Parental Alienation

This blog is created and dedicated to my step-daughter Amy Leigh Morris who left us once through a horrible custody battle September 1992 and physically in June 2007. We have an odd story that contain many lessons and advice for struggling step-mom & dads. But first, allow me to introduce you to a tactic from Satan that tried to ruin our life.

Parental Alienation Syndrome is a very common tactic that is used during many custody battles. It is defined in my words as deliberately alienating a child from the other parent to gain leverage in a custody battle. If there is no custody battle, sometimes it is used just to make sure the child is loyal to one parent. In our case it was my husband's ex-wife that couldn't deal with his life going forward. Divorced for several years, we met and eventually married. Our union blended us and four children into a new family. We have always encouraged love, hope and faith in our household. Constantly teaching the children as we blended, it's okay to love. It's okay to love both mom and dad as well as step-mom or step-dad. No choices to make or sides to pick, love is free for everyone. Sadly, some adults never get past the rejection from their previous spouse. The scorned parent then sets out to ensure some form of rejection/pain for the "happy parent". Using the children to "get back at them", Parental Alienation Syndrome is born. My hope with this blog, is to introduce you to both deliberate and vague techniques of PAS, and to offer you hope that with God's power you will survive.

Satan is alive in both Christian and non-Christian homes. In our case, we were Christians and the "ex" was not. How did we survive? How did we protect the other children from this awful experience? It was a very painful experience. Losing a child two different times once to abduction and then to death. No sibling, or parent should have to experience that magnitude of pain. Ripping a family apart by taking one child, leaving the other, trying to make sense of it all is difficult. My husband and I claim scripture Romans 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose". (NIV) as our verse, because we can only hope that our experience will stop Parental Alienation Syndrome forever--For Amy's Sake.