Page 25 - How Children Learn to Hate Their Parents

Contributing Factor Nine: Creating Empowerment by Acquiescence
One of the most powerful messages the preferred parent can give a child about the other parent is:
"I think it would be a good idea for you to see your [mother,father] but whatever you decide I will support you."
In my experience, this is the most influential statement a parent can say to a child who is ambivalent about seeing the non preferred parent. There is no message of hatred or criticism of the other parent in this statement. Just support. But this type of support has many not so obvious meanings to a child including:
If you never want to see the other parent again, that's okay.
You have no obligation to interact with this figure who is generally considered to be an important if not one of the most important figures in your life.
There are a lot of decsions you are far too young and immature to make, but this one--is up to you.
This message is often transmitted despite court orders and agreements which state access must happen. However, by the time it comes to the attention of a decision maker a pattern of avoidance (the very last contributing factor we discussed) has already been reinforced. The child might have additional advocacy from their own lawyer, and a "therapist" who has convinced the child that his or her "feelings" should be validated.
In some jurisdictions children's wishes are determinative when they reach a certain age or level of maturity. In other jurisdictions, like New York, where there is no statute for children's wishes to be determinative parents often assume there is, and if they are told that is not the way it works parents may act as though that's the way it should work so I am going to support what my child wants.
Is this dynamic a dynamic of alienation? No. The preferred parent might not care one way or the other if the child has a relationship with the other parent. Fine if she does. Fine if she doesn't. If the other parent cannot make the child want to visit that is not the preferred parent's problem.
Theoretically one might ask why should the preferred parent force a child to visit with a child who is not particulalry interested in seeing the other parent. Psychologists will tell you that the best research we have suggests that children benefit most from the love and attention of two parents.
"But what if one of the parents isn't that interesting?" is what the child and the preferred parent will say.
I am not opining on whether this is "right" or "wrong." I am saying that this scenario is a pathway to rejection. The psychologist in me believes that parents represent different things to
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