Can a toddler be alienated?

Richard Gardner the quack father of the so-called parental alienation movement

Recently, I have asked a simple question when debating proponents of parental alienation.

I have asked if a toddler can be alienated.

I’ve been surprised by the responses. Madison Welburne- who runs a pro parental alienation YouTube channel and is a child victim- told me in an interview she won’t air that a toddler can be alienated because children begin to attain memory at approximately a year old.

“Anyone can be alienated.” Another pro parental alienation person told me.

Surprisingly, those who support parental alienation have all told me that anyone of any age can be alienated.

This goes to the heart of my problem with this entirely unscientific term.

First, we need to define parental alienation.

This is difficult since it has many different competing definitions, but the one I generally use comes from Bill Bernet.

Parental alienation “refers to a mental condition in which a child, whose parents are engaged in a high-conflict divorce, allies strongly with one parent (the preferred parent or alienating parent) and refuses to have a relationship with the other parent (with rejected parent or alienated parent) without a good reason,” according to Bill Bernet, a professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Vanderbilt University.

If you accept Bernet’s definition, then there is no way a toddler can be alienated.

A toddler is still learning to speak. Children at that age don’t understand the concept of mother and father so they can’t hate or reject one or the other.

I initially made this same argument when I wrote about Alyssa Karsagi- find parts one, two and three.

Alyssa was absurdly accused of alienating her two kids who were two and one at the time.

Though her children weren’t old enough to be victims of alienation, Alyssa was accused anyway.

Ironically, she has now been kept away for years from her kids- as a result of the dubious alienation diagnosis- so who is being alienated here?

Despite this absurdity, most proponents of parental alienation would wholeheartedly proclaim that it is possible to alienate a toddler.

This brings me to a discussion I had in the comments of this recent YouTube video.

While acknowledging that reunification therapy is bad, Bryan Harrell spoke up for parental alienation.

Wait a minute. What about children who've been alienated from a targeted parent and deprived of any meaningful relationship, if one at all? There are so many children that have been legally kidnapped by a parent to 'win' in this horrible winner take all court system. The Nordic countries do not have this problem because automatic 50/50 custody is mandatory that eliminates the games parents play in a custody battle because of the big financial gifts and prizes awarded. See the 'silver bullet strategy' that family court attorneys encourage and judges reward for doing this to children. The problem that needs to be addressed is BEFORE these camps are needed.

This quickly led to a discussion until I asked him if a toddler can be alienated.

a toddler can absolutely be alienated. You think it's healthy for a toddler to not have interaction and closeness to bond with a parent?

This is not about what healthy for a toddler, but if a toddler can be alienated. Parental alienation is supposed to be a psychological term. It can’t be any bad thing done to a parent; that’s not psychology.

So, I then asked Bryan to define parental alienation.

Behavior intended to damage the relationship a child has with a parent. The fact that children have a negative view of the other parent is a goal and a byproduct of the strategy.

That’s not actually psychology; it differs- ever so slightly- from Bernet’s definition, and given that definition, almost any behavior can qualify.

If dad gets the child into sports instead of theater- like mom wants- is that alienating? How about if a family- like the Barones- moves near dad’s parents? Is that alienating?

Based on this definition, it could be.

Keep in mind, I once had a woman tell me she was told that her constant affection was alienating to dad who wasn’t affectionate, so these absurdities do play out.

If a definition is broad enough, anything can fit into it.

Here we have another problem with parental alienation; no one can agree on what it is.

If you can’t even agree on a definition, that’s not real.

Bryan and I got into this discussion because I said that parental alienation had no standards.

Can a toddler be alienated? If not, what is the minimum age when a child can be alienated? What is the maximum age? Is it alienation if a parent bad mouths the other parent to the children once? If not, how many times is the minimum threshold? Let's face it. There are no answers to any of these questions, nor dozens more I can come up with. How do we determine if a child has been alienated? Is there a test? Who determines it? How do they determine it? What are their qualifications for determining it? Is there a different test for a six year old than for fourteen year old? I can go on and on. None of these are questions anyone can answer.

Bryan said a toddler can be alienated so he didn’t need to answer any of the other questions.

Except a toddler can’t be alienated using Bernet’s definition. If a toddler can’t be alienated, what is the minimum age?

No one can answer that question because most proponents won’t cede that a toddler can’t be alienated.

With that, you have a concept with no standards.

There are parents who will bad mouth the other parent to the kids; there are some parents who will proactively keep children away from the other parents.

There are parents who will do all sorts of bad things.

That doesn’t make parental alienation real because we can’t even agree on what parental alienation is. We can’t agree on who can be alienated, how it’s diagnosed or treated. It has no standards.

It’s not real.