The biggest issue inside parental alienation is the issue of abuse towards the children. To give an example of abusive parents researchers at the University of Toronto, and many other universities have taken important steps toward creating a profile of an abusive parent. Professor Gary Walters and Lynn Oldershaw of the Department of Psychology at Toronto have developed a system to characterize parents who physically abuse their children. This helps courts dealing with the problem of parental alienation syndrome to identify parents in child abuse. "Over the last five years, Walters and Oldershaw have examined over 100 mothers and they're three to six-year-old children who have been p

Legally parental alienation is recognized as a behavior pattern but often goes under other names such as coaching or prejudicing and synonyms of brainwashing. Although recognized by the courts it is rarely acted upon because as a form of emotional abuse it is very difficult to define, and would require bringing in Social Services. The other forms of child abuse are physical, sexual, and neglect, and are more easily identified. Making abuse a better topic for the courts to handle. Emotional abuse can only be registered in the court as part of these. "Some courts will act upon it, but do so by simply ignoring the mother's claims of the child's wishes and show that she is being hostile towards the children"(Freed). The more educated courts will order family therapy, and ensure that visitation rights are kept for both parents. Anyone claiming parental alienation should always look for family therapy as a way forward. "Although parental alienation is currently recognized, but not acted upon commonly, it is actually a crime to encourage hatred on the basis of color and religion"(Freed). Also the government is considering making stalking a crime on the basis of emotional abuse. In the United States one father had visitation suspended because his daughter hated him even though he had made every reasonable effort to form a relationship with her. When something like this happens, the court would prevent parental alienation from being used as an excuse in the law.

If a divorce does occur there are several things that can be done to try and still keep the children from falling apart. Usually these steps need to be taken by the father because the children almost always end up with the mother. "The father needs to keep an open line of contact with both the children and the mother"(Oakland 25). The father needs to try and move on with his life because if the children ever show up, they need to see the father they knew leading a full life, not a depressed man whose life is falling apart. It also helps to talk to other people about the situation. A lot of people may have the same problem and talking about it will relieve a lot of inner tension. When a divorce occurs it creates the feeling of a lost child so the partner that gets separated from the child just needs to try and accept the situation and go on with life.

Above explains the problems that can cause parental alienation, now I will show how parental alienation can be handled. Basically there are two ways to which it can be handled, medically and legally. Medically parental alienation is a form of emotional child abuse. "Parents in hostile separations typically suffer from depression and anger"(Freed). The expression of these feelings takes on the form of taking away love and communication from the children. Medically it is also closely related to sexual abuse used to stop the father from having contact with the children. A big part in sexual abuse is the Stockholm syndrome, which describes the children as hostages, afraid of the mother, and obe

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Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)