Page 29 - How_Children_Learn_To_Hate_Their_Parents

For children and even some adults the easiest way to deal with mixed feelings is to align with one perception and ignore everything else.
Even without malicious intent this can be a very seductive or volatile environment, especially for children who have been exposed to hostility, chaos and conflict -- all of which are preventable if parents would drop their swords.
When there is a new partner who has never raised a child there can be tremendous motivation to be a good influence, provide love and do everything "right."
But in the presence of conflict with the "real" parent a lot of things can contribute to rejection.
One of the most significant things that happens is that the parent- new partner relationship can become "romanticized" by the presence of the parent-old partner conflict. The entire "new" relationship rallies around the continued conflict of the old relationship.
Children's lives get wrapped up in this system of ongoing conflicts over money, time, influence and perceptions of who the good guy and bad guy are cannot help but operate on children's attitudes and beliefs.
As in many of these factors this operates on children's beliefs about who they should accept and who they should reject and it all happens without planning, devious operation or anything other than the natural ingredients of conflict.
The fact is that rejection does not take much effort, certainly not the effort that is attributed to the hard work of alienating, but
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