowing bubbles to help community be informed on parental alienation. Music, drinks, and bring your own bubbles. Will have some ... Read more
Se Brentwood Park Portland, Or., USA
Bubbles of Love Day Celebration - BBQ and fun in the Park!
Monday, April 25, 2011 11:30 am M
Red Deer Rotary Park Downtown Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
contact: Rhonda or Craig, derrhon@xplornet.com
All welcome!! Join us and the PAAO mascot, Panda Abuzz at the park to blow bubbles at noon for ten minutes for the PAAO's Bubbles campaign. Then ...
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Red Deer Rotary Park Downtown Red Deer, Alberta, Canada
Gathering of Family and Friends of Targeted Parents
Monday, April 25, 2011 7:00pm
Local Restaurant Rochester, NY, USA
contact: Tiana May, tianamay.rochpas@yahoo.com
Friends and family of members of the Rochester Parental Alienation Support and Resource Group will be gathering at a local restaurant on April 25th to...
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Local Restaurant Rochester, NY, USA
It is now increasingly recognized that withholding a fit and loving parent from the life of a child is itself a form of child abuse. Such parental alienation is common in sole custody arrangements, but it is not clear whether shared parenting would reduce such incidents. Therefore it is important that there be some form of enforcement mechanism available to deal with breaches to shared parenting orders, in the absence of established family violence or a finding that a child is in need of protection.
As Child custody and access law and policy remain among the most contentious areas of family law and family practice. A rights-based discourse dominates the field; as Mason (1994) has argued, the “best interests of the child” standard has historically reflected a struggle between mothers’ and fathers’ rights, with children’s needs considered to be commensurate with either position. Children are viewed at different times as fathers’ property, as requiring the “tender care” of mothers, and as rightfully “belonging” to one or the other parent. In recent years, however, with increasing scrutiny of the indeterminacy of the “best interests of the child” standard (Bala, 2000), a new ethic has emerged, one that recognizes the fact that children’s needs and interests are separate from (although related to) the rights of their parents. Thus a new “parental responsibility” discourse is gradually being introduced into legal statutes, public policy and, at the level of practice, mainly outside of Canada. Any analysis of child custody and access policy, then, must take into account both the limitations of the dominant “parental rights” discourse and the emergence of the new “parental responsibility” framework.
But as in many Legal Cases before the courts and even after, many parents, be it the mother or father have failed to see that Parental Alienation causes their child(ren) more harm then it does good. Which is why Parental Alienation must be seen for what it is. Research is clear that children fare best in post-separation relationships in which they maintain meaningful routine parental relationships with both of their parents beyond the constraints of a “visiting” or “access” relationship, in which they are shielded from destructive parental conflict, (PAS) where one parent uses the child(ren) that draws a child into siding with one parent, changing a previously good relationship with a now rejected parent in order to do battle in family court in order to gain power and control over the other parent. A good example In the child custody realm, there are ongoing debates about the definition and determination of family violence and abuse: what exactly constitutes “abuse” and “violence?” Physical and sexual abuse seem clear, but what about emotional abuse, legal abuse, and “parental alienation?” The latter are much harder to prove and establish.
Finally, suicide rates are reported to be of “epidemic” proportions among separated and divorced fathers struggling to maintain a parenting relationship with theirchildren (Ksopowa, 2002); and “legal abuse” has been noted in non-custodial father suicide cases (such as the widely reported case of Darren White). No studies have examined the impact of legal abuse; that is, using a legal advantage to remove a parent from a child’s life via sole custody, and subsequent parental alienation. Uprooting children in this manner and alienating the parent may themselves be forms of child abuse, as suggested by Justice Konigsberg of the B.C. Supreme Court(commenting on the Gettliffe case).
Parental Alienation
What is (PAS)
Parental alienation is a social dynamic, generally occurring due to divorce or separation, when a child expresses unjustified hatred or unreasonably strong dislike of one parent, making access by the rejected parent difficult or impossible. These feelings may be influenced by negative comments by the other parent and by the characteristics, such as lack of empathy and warmth, of the rejected parent. The term does not apply in cases of actual child abuse, when the child rejects the abusing parent to protect themselves. Parental alienation is controversial in legal and mental health professions, both generally and in specific situations.[1] Terms related to parental alienation include child alienation, pathological alignments, visitation refusal, pathological alienation, the toxic parent and parental alienation syndrome[2] though the last term is a specific formulation of a medical syndrome proposed by psychiatrist Richard Gardner that is not well accepted.[3]
PARENTS SHOULD REMEMBER: The perspective that the “best interests of the child” during and after parental separation are, essentially, a matter of recognizing and addressing the child’s most fundamental needs in this time of family transition. These needs are, according to child development experts such as Penelope Leach and Gordon Neufeld, best addressed by supporting parents in the fulfillment of their parental responsibilities, a goal to which social institutions such as legislatures and the judiciary are bound. Such a focus on children’s needs, parental responsibilities, and the responsibilities of social institutions to support parents in meeting their parental obligations is largely absent in current Canadian socio-legal discourse.
For other information on PAS (Parental Alienation)
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