Supernanny - hanging out with the abusive dads

[Jeanhatchet]

Jo Frost (Supernanny) has begun advocating for the inclusion of "parental alienation" in the Domestic Abuse Bill alongside the vicious men who continue to abuse their ex partners by alleging this in court. On Twitter she is openly engaging with some of the men who regularly stalk, dox and abuse women opposing the term.

It is a term with no validity. It has been rejected by the WHO as a term for abuse.

Women do experience men turning their kids against them but .... that is part of an ongoing pattern of coercive control and abuse. They are covered in law already at 3.1. 76. Serious Crime Act 2015.

Supernanny is not on the side of women. When women disclose to Family court that they've suffered domestic abuse ... their abusers are learning to use "parental alienation" as a counter accusation. It must not become part of the Domestic Abuse Bill. These are dangerous men.

I wrote about the whole thing here if you want a look. www.jeanhatchet.com/post/supernanny-putting-women-on-the-naughty-step

@Pipepans

I'm afraid the accusation of PA towards mothers is used regularly by abusive fathers, as is the issue of child contact to continue to cause distress. It's truly astonishing how many abusive fathers claim they are being denied contact by the courts, if you believed popular media you would think the courts are overly biased towards mothers, however speak to police, social workers and domestic violence specialists and the reality is very different, it's very unusual for contact to be denied, even under proven cases of abuse, which is a scandal. There will be many friends, family members and co workers of some fathers feeling total sympathy for them being "denied" contact by an alleged spiteful mother, who would be horrified if they knew the real reasons why the mother felt so strongly.

This. Perfectly put and so very true in my experience

I was fearful of being accused of parental alienation by my abusive ex the last time he took me to court when I stopped access. He is an alcoholic, daughter aged at time 7 was looking at his porn magazines. As a mum I had to wave off my kids and be positive about them going to their dad even though I had concerns. You are told to hide it all from your kids.
The family courts are very uneducated about these charming abusers and how easily they lie.
Also as a mother I had a court order that meant I must make the children available, but my ex had no obligation to take up that contact, often he never bothered to turn up for weeks on end or would cancel at the last minute or not even bother telling us he wasn't coming and we would be waiting on the drive for him to arrive. He did this to continue to control me.
My children don't see him now nor do they want to. As my eldest has got older she has told of more inappropriate things her dad did. She too only went to contact to protect her younger sister. That should have been my job but the law was against me.
CAFCAS are a joke. They made me re live all my abuse then the interviewer said well that was between you and your ex this is about the children. Their job was to safeguard my children and they failed. They say they have the children's interest at heart, but when circumstances changed in a short time period they decided against interviewing the children as they had only interviewed them six months ago. A lot can and did happen in that six months. I think I read that CAFCAS's performance is measured on the number of cases that are resolved!
There are some women who still think if they don't get maintenance for the kids they can stop contact, but this is not the case.

You’re wrong to say it is a term that has no validity. Parental Alienation Syndrome as a medical disorder has been discredited. But sadly there are some parents who, out of vindictiveness or bitterness, intentionally turn their children against their other parent with no justification for doing so, and this should absolutely be treated as domestic abuse.

Is the term misused by abusers? Yes, and it’s usually fairly easy to uncover this. Is it used by parents who might not be abusers but have got things wrong in separation and divorce and the children are experiencing real distress? Yes.

But you simply cannot say it doesn’t exist or doesn’t happen.

My exH who left me for OW took me to court to "sort me out" as he wanted full control over access including me picking DC up from school everyday, him collecting them when convenient but dropping them back late and full of sugar. I wasn't supposed to have a life outside of childcare and work, to go to a gym nor date as he said "you're the mother you know".

The court went in my favour and access since was through the school. However, I knew that his hatred was towards me and when the DC were with them he wasn't hurting them. If he was hurting them I can't see how I could have stopped access. The court is set for the best interests of the children, but starting point is access for both parents without properly reviewing the previous family dynamics. I told CAFCASS about the DV when we lived together, but the moment I said the DC hadn't seen this they were not bothered to consider the risk to the DC. While I know mine are fine, I can see how men can easily push for access and now use PA to ensure they get it, but there should be a review of risk to DC when the mother has safeguarding concerns.

Do children get asked about stuff in private for the family court? If old enough. I have no idea.

This PA thing is really tricky.

What's the threshold? I'd imagine plenty of parents say bad things about the other that the children hear. Whether intentionally or not.

If eg OH goes off with someone else and clears out the bank account... Is it ok to tell children that if big enough or not?

That sort of thing. It seems fraught with problems tbh.

A very common issue that's happening, and I've seen happen now to two of my friends, is that the father both practises PA on the children, bad mouthing and blaming the mother, but then also accuses her of PA to authorities when she either decides to reduce contact due to concern of abuse/ coercive manipulation of the children start to refuse to go to their father's.

Woman's aid are seeing it a lot.

Both my friends have been suffering continued domestic abuse via the systems put in place via divorce and contact.

One of the fathers has even been convicted of possessing images of csa but has been using all the available charities and systems to try to DARVO and blame his ex.

This may interest some of you:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010wz6

"Over the last two decades a controversial psychological concept has emerged to describe a situation where children - for no apparent reason - decide they don’t want to see one parent. It’s called parental alienation.

Women’s rights organisations argue parental alienation is used to gaslight abused women. Fathers’ rights organisations claim that some mothers make up allegations of abuse to prevent them from seeing their children. And children are caught in the middle.

Sonia Sodha explores the polarizing concept of “parental alienation” and asks how a contested psychological theory has evolved into an increasingly common allegation in the UK family courts."

Sodha has written about this previously too:

www.theguardian.com/society/commentisfree/2020/mar/05/family-courts-biased-men-dangerous-fallacy-abuse

@Garriet

You’re wrong to say it is a term that has no validity. Parental Alienation Syndrome as a medical disorder has been discredited. But sadly there are some parents who, out of vindictiveness or bitterness, intentionally turn their children against their other parent with no justification for doing so, and this should absolutely be treated as domestic abuse.

Is the term misused by abusers? Yes, and it’s usually fairly easy to uncover this. Is it used by parents who might not be abusers but have got things wrong in separation and divorce and the children are experiencing real distress? Yes.

But you simply cannot say it doesn’t exist or doesn’t happen.

False memory syndrome has been discredited, refused entry to the dsm and icd repeatedly, the people who came with it kicked out of all psych associations world wide and it’s widely accepted that they were peadophiles who made up fms to silence their daughter who was victim. Jennifer Freyd. Who is the woman responsible for DARVO.

Does that mean no one ever has false memories? Does that mean no therapist has ever coached a patient to come up with false memories?

Probably not. But the odd rare predatory therapist manipulating a patient into false memories in no way disproves the wealth of evidence that recovered memories are real and that the fms association were just a peadophile group seeking to silence their victims.

PA is no different. Just because a small % of parents do this (and both my parents did this so I know it’s effects first hand) doesn’t mean it should be considered as a separate type of abuse from emotional abuse when going through the court system.

Btw I highly recommend Jennifer Freyd’s book betrayal trauma theory. Despite being the victim at the centre of fms contagion she doesn’t include her personal experience but follows the science and looks at how it’s not only possible to forget traumatic memories but that our species is genetically predetermined to do so for survival. It’s an incredible book and her life’s work is amazing to read about also.

Emotional abuse needs considered as emotional abuse and the best interests of the children need consider as just that, not from the pov that both parents should have ‘rights’ to access when only parental responsibility should be looked at. PA as a concept fucks with perception of rights verses responsibility, it’s a smoke screen and shouldn’t be given more power to have wider scope to further do this.

Sonia is really good isn't she?

www.womensaid.org.uk/parental-alienation-a-dangerous-and-harmful-concept/

I know of several women who have used their children as pawns in relationships. Withholding access at the last minute and cursing and bad mouthing the dad to the children, even tagging teenage children in social media posts belittling the father.
I'm not saying the men were perfect but they all love their child and try to be good dad's. The troubles of the relationship were brought in to the division of parenting and it was quite clear these women were using access it to hurt the man in an act of revenge.
The kids suffered. One of these men lost a new relationship with the stress and strain of his ex's constant abuse. Another father is now estranged from his children.
There are also plenty of dead beat dad's who don't bother, and dad's that mother's know are abusive so they withhold access for valid reasons.
But it does happen that women use access as a weapon too.
Dads have little to no rights.
So I dunno about Supernanny cause I don't like her but it does need to come in to discussion that this happens

Emotional abuse needs considered as emotional abuse and the best interests of the children need consider as just that, not from the pov that both parents should have ‘rights’ to access when only parental responsibility should be looked at. PA as a concept fucks with perception of rights verses responsibility, it’s a smoke screen and shouldn’t be given more power to have wider scope to further do this.

The behaviour from parents who do this intentionally is emotional abuse, towards the child. Of course it is. It doesn’t always result in the child becoming alienated from the parent though, refusing to see them for no good reason other than the abusive parent’s behaviour. Parental alienation is a potential outcome of this particular type of abuse.

It is always looked at in the courts from the point of view of the best interests of the child - never from a parental “right to access”. So PA as a concept is not at all used by the courts in the way you say it is.

PA is brought up in a large number of cases. In the majority, it’s parents claiming it who are either abusive themselves - so the child’s resistance is down to the “alienated” parent’s own behaviour, or there are other factors such as distress over witnessing acrimonious separation etc. However, it is not a tiny percentage where vindictive parents have purposely driven a wedge between their child and the other parent. It absolutely does happen, and relatively often, although nowhere near as often as other forms of abuse.

Claiming parental alienation seems to be every abusive man’s go-to. My ex has already preemptively declared he’ll take me to court for full custody for “turning DS against him” if I ever tell our son that my ex cheated on me (never mind that he DID cheat on me- our son is 1, so it doesn’t come up in conversation!!)

My dad also tried to claim the same shit to get sympathy off his new girlfriends, but they very quickly found out he was lying because he never made an effort to see us even when he was supposed to.

Do I think parental alienation exists? Yes. Do I think it’s as big a problem as is being claimed? No.

I respectfully disagree.

Parental alienation does exist. It has happened to my own family members. In one case, mother turning children against father, and in the second case, father turning children against mother. Both instances were parental alienation and both were wrong.

I don’t know about SuperNanny’s role in this campaign but I do believe it should be included in the Domestic Abuse Bill. Every allegation of parental alienation should be investigated. Just because some allegations turn out to be false does not mean that they all are.

Parental alienation doesn’t need to be pathologized but the act of one parent influencing a child against the other does exist.

@Garriet

Emotional abuse needs considered as emotional abuse and the best interests of the children need consider as just that, not from the pov that both parents should have ‘rights’ to access when only parental responsibility should be looked at. PA as a concept fucks with perception of rights verses responsibility, it’s a smoke screen and shouldn’t be given more power to have wider scope to further do this.

The behaviour from parents who do this intentionally is emotional abuse, towards the child. Of course it is. It doesn’t always result in the child becoming alienated from the parent though, refusing to see them for no good reason other than the abusive parent’s behaviour. Parental alienation is a potential outcome of this particular type of abuse.

It is always looked at in the courts from the point of view of the best interests of the child - never from a parental “right to access”. So PA as a concept is not at all used by the courts in the way you say it is.

PA is brought up in a large number of cases. In the majority, it’s parents claiming it who are either abusive themselves - so the child’s resistance is down to the “alienated” parent’s own behaviour, or there are other factors such as distress over witnessing acrimonious separation etc. However, it is not a tiny percentage where vindictive parents have purposely driven a wedge between their child and the other parent. It absolutely does happen, and relatively often, although nowhere near as often as other forms of abuse.

But the thread is about JF campaigning/supporting the campaign of groups who are lobbying for PA to be in the dsm & icd so it can be used by the courts in this way.

That’s the point of the thread.

The OP says it’s a campaign to include it in the domestic violence bill, not the DSM. And then says it’s a term with no validity. I disagree.

Women can be abusive to

This is from a women who has made a career from humiliating and belittling parents on tv

I'm not into cancelling people for their views and I think this thread and your opinion piece is bullying.

There will be many friends, family members and co workers of some fathers feeling total sympathy for them being "denied" contact by an alleged spiteful mother, who would be horrified if they knew the real reasons why the mother felt so strongly.

Exactly this.

@NiceGerbil, the courts can listen to older DC, but they start from the neutral position that DC best interests come first, that they should see both parents, that mediation is the way forward, and that DC should not be pulled into the issues or made to take sides. As my eldest was 13 at the time, I was told that she could speak to a 3rd party if she wanted to.

My exH stopped us having mediation before court saying we'd had it before, but he'd lied and blocked mediation before too, and the case still went ahead. He also completed his court form as a big moan all about how difficult his life was and that he did not want me to honest to DC about him refusing maintenance at first. However, I felt my form was taken seriously as I had clear requests to meet DCs needs. Basically everything I asked about was agreed, he was not happy but it made sense for DC (including to have pattern of dates including holiday dates agreed in advance, and for collection at school not outside my home).

If a man was 'quietly' abusive to women & DC the courts would not have evidence to move from the neutral position and if a mother said abuse happened, he could now claim PA to counteract her word.

It's tough as it's not the court's fault, it's poor male behaviour yet again that creates the issues. I'm glad I was only facing an ex that was controlling towards me and that wasn't a risk to DC.

Unfortunately many women do not support women who have been abused. This is particularly the case if its their son, or brother. These same women will outright lie and claim that no abuse occurred (even if they witnessed it or the aftermath). Tragically abused women have very little support. Think of Cafcass who routinely dismiss and outright reject claims of abuse in custody cases. Frankly the schizophrenic nature of the media and court system cannot be overstated. On the one hand you have this outrage over the abuse and Tragically the death of women in some cases (think the Sarah Everard case), then when a woman makes a report about being unsafe and experiencing male violence she is called a liar. And has to go through a 'fact finding ' court case to prove she is not making up claims of abuse. Often by other women I might add. A lot of women will do absolutely anything to get male attention and vindication. In my own family court case I was told by my female barrister that the judges like to go home early on a Friday afternoon so we don't want to over run!!!!! I cannot stress and warn women enough when they enter the family court system be prepared for the most misogynistic abuse you have ever experienced.

@Avarua

I'm not into cancelling people for their views and I think this thread and your opinion piece is bullying.

Opinions aren’t bullying.

My DH is a devoted dad. His ex wife left him for another man when Dd was 6 months old. She immediately moved him in, got the 4 year old to call him daddy and accused DH of abuse. The accusation was that he let ds play with a fake poo Bath toy (he was potty training) and he read ds a children’s science book about evolution and she was Christian. She withdrew all the allegations before court, but in the meantime DH went 4 months without seeing his children. She moved city with the new DH and changed the dc school and nursery 3 times.
DH now has EOW and mid week but it’s been a long haul. She still tries to poison the dc against him. We bake bread and the dc try to take it home and she chucks it in the bin. She sent dc here with nits and we treated them - Dd had a slight reaction to the treatment and she accused us of negligence in a court statement.
I’m a feminist. Some might call me a terf. Abuse happens, I don’t dispute it. Male violence and entitlement is a problem. But parental alienation is real.

A programme looking at parental alienation tonight on Radio 4, 20.30:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010wz6

Splitting up where children are involved is tricky. Especially when it ends up in the family courts. It’s even more tricky when a child decides they don’t want a relationship with one of the parents.

Over the last two decades a controversial psychological concept has emerged to describe a situation where children - for no apparent reason - decide they don’t want to see one parent. It’s called parental alienation.

Women’s rights organisations argue parental alienation is used to gaslight abused women. Fathers’ rights organisations claim that some mothers make up allegations of abuse to prevent them from seeing their children. And children are caught in the middle.

Sonia Sodha explores the polarizing concept of “parental alienation” and asks how a contested psychological theory has evolved into an increasingly common allegation in the UK family courts.

If a child says no and there evidence of abuse nor neglect, contact could take place through a safe third place for at least 6 months to assess the situation?