A child not going through alienation doesn’t have the cognitive maturity to make informed decisions, so imagine how impossible it is for the traumatised, angered, frightened alienated child to decide whether to reject a parent. Impossible. Cruel, and they should never be put in that position. They have no idea of the far-reaching ramifications. They have no idea what is being asked and inflicted on them is emotionally and psychologically abusive. The last thing a child who loves their parent (both parents) wants to do is upset them. Or cut them out of their life. But the alienating parent makes them choose. It’s them or me! And they are coerced into making the ‘right’ decision according to the alienating parent’s wishes. Children don’t even reject an abusive parent. The alienated child has been coached to cut a non-abusive, loving parent out of their life. Their level of perception doesn’t allow them to know how they’re being indoctrinated/alienated. Cognitive dissonance happens because the child cannot hold two different beliefs in mind. Having been told one side of the story by the alienating parent, they simply cannot cope with hearing what the ‘target’ parent has to say. It is horrendous for them to be told the ‘target’ parent doesn’t love them, they’re unsafe, they’ve started a new family, and they’ve been abandoned … if a ‘target’ parent tells them otherwise, they’ll think they’re being manipulated. In their mind, they have created goodies and baddies, right and wrong. Cognitive dissonance is a way that they cope with a traumatic experience. The child/ren might sense something doesn’t add up, but their alignment and unwillingness to challenge the ‘reality’ is a survival tactic. They’ll deny, reject, and come up with all sorts of excuses as to why our conflicting, mentally disturbing message is wrong. Cognitive dissonance is such that while they sense something isn’t true (whatever the alienating parent has said), they still can’t believe it’s not true.
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