My reason for writing to you is to ask if you would help me introduce another Bill to California State Legislation. It is concerning Parental Alienation and the abuse of restraining orders. Restraining orders were started in the 1970s to help protect battered women. Today, they are being utilized as a weapon by women against men as a means of control. The most unfortunate result is severe parental alienation. What happened in my case is that my ex-wife included my daughter and son when they were only 8 and 4 years old on a restraining order. I want to mention there was absolutely NO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, child abuse, or any battered women anywhere in this situation. The restraining order states I can have “NO contact (either directly or indirectly), telephone, or send messages or mail or e-mail” among other crippling restrictions. The children then interpret that as the father (myself) abandoning them; which is not true at all and I cannot even have the chance to explain this to them as that of itself is a violation. Also, that was 15 years ago, the court has now (admittedly in their own official transcripts) violated my constitutional rights, made the restraining order permanent, and my children are now forced to grow up without their birth father and have both gained horrible resentment toward me.
According to the book “Litigating Parental Alienation” and in accordance with the American Bar Association, parental alienation has been described in legal cases since the early 19th century and in scientific literature since the 1940s. One of the most widely accepted definitions of parental alienation is a “mental condition in which a child-usually one whose parents are engaged in a high-conflict separation or divorce-allies himself or herself strongly with an alienating parent and rejects a relationship with the ‘target’ parent without legitimate justification”.
When examining parental alienation, three salient features of the phenomenon come to light. 1. Parental Alienation is a psychological condition present in the child. For instance, a child may present with a distorted or false belief that the rejected or disfavored parent is “evil”, “dangerous”, or somehow unworthy of love or affection
The child’s rejection of the alienated or target parent is without legitimate justification. 2. The rejected parent is not expected to be a “perfect” parent and may have even contributed to the child’s dislike or hatred of him or her. Often, a rejected parent reacts to the alienation dynamic in frustration, even anger. This can be a normal response to continued rejection by a child. 3. The essential feature of parental alienation remains that the child’s rejection of the alienated parent is far out of proportion to anything the parent has done.
The book goes on to state that “Professional literature-including peer-reviewed scientific papers-and legal opinions from the family courts around the country make one thing clear: Parents (including third parties or allies of the alienating parent such as a grandparent) who manifest alienating behaviors perpetrate emotional abuse on their children. Alienating parents are abusive parents. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, describes child psychological abuse as “non-accidental verbal or symbolic acts by a child’s parent that result or have reasonable potential to result in and often does result in psychological harm to the child”. Alienating parents attempt to distort their child’s worldview by using tactics designed to manipulate the child and disparage the other parent or portray him or her in a false light. Mr. Adam Schiff, could you please help us in drafting a bill that states that no restraining order can contain any rhetoric about “NO CONTACT with children”, no restraining order can include a child who was a minor at the time of the restraining order and has now become an adult, and no restraining order can be made permanent; especially when it violates a person’s constitutional rights.