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candy for breakfast or choose to hit their sibling over the head with a metal toy.
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 particularly 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 their children at different stages in life.
Appreciation of parental effort might not materialize until children are fully grown with families of their own. If we permit a child to reject a parent because their home isn't as nice, is too far away from friends, the food is not as good, there are no good video games there, we are also not permitting them the opportunity to
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