News from a few different sources today, Associated Content, Divorce Without Dishonor, and Get Your Justice Live all have some unique flavors of articles that affect your rights. Feel free to share the articles below with your favorite legal professionals and community leaders.
Parental Alienation, Children of Divorce, and Taxes - Published at Associated Content
Last night we released the first in a series of child-centered awareness programs that focus on divorce and trauma that children may experience inside and outside a divorce situation. Here is a copy of the first announcement that went to mediators, psychologists, and a select number of attorneys throughout the United States:
We found ourselves in a position to offer several professionals a free review copy of the book STOP Fighting Over the Kids: Resolving Day-to-Day Custody Conflict in Divorce Situations. The book sells for $29.99 through Amazon.Com. Within moments of many professionals walking into their office and checking their email our phones began to ring with people interested in using it as a resource in their own practices for parents, clients, and other colleagues.
Including the resource above we spread the awareness of the Coloring Away Pain series and have been receiving the feed back for them as well.
The resource books will help parents work with their children through a variety of different trauma types in the form of coloring books to help a child express themselves on complex issues. Tornadoes, Earthquakes,Divorce, Parental Alienation, Floods, Fires, and more.
We are also sharing resource sheets from other counselors, psychologists, and professionals amongst their peers, if you have a resource sheet please email me at laryholland@sbcglobal.net so I can share them with others.
Mike Jeffries appears again on WomensDivorce.Com with a new article, Coping as an alienated parent. In the article he speaks of moving on:
Move on emotionally. Don't concentrate on the relationship you once had with the alienated child. Get past the anger. Don't beat yourself up. Focus on the positive. Understand how you got here. Get some exercise. Do volunteer work. Write in a journal. And when all else fails, recite the serenity prayer:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can not accept and the wisdom to know the difference.
Good advice from someone that has been through parental alienation and documented the entire process on both sides of spectrum through a parents' perception and a clinical perception. If you haven't had a chance to catch up with the full article, visit WomansDivorce.Com here. It is important to understand the dynamics associated with children of divorce when there is ongoing conflict between parents. The adversarial process harms children in our family courts.
There are two resources that every divorcing parent should be required to read. The first resource of course is A Familys Heartbreak (Mike Jeffries and Dr. Joel Davies) and then the second resource is Stop Fighting Over the Kids (Attorney Mike Mastracci). These two books show you the aftermath of poor decision-making that feuding parents can make before, during, and after a divorce or child custody dispute.
My thanks to WomensDivorce.Com and to the professionals that are aware that reforms are necessary to protect children and parents from the harms of the adversarial family court process.
More resources on Parental Alienation:
A Familys Heartbreak Site:http://www.afamilysheartbreak.com
You can imagine how pleased I was when I read Parental Influence Can't Be Overlooked in the Tennessean.Com, my only wish is that parents everywhere would contribute like this to their local papers. If you can't write to your local paper for some reason, at least click the above link and add your comments to the story.
The three most notable sections from the article are as follows:
Sherry Jones and others in our legislature want one parent to have all the influence and power over the child, while one parent is demoted to “visitor” and paycheck, without any regard to how so many of these alienated parents are good, fit parents who love their children dearly.
I have seen firsthand that parent alienation syndrome is very real and have known many adult friends and family members who look back and see that they were brainwashed to hate their other parent for no good cause. They realize now that they were merely pawns in their primary parent’s vindictive game to hurt their non-custodial parent.
It is time for Tennessee to pass laws to allow both parents to share the joy and responsibility of parenting children, regardless of their marital status. Our children will be better for it!
Why stop with Tennessee, we need this nationwide. It really is that simple. Parental rights should be respected and protected by all. If nothing else, thank Karen Waters for stepping up for all parents.
Dr. Amy JL Baker has co-authored with Katherine Andre, PhD. a new book entitled I Don't Want to Choose: How Middle School Kids Can Avoid Choosing One Parent Over the Other.
The book will teach children how to manage loyalty conflicts by: Using Critical Thinking, Considering Options, Being true to themselves, developing coping skills, and more.
The book can be read by children alone or with Parents, School professionals, individual therapists, divorce educators, family mediators, and other caring adults.
The book is available at Dr. Amy Baker's website for $9.95. I ordered a copy and will be writing a review of the book in the coming weeks. After review we will be making a huge push to get this in the public and school libraries across the US. You can help! Contact us via email at familycourtisbad@att.net for more information.
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.
Children Need Both Parents: Happy Thanksgiving to all on this very important holiday. Many are without their children through these times, which definitely takes its' toll on people, so we decided to have a special episode. Last night on Get Your Justice Live we discussed making it through the holidays, had some prayer time, and also shared information from Chrissy Chrzanowski, Pamela Wright, and other participants.
Chrissy Chrzanowski, an adult survivor of Parental Alienation has a parental alienation support website at http://www.parentalienationhurts.com and shares some tips on making it through the holidays without your children.
Pamela Wright, from the Alliance for Single Parents, that assists parents through high-conflict at http://www.allianceforsingleparents.com/ shared some tips about high-conflict court cases and the trying holiday times.
Get Your Justice Live Thanksgiving Special Episode
Be sure to continue spreading the word about "Get Your Justice Live" which remains the number one talk show about issues relating to family court and government policies over the family.
Now here is a novel approach to advocacy that you can prepare for this week. Lighting Candles Worldwide... How cheap is a candle for you, your family, and your friends. Take out an ad with your local non-profit organization, or one of your choosing, and let your local community know a place that you will be at to light candles on December 18, 2008 (7PM Eastern) for our children and their need to have both parents and extended family members involved in their lives.
From the Lighting Candles Worldwide Website:
Imagine for a moment Lighting Candles World Wide and all at the same time. Imagine your child knowing we are Lighting Candles World Wide just for them.
We have given this a lot of thought and we have come to the conclusion that everyone can light a candle at their home or in their home town at a designated place.
You can be apart of Lighting Candles World Wide to show a united front for the children and their need to have both parents and grandparents in their lives.
We have chosen December 18, 2008 at 7:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (more time zones below) for our first annual Lighting Candles World Wide which is exactly one week before Christmas. This is the hardest time of year for those missing their children, but especially for the children who are missing a parent or grandparents or in some casessiblings and of course their extended family.
Thank you to Three-Sides-To-Every-Story for initiating this simple and effective event that people in every community can enjoy. Just take an ad out this week or next and let people know about it. Work with a church, school, or other non-profit organizatons to bring this issue to the public eye. Be sure to invite press and have a press release ready.
The Great Parental Alienation Debate on Get Your Justice Live occurred November 5, 2008. Some of you know that I recently wrote an article on Stand Up Today. The name of the article was "Is It Really Our Exs Fault?" The purpose of the blog article was to demonstrate that blaming our ex-spouses as "evil geniuses masterminding and manipulating" or a "by-product of system dysfunction."
I have claimed repeatedly that the super majority of Parental Alienation is caused by system dysfunction. Some people disagree, but so far all who have joined us on Get Your Justice Live on seem to have come to a similar conclusion. Those that disagree slowly are coming around and understanding that their ex-spouses are merely participating in a system that allows parental alienation to exist and encourages two parents to continue fighting against each other for money, children, and property as the final prize. Invites were sent out to numerous leaders and we were joined with a very lively chat board discussing the topic of Parental Alienation.
In addition, we had a surprise guest from Wisconsin. Pamela Wright of the Alliance for Single Parents joined us to discuss Parental Alienation and is quoted as saying... "I think if the system wasn't setup the way that it is that parental alienation would not even by an issue." She comes in around 40 minutes into the show with a thorough discussion on the topic and several other commentators joined us until the end of the show. Her experience and understanding of parental alienation is an invaluable addition to the show.
We also covered differentiating parental alienation from child abuse/neglect as covered by Richard Gardner in 1999. Many people have tried to mesh Parental Alienation as Child Abuse, while Gardner clearly demonstrates that they are separate. We also explored yahoo group behavior and and conformity versus non-conformity in getting to the truth and facts. Sometimes people are following and being encouraged to fight the wrong enemy. See a spiritual lesson for those that share in a similar faith about fighting the wrong enemy below.
You don't want to miss this episode this episode of Get Your Justice Live.
We need to respect and protect the parent-child relationship to eliminate parental alienation. The solution is parental rights protection and recognizing that parents are co-equal. Let's work together to make this possible.
Spiritual Lesson Regarding Fighting the Right Enemy.
"For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. (2 Corinthians 10:3)
Do you know why so many believers are losing the battles in their lives?
They're fighting the wrong enemy!
They've been deceived into believing that just because a person said or did something to hurt them, that person is the one they need to fight.
But they're wrong.
You see, the Bible says we don't wrestle with flesh and blood. And since people are definitely flesh and blood, they're never the source of our problem.
It doesn't matter. If you waste your time fighting So-and-so, your real enemy will get away scot-free.
Who is that real enemy? Look at Ephesians 6:12, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
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