The Signal in Santa Clarita Valley area recognized parental alienation in their most recent headline. Original Article Headline: "Ex-Wife hides two girls; Deputies return children to father"
Sheriff's deputies arrested a Valencia mom for investigation of child concealment, child endangerment and interfering with a law-enforcement investigation after they searched her home and found what they called poor living conditions, an official said Monday.
Carol Hershey, ex-wife of former Santa Clarita City Council candidate and sheriff's Lt. Mark Hershey, was taken into custody Sunday evening after she failed to comply with a court-ordered visitation by her ex-husband, said Lt. Tom Bryski. The couple's daughters, ages 12 and 13, were found hiding in a closet, Bryski said.
Mark Hershey is a lieutenant at the Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff's Station.
"This is a serious case of parental alienation," Mark Hershey said.
The lengths that some parents go through after an adversarial court proceeding for divorce, separation, and custody to conceal a child or to use their children to punish their former spouses is sometimes limitless. The court systems generally encourage this type of fighting as well as attorneys, counselors, and psychologists because it generates steady streams of revenue as a result of conflict.
Deputies asked for access to Carol Hershey's home on Sunday, but she refused, Bryski said. She also refused to tell the deputies the whereabouts of the two girls and falsely identified herself as Kathy, Carol Hershey's sister, he said.
Parental Alienation, according to Parental Alienation Hurts, "is any behavior by a parent, a child's mother or father, whether conscious or unconscious, that could create alienation in the relationship between a child and the other parent. Parental alienation can be mild and temporary or extreme and ongoing. Most researchers believe that any alienation of a child against (the child's) other parent is harmful to the child and to the target parent. Extreme, obsessive, and ongoing parental alienation can cause terrible psychological damage to children extending well into adulthood. Parental Alienation focuses on the alienating parents behavior as opposed to the alienated parent's and alienated children's conditions."
By recognizing that adversarial proceedings encourage parental alienation, we can put into place solutions that solve the majority of the ongoing conflict by protecting the parent-child relationship of both parents. A court system that lets parents know up front that disrespecting the other parent-child relationship will send a stronger message of positive government policy in support of both parents and children. In what should be an otherwise co-equal parenting environment reshaping the divorce, legal separation, and custody proceedings and outcomes for substantially equal time between parents will cause government systems to refocus on the parent-child relationship instead of on revenue generation for state bureaucracies.
Several websites provide information on protecting the parent-child relationships through legislation. Visit "Children Need Both Parents" at http://www.childrenneedbothparents.net for information on Federal and State proposed Constitutional Amendments as well as a study by Professor Donald Hubin on Parental Rights and Due Process.
