Tuesday, November 18, 2008

7 key strategies to Overcoming Parental Alienation in Court!

A Proven Formula to Develop a Strategy
Designed to Attract Quality Professionals
That will assist you in
Getting More Time with Your Kids!...

The greatest challenge most people face when they have been stripped of their God given rights to have time with their children is not knowing how to combat this in the family court system.

Most target parents hire a lawyer who has been trained to practice the finite narrow issues of the law and to not focus on any allegations that their client has been falsely accused. Attorneys do this out of fear and lack of training on how to defend these types of allegations. They are also dealing with judges who have a confirmatory bias and most attorneys have this bias themselves. This phenomenon does not happen based on your attorney not wanting what is best for you it happens based on the very know fact that family law attorneys are not educated in the form of defense.

Family court is a unique branch of law where the evidence of criminal law and rules don’t apply. They want to look at what is “in the BEST INTEREST of the child”. The judge lets his bias rule. Family law attorneys know this therefore and they feel that some time with your child, even if it is supervised is a win for them and you. Most attorneys also fear if for some reason you were abusive and something happened to your child while in your care they fear that this might fall on their shoulders so they are compelled to do what they always have done.
This fear based practice in family law continues to spiral out of control while good parents are missing opportunities to spend time with their children, having an active role as a parent like they once had when their marriage was intact. So many attorneys just want to focus on the reason why their clients are good parents and the fact that they are right. Because they are right, attorneys feel their clients should have time with their children, they would prefer unsupervised but will settle for supervised because of the confirmatory bias that has not been addressed in court.

This lack of properly defending their client come from prior experience in the family court system they have a preconceived notion of what is going to happen and so they practice law accordingly. Unfortunately the family court system was not designed to look at what is right and what is wrong. The family court system is designed to look out for the best interest of the child. If you are a target parent of Parental Alienation and you have been falsely accused of some type of abuse it is your job to prove to the court not only that you were falsely accused but MORE IMPORTANTLY that you were falsely villainized by the other parent. Being right in this situation will not get you more time with your child. It will at best only help you take one small step in the family court. What usually happens is you feel vindicated for a brief period of time only to realize that you still have not achieved your goals. BEING RIGHT AND INNOCENT DOE NOT MEAN A VICTORY IN FAMILY COURT. IT DOES NOT MEAN MORE TIME WITH YOUR CHILD.

Understanding the this Very IMPORTANT detail of your case will help start you in the right direction in hiring the right people for your team. There are a couple of key components here that are vital to ensure that you have the right people on your team, looking out for you and your relationship with your child.

Let me first state that if there is bona fide child abuse then this MUST be ruled out before Parental Alienation can be found. Using these strategies will only work if there is in fact provable evidence that there was not abuse.

The first step in defending yourself in court is to hire the right attorney. Even if this family law professional is not well versed in Parental Alienation does not mean that they can’t be trained to understand the importance of this phenomenon called Parental Alienation.

Most attorneys don’t want to recognize Parental Alienation as a topic of discussion let alone a means for defense. So if you go in saying you are a victim of Parental Alienation most, if not all, attorneys will either dismiss this or they will agree but tell you there is nothing you can do about that, the court does not recognize Parental Alienation as a defendable means for custody and attorneys will want to move on to another tactic. DON”T ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN! The Proof of who you are as a parent and why the accusations of abuse are false lies in your hands. It is important to remember that your relationship with your child is most important to you so therefore it is you who as to do most of the work to prepare your legal team to fight for your rights in court. They are not the experts on your relationship with your child YOU ARE! So you MUST educate you legal team.

1. Before you ever meet with an attorney it is best to go into your first meeting prepared with your defense. Do not rely on your attorney to provide this for you. Remember it is your relationship and your time with your child it is most important to you. There are some very important questions to ask your attorney before you have them represent you. You can see these questions at this blog post http://getmoretimewithyoukids.blogspot.com/2008/11/10-questions-to-ask-attorney-when.html.

Once you are comfortable with the outcome of these questions you a ready to hire your attorney and get them prepared for your case. The next six steps will help you hone in on the finite details of your situation and provide you and your legal team the tools needed to take you case to court.


2. Create a chronology or outline of everything great or small that the alienating parent has done over the time frame of which you have been separated to denigrate you and to villainized you to your child and to the court. Be specific this one document could me the lifeline to your case. The more detailed you are the more detailed your attorney can be for you in court. Spend time with family and friends going over these things to jog your memory. Be honest. If you can’t remember don’t make things up. If you are truly being alienated from your child there will be plenty of evidence to support your claim. If you are unfamiliar with the passive aggressive behaviors of an alienating parent spend some time researching those behaviors. I guarantee you will read plenty of things that will direct you in preparing your chronology.


3. Once you have hired your attorney and they are prepared to defend you in court and they understand that you are not just wanting to prove that you are right but that you have sufficient evidence to prove that your ex is villainizing you and trying to destroy your relationship with your child. Hire an evaluator who can interview you and be an expert witness for you. This evaluator is someone who understands that there are clinically proven characteristics of a violent on even non-violent child abuser. There are also characteristics of a domestic violence abuser if this is what you are being falsely accused of. This expert is well verse in these behaviors and there is a standard evaluation process that happens to prove that this is not only not you’re the characteristics of your behavior now it was not how you behaved when you were married. If there were times when your child was left in your care when you were married without fear from your ex this needs to be exploited in court.

4. Be sure that the summary of witnesses have been interviewed and review by both you and your attorney. So many times the falsely accused parent goes into the court without ever having all of their witnesses interviewed or without reviewing what the other witnesses had to say and without giving there attorneys the proper tools to combat these false allegations. The court and everyone involved from the child evaluator to therapist and even your own attorney will err on the side of caution and not even evaluate the interview of the child, if the allegations are false almost always the child is claiming abuse with leading questions in the interview with the evaluator. These interviews are always recorded and more times then not this one piece of evidence is enough to prove that you are not abusive. You must demand that you have the opportunity to review the summary motions list of witness and affidavits of both sides as well as reviewing the evaluator’s interview with your child.


5. Once you have gotten your attorney and your evaluators to see that you have been viliianized by your ex to destroy your relationship with your child, then it is key to be sure that they are prepared to go into court on your behalf with as much passion and conviction as you to get the judge to IDENTIFY with you being falsely accused and having a judge empathize with you here is imperative to the success of your case. Your goal again is to not proof that you are right and that you are innocent you goal is to prove that you have been villainized by your ex. This is the necessary component to having time with your child.


6. Once you have gone through all of the preparing for your defense against the false accusations you need to take your case a step further and go into court with the assumption of the only outcome possible which is the parenting arrangement you desire that truly is in the BEST interest of your child. Prepare this parenting plan with as much detail and care as if your very life depended on it or more importantly the life of your child depends on it. Once you have gotten the judge to empathize with you, to feel your pain and the pain of your child. Then you have to have the next step. Waiting for the judge or your attorney to decide what is best will always result is an undesired result. Tell them what is best. Show them why it is best. BE prepared. The judge is not going to place your child into your custody or give your more custody based on your saying you are prepared you have to show them you are prepared.


7. Take a parenting class and be sure you complete the calls and get a written certification from the class. Take the certification to your attorney before you go to court so that you have this to present along with all of your other evidence, this is additional proof of the quality of parent you and your commitment to being present for your child and proving once again you are doing everything you can to be the best parent you can possibly be for your child. Just because you have gotten the judge to empathize with you does not mean they will give you what you want right away. They are still operating on the old bias and fear. Often times they will take baby steps and in cases where there is Parental Alienation, time is not on your side. So why wait for the judge to err on the side of time and caution and require you to take parenting classes. Be prepared for this and take them before you go. Everyone who is a parent can benefit from parenting classes. Taking them does not prove you are bad parent, quite to opposite, in fact, it shows the judge and your legal team that you are a good parent and that parenting your child is the most important thing to you. It is a proactive approach to being the best parent you can be.



The end result is of course you have successfully turned your case of Parental Alienation around and taken control of your life and your relationship with you child. These tasks are not impossible; they may be difficult, but not impossible and even in severe cases of Parental Alienation there is hope.


Remembering that this is a VERY emotional process and remembering the hurt and the pain of being alienated from your child will most likely be one of the worst pains you ever feel. Just remember they are being brainwashed they really don’t now why they are behaving the way that they are, and DON”T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY! Unconditional love is not a two way street. that this is not an easy task and this cat won’t be skinned by traditional conventional family law practices is important. It will be skinned by stepping out of the box. Taking charge of your life and your relationship with your child. It will happen by taking victim out of your vocabulary. There is no room for a victim in your family life with your child. There is only room for the unconditional love that you were put on this earth to give to your child when you made the decision to bring that child into this world. Your child and you deserve nothing less the a healthy loving relationship and in order for you to have it you MUST be proactive in taking the steps of very serious legal matter and work with competent team that has been educated by you about your specific situation. You can try to do these things on your own are you could hire a coach to mentor you and guide you through this process to assist in maximizing your results.

13 comments:

Robin said...

I wish we could go back to court but we are so broke and the 3 years we fought in the divorce really tore us down. I wish we could fight it but I feel we've lost.

Capitalismizawesome said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

I AM A DESPERATE TARGET PARENT AND I AM THE MOTHER OF THE CHILD. I LIVE IN FLORIDA. I JUST FILED TO THE COURT FOR PATERNITY AND VISITATION AND I REPRESENT MYSELF. I DON'T AFFORD LEGAL REPRESENTATION.WE ARE SEPARATED FOR OVER 8 YEARS, NEVER BEEN MARRIED TO THE FATHER(THE ALIENATOR) OF MY CHILD. WE DON'T HAVE A LEGAL VISITATION ORDER. WE FOLLOWED FOR ALMOST 7 YEARS AND A HALF A VERBAL AGREEMENT REGARDING OUR CHILD VISITATION WHICH PRETTY MUCH WORKED WITH MOSTLY MY EFFORT. ABOUT A YEAR AGO THE FATHER(AP) BEING PRETTY UNHAPPY BECAUSE OUR CHILD WAS ALWAYS COMING FROM ME HAPPY AND ALWAYS WITH A GOOD STORY THE FATHER(THE ALIENATING PARENT) DECIDED THAT IS TIME TO STOP RETURNING THE CHILD TO ME.THE STORY IS TOO LONG AND TOO TRAUMATIC FOR MY CHILD AND ME(TP)AND NOT TIME TO WRITE IT DOWN HERE.
I WAS FINNALY ABLE TO FILE TO THE COURT, A WEEK AGO AND TO GET THE CASE GOING. PLEASE,I NEED HELP IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE.ANY SUGESTIONS ARE VERY WELCOME

Unknown said...

I AM A DESPERATE TARGET PARENT AND I AM THE MOTHER OF THE CHILD. I LIVE IN FLORIDA. I JUST FILED TO THE COURT FOR PATERNITY AND VISITATION AND I REPRESENT MYSELF. I DON'T AFFORD LEGAL REPRESENTATION.WE ARE SEPARATED FOR OVER 8 YEARS, NEVER BEEN MARRIED TO THE FATHER(THE ALIENATOR) OF MY CHILD. WE DON'T HAVE A LEGAL VISITATION ORDER. WE FOLLOWED FOR ALMOST 7 YEARS AND A HALF A VERBAL AGREEMENT REGARDING OUR CHILD VISITATION WHICH PRETTY MUCH WORKED WITH MOSTLY MY EFFORT. ABOUT A YEAR AGO THE FATHER(AP) BEING PRETTY UNHAPPY BECAUSE OUR CHILD WAS ALWAYS COMING FROM ME HAPPY AND ALWAYS WITH A GOOD STORY THE FATHER(THE ALIENATING PARENT) DECIDED THAT IS TIME TO STOP RETURNING THE CHILD TO ME.THE STORY IS TOO LONG AND TOO TRAUMATIC FOR MY CHILD AND ME(TP)AND NOT TIME TO WRITE IT DOWN HERE.
I WAS FINNALY ABLE TO FILE TO THE COURT, A WEEK AGO AND TO GET THE CASE GOING. PLEASE,I NEED HELP IN ANY WAY POSSIBLE.ANY SUGESTIONS ARE VERY WELCOME

Capitalismizawesome said...

Dani Mak I am not a lawyer so I recommend that you get one. Another thing that you can do which will cost you nothing is go to your county prosecuting attorney and file criminal charges for parental kidnapping or custodial interference or whatever they call it in your state. Not all states have criminal statutes regarding this topic so you may want to get on the internet and check. This may actually be a criminal case and might cost you nothing to pursue. Another thing that helps is get him into mediation or arbitration or whatever they call it in your state and get a written agreement. That then becomes your legally enforceable contract. If you are a single mother there may be free legal aid available to help you in your state. Again it depends on your state. I hope that helps.
I'll pray for you
Mike

Capitalismizawesome said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Capitalismizawesome said...

ps i know that sounds a little counter intuitive with what i said in my above topic where i discussed lawyers throwing the cases of target parents. I did not write that to discourage using an attorney when needed. I wrote that to give parents a heads up that you need to pay attention to what your lawyer is doing and be activly involved in your case. You also need to check your lawyer out before your use him or her. You don't need to use the first lawyer that you talk to. Interview several and go with the one that you like best. Check them out on the internet. You'd be amazed what you can find out about people on the internet. If you feel like you have a bad lawyer don't wait until he ruins your case. Fire him or her and get a different one. Or learn to do some things for yourself. I have heard far to many sob stories from people in the alienated parent support group where they talk about their case being lost because their lawyer didn't file something that he was supposed to, didn't show up when he was supposed to, or didn't speak up when he could have. Again I'm not a lawyer and I don't want anyone pissed at me if things don't work out.

My opinion is use a lawyer to do all the heavy lifting. If you are going through a divorce or some major litigation which requires going to court for extended periods and may end up in some type of agreement or contract being written then use a lawyer. Frankly they went through years of education to learn to do that correctly and if you have a good lawyer then they can put together a nice document to protect your rights.

You may not need a lawyer for every little hearing. A hearing is like a movie preview vs. watching the whole film. Just like we watch a preview to decide if it is worth watching a film so the judge hears our 5 minute appeal to decide if it is worth going to court. The thing is a lot of courts have a web site where you can download a template for various motions, torts, etc. If there is just one specific complaint like a violation of your court ordered agreement then you can actually handle that yourself. I've done it many times successfully. For example a parent refuses visitation that has a well written divorce decree outlining specifics for exchange. Parent files a contempt order based on a violation of our court ordered agreement. The judge does not give said parent contempt, but orders the other parent to allow visitation. The judge also puts a note in that if this continues to be a problem that next time it will be contempt. No lawyer required. As long as you go in there with a good contract and good documentation of the facts they cannot argue with this. One friend of mine recently got his alienating parent temporarily reduced to supervised visits every other weekend using this tactic because they refused to stop their inappropriate behavior. He figured out that paying a lawyer was costing him a fortune so a paralegal friend helped him out. The inappropriate behavior was piddly stuff mostly but it all violated the court ordered agreement. When he had a lawyer they didn't want to pursue the piddly stuff so for a long time she got away with it. Once he started handling that stuff himself it made all the difference and it didn't cost him a dime.

Capitalismizawesome said...

I decided to edit this comment. I wrote this right after needing to fire a lawyer so my position was a little extreme.

If you are a Targeted Parent you really need to pay attention. I have read everything that I can get my hands on about this topic and this is what I have learned. There is a tendency across the whole nation for the lawyers to take the law into their own hands. They do this because A. They know that Targeted Parents will end up running out of money. B. Alienating will never give up, and C. Alienating parents fight dirty and utilize the free to legal outlets available to them like calling CPS and filing EPO's. To put it simply your lawyer is going to throw the fight and allow the child to go into the custody of the AP abuser. They do not care that permanent damage is being done to the child by the mental and emotional abuse from their AP parent. They don't stand to make any money once TP parents go broke. So they string it along just long enough to get what they can out of you and then they throw the fight.

The good news is that you do not have to put up with this. If you are thinking of changing lawyers, don't hesitate. I have heard to many sob stories in parental alienation support group by parents that lost their case because of a bad lawyer that didn't file something that they should have or didn't show up when they were supposed to. Be activily involved in your case, check your lawyer out before using them, you don't have to use the first lawyer that you talk to, and if you think that anything isn't right about your lawyer fire them and get a different one.

Now this only applies if you are already divorced, have a solid divorce decree, and have been fighting this fight for a long time. When the experts and authorities who are supposed to be helping you refuse to do so you have but two options. You can give up or you can defend yourself. You have the option of defending yourself in court. Never let anyone tell you different. It is pointless to waste money paying a professional if he or she is not going to do everything that they can to help you.

Before you go off half cocked though there are three things that you need to do.
1. Educate yourself. You don't need a law degree but there are a lot of resources out there to help you learn to defend yourself in court. Do your do diligence. Learn how to fill out the proper forms and read some books. It probably wouldn't hurt to go to court and just watch so that you understand how it all is supposed to work.
2. Develop a strategy. Again this is all part of the learning process, and this will take a little time. The thing is that if you love your children enough to be willing to fight for them then you owe it to them to the best job that you possibly can to help them.
3. Do something. When you are ready you will know it. When it is time to act do so. Don't wait. Don't procrastinate. You have to follow through.

The point is this. You can file a motion yourself. You can represent yourself. It doesn't have to cost thousands of dollars paying lawyers that only pretend to be on your side. Secondarily, if you can prove that a lawyer or a judge did not follow the law, that they did not represent or judge your case fairly, they can be sued. To many of these jackasses are getting away with throwing the fight and leaving innocent children in the hands of abusers because they are to lazy to fight for Targeted Parents. I say enough is enough. It is time that we stand up for what is right and we start holding these officials responsible.

Unknown said...

Hi Mike..my boyfriend is going through this very thing. What was the outcome of your case? He also just fired his attorney. Am wondering if you could get in touch with me so that you can touch base with my boyfriend and discuss what you're going through and provide him with some tips. He has been researching a lot as well but I think it would help if he talks to someone that is going through the same. I don't know what else to do to help him..I do as much research as I can..this is how I came across this page.

Capitalismizawesome said...

Jacosta my case is still ongoing. I was able to handle several situations in court representing myself and got several things resolved without it costing me a lot of money. Finally my ex hired a lawyer who pulled some legal maneuvers that I was not familiar with and could not find much information on through my research. I decided it best at this point to hire a lawyer of my own. I interviewed a few and found one that is experienced at dealing with parental alienation cases. I don't know how things will continue from here but it is my opinion that the only way to deal with an alienating parent is to be aggressive with your case. If you don't fight back then they will basically lay siege to your life until you run out of resources and everyone is poisoned against you. (and without meaning to sound paranoid in many PA cases they literally try to turn everyone they can against you. They don't just stop with the children. They talk to teachers at school, family, friends, CPS, the police, and anyone else who will listen to malign your character.) If your boyfriend is looking for someone to talk to there is a facebook support group called Parental Alienation World Wide.

I am still hopeful. Even if I lose in family court I intend to appeal to federal court. I believe that I have a pretty solid case that my civil rights have been violated by the family courts, and I will be going in with a mountain of court precedent to back me up.

Unknown said...

Thank you for the information. Have you been able to see your kids throughout this battle?

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Winnabago79 said...

Im going through an on going interstate custody battle with an ex. Its difficult because i have been accused of alienation and have had my kids taken out of my custody as a result. My ex is high conflict and i dont feel that the courts will ever be on my side. Its like i cant win for losing with this! I was thinking about taking it to federal as well. False accusations that tear your life and child's life apart should be just as noticed as parental allienation!