Alienating Parents Are Raising Antisocial Kids

The psychiatric and mental health communities have deemed alienating behaviors to be profoundly abusive to children.

Of upmost concern about alienating behaviors is that they are examples of antisocial behaviors. Severely alienating parents are sowing in their children the seeds of an antisocial personality disorder and possibly other personality disorders as well.

Here you will learn:

• The criteria & characteristics of a general personality disorder.
• The criteria & characteristics of an antisocial personality disorder.
• Examples of alienating behaviors that meet the criteria for antisocial behavior.
• Examples of alienated children’s antisocial behaviors.
• What parents are expected to teach their children so that their children become socially responsible citizens.

What You Need to Know About A General Personality Disorder

Definition & Criteria

Personality disorders are marked by long-term, unhealthy and inflexible patterns of thoughts, feelings, behaviors. These are dispositional traits and are therefore highly resistant to treatment and remedy.

A general personality disorder is defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5-TR) as follows:

“An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture” that is marked by the following characteristics:

• Inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations.
• Leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
• Stable and of long duration.
• Can be traced back at least to adolescence or early adulthood.

This pattern must be manifested in at least two of the following areas.

• Cognition.
• Affectivity.
• Interpersonal functioning.
• impulse control.

Alienated children are adversely affected in all four of these areas as a result of their alienating parent’s influence and coercive control of them.

Cognition issues of Alienated Children

• Believing that their alienated parent wants to hurt them.
• Confusing love for hate.
• Confusing affection for sexual abuse.
• Confusing appropriate limit setting for emotional abuse.
• Perceiving their parents in black and white terms – one parent being all good and the other parent being all bad; one parent offers them everything they need and the other parent has nothing to offer them.

Affectivity Issues of Alienated Children

• Feeling deeply Insecure and unlovable from having their alienated parent driven from their lives.
• Having serious issues with trust due to the loss of an irreplaceable person.
• Having been coercively controlled by their alienating parent to hate the loving other parent.
• Having to override the powerful instinct to have and need a parent and thereby reject that parent.
• Feeling no remorse or guilt for emotionally and even physically abusing a parent.
• Being terrified that survival depends exclusively upon the unpredictable and unstable alienating parent.
• Being terrified that their alienated parent will harm them is some way.
• Being terrified that their alienated parent will kidnap them or keep them forever from their alienating parent.
• Being unable to separate/individuate from their alienating parent.

Interpersonal Impairments of Alienated Children

• Using emotional cutoffs to resolve interpersonal problems.
• Perceiving their alienated parent’s interest them as a boundary violation.
• Perceiving their alienated parent’s appearance at their parent teacher conferences, activities, games, tournaments, etc. as stalking or not respecting their children’s wishes.
• Exuding a sense of entitlement.
• Exuding over-empowerment in relationship to their alienated parent.
• Exuding over-empowerment in relationship to the reunification therapist.
• Limited or non-existent peer relationships.
• Teenage boys emotionally and physically abusing their alienated mother’s – domestic violence by proxy at the behest of their alienating fathers.

Impulse control Issues of Alienated Children

• Rejecting their alienated parent.
• Disengaging from their alienated parent.
• Defying their alienated parent’s supervision.
• Cursing their alienated parent.
• Running away from their alienated parent.
• Emotionally abusing their alienated parent.
• Physically assaulting their alienated parent.
• Interacting aggressively with peers.
• Defying teachers and other authority figures.
• Disrespecting the reunification therapist.
• Sudden suicidal threats, ideation, or attempts.
• Sudden self-harming behaviors such as cutting, eating disorders, drug & alcohol abuse.

FURTHER READING: Manifestations of Alienated Children – As Seen by an Expert

What You Need to Know About an Antisocial Personality Disorder

Definition and Criteria

According to The DSM-5, an antisocial personality disorder is defined as:

“A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following”:

1. Failure to confirm to laws and social norms (repeatedly breaking laws).
2. Deceitfulness (repeated lying or conning others for personal profit or pleasure).
3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead.
4. Irritability and aggressiveness (repeated physical fights or assaults).
5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others.
6. Consistent irresponsibility (repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations).
7. Lack of remorse (being indifferent to having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another).

Alienating Behaviors Meet the Criteria of Antisocial Behaviors

Having of a functioning, intact, and unencumbered conscience is fundamental to the ability to comply with one’s societal norms, expectations and behaviors.

Regrettably, the nurturing and development of a maturely functioning conscience does not occur instinctively nor automatically. It is therefore a primary job of parents to nurture their child’s conscience, model socially appropriate behaviors, and teach their children how to become law-abiding, socially appropriate citizens.

Teaching children to behave in a socially appropriate manner is a parental function required by child protection. Children who do not know how to behave in a socially appropriate manner have an exceedingly poor prognosis in life.

Alienating behaviors undermine and compromise the nurturing of the child’s conscience. Alienating parents model and encourage behaviors that violate social norms and expectations.

Baker and Fine’s 17 alienating behaviors are examples of how alienating parents model for their children behaviors that undermine our society’s expectations and norms. Other alienating behaviors are examples of how alienating parents make their children complicit in violating society’s expectations and norms.

Alienating behaviors are examples of a flagrant disregard of empathy for both the alienated and the child. Alienating parents are insensitive and indifferent to their children’s need and love for their alienated parent. Alienating parents are insensitive and indifferent to the alienating parent’s need to have their children meaningfully in their lives.

Alienating parent do not act to protect their children. They do the just the opposite of assuring their children’s favorable prognosis in life. They fail to teach their children how to become law abiding citizens and to behave in a socially appropriate manner.

FURTHER READING: Alienating Behaviors – Domestic Violence Upon the Child

Examples of Antisocial Alienating Behaviors

• Violating the alienated parent’s Court-ordered parenting time.
• Involving their children in the violation of the court order for the alienated parent’s parenting time.
• Filing motions with knowingly false information in order to gain an upper hand in the custody proceedings and to retaliate against the alienated parent for some perceived transgression.
• Making knowingly false child abuse, child sexual abuse, and domestic violence allegations against the alienated parent.
• Coercing their children to initiate or confirm knowingly false child abuse, child sexual abuse, and domestic violence allegations against the alienated parent.
• Badmouthing the alienated parent to the child, the Court, and professionals with frivolous, distorted, and fabricated claims.
• Modeling disrespect of the alienated parent.
• Encouraging, sanctioning, and rewarding their child’s maltreatment and defiance of the alienated parent.
• Excluding alienated parents who has joint legal custody from decision-making for their children – particularly in the important areas of education, health, extracurricular activities, religious observance, etc.
• Asking the child to spy on the alienated parent.
• Asking the child to keep secrets from the alienated parent.
• Failure to teach and require their children to behave in socially appropriate manner.

Further Reading: Parental Alienating Behaviors Discussed by an Expert

Examples of Alienated Children’s Antisocial Behaviors

The DSM-5-TR added a clinical condition labeled “Child or adolescent antisocial behavior” (Z72.810). It is a precursor to the development of an antisocial personality disorder.

Alienated children engage in antisocial behaviors at the coercion and manipulation of their alienating parents.

I have observed this clinical condition to be manifested to some degree by all 800 alienated children whom I directly treated. I also noted the same clinical condition to some degree in several thousand additional alienated children in cases I had served as an expert witness for the Court or for one of the litigants.

Here is a short list of alienated children’s repetitive antisocial behaviors and cruel comments. These behaviors and comments towards their alienated parent are delivered without a shred of empathy or remorse:

A pattern of ongoing rejection, defiance, emotional abuse, and physical assault of their alienated parent.

A mission devoted to making false child abuse and child sexual abuse allegations against their alienated parent, testifying against their parent, and doing whatever possible to have their alienated parent arrested.

A pattern of behavior of ongoing refusal to have contact with their alienated parent – even when Court-ordered and even when knowing they are violating a Court order.

A pattern of behavior of ongoing refusal to interact with their alienated parent during Court-ordered parenting time. Rejecting gifts, food, tickets to child activities, etc. from their alienated parent.

A pattern of behavior of ongoing refusal to attend or interact with their alienated parent during Court-ordered reunification therapy.

Actively opposing their alienated parent from obtaining knowledge about and participating in their education, health, activities, friends, etc.

Expressing to their alienated parent they hope their alienated parent will die a slow death in a fire.

Expressing to their alienated that they hope that their alienated parent will have a car accident that cripples them to life.

Expressing to their alienated parent that they hope the next time they see them it is at the parent’s funeral.

Expressing to their alienated parent that the parent is not their parent, never had been their parent, and that their stepparent is their parent.

Expressing to their alienated parent that their parent deserved to be beaten because they are boring and a nag.

Expressing to their alienating parent that they are overreacting to their child’s punch in the face as the punch had not been that strong.

Deliberately destroying, breaking, or throwing away their alienated parent’s property.

Aggressive behaviors with their alienated parent and with peers that subject themselves and others to harm.

Here are some of the cruel, hurtful name-calling that alienated children express to their alienated parent:

• You’re a narcissist
• You’re wacko
• You’re a moron
• You’re just a sperm donor
• You’re boring
• You’re miserable
• You’re not my parent
• You’re crazy
• You’re mean
• You’re out of your F—-g mind.
• You’re a pedophile.
• You are a bitch, c–t, fatso, white trash, a piece of shit, and demented.

FURTHER READING: Alienated Children Say the “Darndest” Things

Parents Must Teach Their Children To Behave in a Socially Appropriate Manner

It is a primary expectation of parents to raise their children to be law-abiding, socially appropriate citizens. These parenting expectations include:

Parents must help their children to develop a mature conscience. Parents do this through continuous advisory discussions with their children and by particularly by modeling socially appropriate behaviors. Behaviors are a far more effective means of teaching and conveying expectations.

Parents must teach their children not to lie, steal, nor intentionally hurt others. Parents must teach their children to respect others – especially the other parent.

Parents must teach their children how to handle their emotions and express their feelings and opinions in a socially appropriate manner.

Parents must teach their children how to appropriately resolve interpersonal conflicts, get their needs met by others, ask for help from others, and offer help to others.

Parents must teach their children to appropriately handle setbacks, adversity, crises, and disappointments.

Parents must teach children how and when to express appreciation, gratitude, and approval of others.

Parents need to teach their children to take cues from others about the effects they are having on others and to make appropriate behavioral changes.

Parents must teach children when to apologize for their mistakes, misunderstandings, violations of others, and for just plain obnoxious behaviors.

Teaching children to live by their cultural norms and exceptions is part of a parent’s child protective responsibilities. Children cannot have a favorable prognosis in life if they do not abide by their society’s norms, behaviors, and expectations.

Parenting is a huge responsibility!

Conclusion

Parents are expected to teach their children to become socially appropriate citizens who abide by their society’s norms, expectations, and behaviors. Modeling, sanctioning, and encouraging antisocial behaviors in their children is a form of child psychological abuse.

Alienating parents are modeling for and encouraging their children to engage in numerous antisocial behaviors. Remedy is required according to the standard of “time is of the essence” along with a commensurate child protective response.

The appropriate protective response to parents who are modeling and encouraging antisocial behaviors in their children is a protective removal of children from such parents.