It has been a known fact that parental alienation has remained prevalent in the United States in spite of the emergence of the now popular, shared parenting bill, a proposal in which the egalitarian approach of parenting is widely advocated. In fact, High Point University psychology assistant professor Sadie Leder Elder has once stressed that the degree of parental alienation in America has been quite alarming.
Parental alienation first emerged in the '80s when forensic psychiatrist Dr. Richard Gardner recognized an occurrence where a parent brainwashes a child to denigrate the other parent, particularly in high conflicting divorce battles. However, parental alienation remains to exist up until now.
According to High Point University, a study published in the journal Children and Youth Services Review revealed that 13 percent of parents are victims of parental alienation in the United States while more than 22 million adults have been identified to be at risk to be alienated from their children. Due to this heartbreaking phenomenon, parental alienation has been considered a form of child abuse as it promotes an unhealthy parent-child relationship and this psychological manipulation has bred unwarranted distress, insolence or aggression to the other parent involved.
As the holiday season looms, The Canadian Jewish News urged the society that it's about time to stop parental alienation and ex-couples with children should end the practice of using their kids as weapons to hurt the other parent. As a matter of fact, parental alienation could lead to negative ramifications to both the parents and children, citing depression and anxiety disorders as the adverse outcomes of this parenting practice.
With that said Avrum Rosensweig urged parents to share childcare responsibilities, stressing parental alienation is only killing the children's spirits. Aside from this controversial parenting approach, Ontario's equal parenting law has been recently making headlines as it reportedly passed the second reading.
Equal parenting law is not the same to the widely advocated shared parenting law, which promotes the practice of egalitarian parental approach after a divorce or separation. Equal parenting law, on the other hand, is a bill that focuses on the parental rights of queer and trans-parents, Daily Xtra reported.
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