Page 41 - How Children Learn to Hate Their Parents

Behavior is Stronger When it is Chosen, not Coerced:
In an experiment conducted by Hobden and Olson (1994), and one that is ironically relevant to court-involved issues of custody, the experiment revolved around people making disparaging comments about lawyers. One group of individuals was asked to read disparaging jokes about lawyers into a tape recorder (for instance, “How do you know when a lawyer is lying? His lips are moving.”) The reading produced more negative attitudes about lawyers when the activity was chosen rather than coerced.
Once again we can see the inherent danger in allowing children to decide whether or not to see a parent for visitation, or even whether they should have a relationship with that parent. Giving them the choice, or making children believe that it is their choice brings the child one step closer to wanting to terminate the relationship altogether.
Cognitive dissonance theory focuses its attention on what induces people to act. This is very different from what reinforcement theory (or the notion of bribing a child to avoid visitation), which focuses on rewarding behavior after it already occurs.
Dissonance theory and the research that has been collected studying it has relevance to what happens after a decision is made. After a decision is made (i.e. “I never want to see my father again.”) people tend to upgrade the decision they make and downgrade the alternative (i.e. “I can have a good time with both Mom or Dad and love them both.”) Knox and Inkster (1968) showed that racetrack bettors reported improved confidence in their bets right after they placed their bets than those who were asked right before their bets. Younger (1977) demonstrated that voters demonstrated more confidence in he people they voted for right after they voted than just before. Research like this suggests that after children make the decision not to visit they are likely to feel more and more certain that this was the “right” decision. This in turn strengthens negative attitudes.
In the clinical settings which supervise parents in "visitation jail" (often because children simply do not want to visit and not necessarily because the visitation ebcarcerated parent did anything wrong we are often faced with the very difficult dilemma of forcing a child to visit with a parent, despite the fact that they are kicking and screaming about not wanting to visit. It has become our protocol to allow the child to tantrum, but also insist the visitation occurs.
Some kids have incredible stamina and tantrum for hours. Others will calm down and actually enjoy the visit, despite their initial protests.
Once again, the social psychological research literature helps to explain why this might be the most beneficial approach to take with children in this situation. Research by Schlenker (1994) and also Tice (1992) suggests that when people are induced to act in a certain way, eventually they become that way. Children who feel pressure to remain loyal to a parent often act as though they hate the other parent. In reality, this is not real “hate.” It is a show of loyalty for the other parent. However, if we allow a child to protest in such as way as to act as though they hate the alienated parent, the emotion will eventually become real. This process would be inappropriately assisted if we allowed the temper tantrum to result in a terminated visit.
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