Published: November 30, -0001

What to Do When Parent Alienation Interferes With Father's Rights

One of the toughest things divorced fathers have to deal with is parent alienation. When your ex-wife is alienating your children from you, it will undoubtedly cause heartbreak, anguish, and mental suffering. In addition, it can have a financial effect: According to California law, the mother’s income is only taken into child support calculations when you are visiting the child. This is particularly an issue when the mother earns a respectable living.

Parent alienation can come in several forms. It may just be that your ex-wife is preventing you from meeting the child by not agreeing to arrange transportation or something similar. If the other parent is ignoring father's rights laws and holding you back from meeting your child, you should contact a lawyer and bring the case to court.

The other parent may also be alienating the child mentally and emotionally. This may be through denigrating you in front of the child, calling you names, telling the child that you hate them, or saying that you don’t care about them and don’t want to see them. Eventually, most children will develop negative feelings towards you and not want to have anything to do with you. This is sometimes referred to as Parent Alienation Syndrome.

However, because this is not a medically recognized mental syndrome, it can be harder to prove that the other parent is causing the issue. When faced with such allegations, the court will usually order a psychological evaluation by a third-party. The problem is that this can drag out for a long time before the court takes any action -- and meanwhile, the alienation will just get worse.

The most important thing, in this case, is to push the court to take action sooner, rather than later. Contact a lawyer to get the court to take action as quickly as possible.