Talking with a co-parent who lies or manipulates others can leave you feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.
This can be especially frustrating if you have to deal with alienation while sharing child custody. Learning about how to tell when this is happening to your children can help you.
Changes in speech
According to Psychology Today, noticing your children repeating phrases or insults that you commonly hear your co-parent using is one common sign of this problem. These ideas are often too mature for a child to come up with by themselves, which means your co-parent may be telling lies about you to try to make your children feel negatively toward you.
This kind of manipulation can leave the relationship between you and your children fractured or strained.
Less time spent together
Early pick-ups or late drop-offs at scheduled visitation times may signal that your co-parent is trying to limit the time you spend alone with your children. They may also enroll your children in so many programs that you cannot see them during your free time.
Alienation can also happen if you do not receive an invitation to school programs or important events in your children’s lives.
Sudden anger
An increase in fights between you and your children can feel as if it has come out of nowhere. This added tension may be because your co-parent told private information about you to your children in order to make the divorce appear as if it was your fault. In extreme cases, children may even claim that they have no good memories of you.
These kinds of signs can point to increased alienation from your adult co-parent. Determining how to move forward to attempt to repair your relationship with your children can be difficult. Discussing your situation with a family law attorney can help you to understand your options.
