Page 33 - How_Children_Learn_To_Hate_Their_Parents

Is this alienation? No. The preferred parent had no independent intent to cut off contact. The child simply liked it better there and acted opportunistically. The preferred parent didn’t tell the child to lie, she just gave him the opportunity.
The result of negative reinforcement is more frequency of rejection so as not to experience the less pleasant environment, then the questioning and so on.
The preferred parent, by asking questions suggests scenarios that increase the motivation to avoid. The child is suggestible and so is the mother, even if the child has never made a complaint like that before. The rejected parent proves to the child that the visit will be uncomfortable by interrogating the child.
At the pace the already overwhelmed and overloaded court operates at, mechanisms for getting to the bottom of the child's statements to the mother could take weeks or months. By that time the child's behavior has been reinforced multiple times and in order to continue avoiding the child will say things designed to aid the avoidance.
Even in a few short months negatively reinforcing a child's refusal to visit can result in a permanent estrangement.
The interim step of relegating parents to supervised visitation (“visitation jail”) just reinforces the notion that the parent is bad because if he wasn’t why would he need the “visitation police” to watch his every move?
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