Cases involving Child Custody disputes are stressful on clients, attorneys, Judges, and, most importantly, the children. They can are usually expensive to litigate and often involve at least one or more psychologist and therapist.

Most custody cases involve disputes over timeshare, in which parents argue about how much time each other should spend with the children. Usually these cases involve fathers wishing to have more time with their children than every other weekend.

A far worse situation occurs when a parent turns their child into an agent of revenge against the other parent causing the child to reject the other parent. This is known as PARENTAL ALIENATION. Although the child can often give reasons for rejecting the alienated parent, it is usually just the alienating parent talking through the child.

There are three levels of PARENTAL ALIENATION : mild, moderate, and severe. In mild and moderate cases, parental alienation can be handled by therapy and increasing the amount of time that the child spends with the alienated parent.

In the most severe cases, the only real solution is to remove the child from the house of the alienating parent and place them with the alienated parent. This is because, in severe cases, the alienating parent has the characteristics of a cult leader who lacks empathy and remorse. They do not hesitate to put their own needs above that of their children. These people are immune to therapy.

In the most extreme cases, it may be necessary to have the children deprogrammed by experts such as Randy Rand, Ph.D.

Children in almost any divorce have long term suffering from the break-up. Parental alienated children grow up to have severe emotional problems with difficulty in relating well with others.

The problem from the alienated parent in severe cases is to try to get the court to act quickly. The process of dealing with a parental alienation case can take years, which works to the advantage of the alienating parent. Each day that passes creates a broader division between child and the alienated parent.

Part of the problem is that alienated children usually have the outward of appearance of being normal; they do well school, sports, and other activities. The reality is, however, that these children are being emotionally terrorized by the alienating parent and escape into studies, sports, or other activities. When these children show signs of wanting the alienated parent back into their lives, they are quickly.

While courts do not hesitate to take a child away from a physically abusing parent, "emotionally abuse" is far more subtle and difficult to detect and prove in court.

Because "emotional abuse" is difficult to detect, Judges and custody evaluators are reluctant to radically change the physical custody arrangement when they see what appears to be a normal child doing well in school and activities. Convincing a Judge to change custody to prevent long-term emotional damage to what outwardly appears as a normal child is extremely difficult.

Before judges will change custody from one parent to another, they usually want to have a psychological evaluation, which can take anywhere from 3 months to a year to complete. Most evaluators believe that everyone can be cured with therapy and are very reluctant to recommend a custody change to the alienated parent.

Instead, psychologists generally recommend a reunification plan, which involves therapy. The problem is, however, that whatever benefits are gained in therapy are quickly lost when the child returns to the emotional control of the alienating parent. Additionally, the cost of the attorneys, evaluators, and therapists can become staggering. The college education funds of many divorced children has been spent in custody fights.

Once it is obvious that the reunification is not working, the court will want the same or new psychologist to do a re-evaluation, which again takes a number of months to perform.

Meanwhile, years go by and the alienation becomes worse.

The focus in handling these case for the alienated parent is to push the court for quicker action, educate the court on the long term effects of parental alienation by hiring experts to assist the court in getting a greater understanding of the long-term damage being done to the children.

ROBERT D. ANDERSON has the knowledge and experience to deal with PARENTAL ALIENATION cases.