How does an alienated child behave?
The behavioral manifestations of a severely alienated child, first described by Richard Gardner in the 1980s, have been confirmed repeatedly since:
- Campaign of denigration
- Weak, frivolous, or absurd reasons for the rejection
- Lack of ambivalence
- "Independent thinker" phenomenon
- Reflexive support of the alienating parent
- Absence of guilt
- The presence of borrowed scenarios
- Rejection of extended family and friends of the rejected parent
Sources
[peer-reviewed study] Baker, A. J. L., Darnall, D. (2006). Behaviors and Strategies Employed in Parental Alienation: A Survey of Parental Experiences. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 45, 97–124.
Read: when a child has good reasons →
Parental alienation is not a medical or psychiatric diagnosis. What is recognised is that some parents behave in ways that damage a child’s relationship with their other parent, and that this can seriously harm children — and equally, that a child may refuse contact for good reasons, including abuse. Nothing here is a diagnosis or legal advice. What this site does and doesn’t claim.