Page 5 - How_Children_Learn_To_Hate_Their_Parents

Unfortunately, I have seen it thousands of times and I have given the best advice on how to address this problem that I can, sometimes successfully and sometimes unsuccessfully. The reason why I am sometimes unsuccessful is I don't know everything about this phenomenon yet, even after thirty six years of studying it and trying to learn. I have no good substantial body of research to guide me, and no treatment approach with any known efficacy to implement as a way of fixing it.
I do know that in the majority of instances where I am unsuccessful, it is because rejection, especially from one's own child hurts and this kind of pain seeks someone to blame; and the concept of "alienation" was constructed in at least some part to give comfort to those who need someone to blame -- but blaming is an incomplete and often unsatisfying remedy.
For attorneys and advocates who are trying to protect their clients from having the most special and loving relationship in their lives destroyed, I want this information can help guide you through a system that is often powerless to effectuate change. But if we are ever going to create a mechanism for change I believe we must all try to understand the question of how children learn to hate their parents with a better answer than the one word we often over use -- "alienation."
--Peter J. Favaro, Ph.D., Executive Director, The Center for Improved Human Relationships, LLC
5