Tag: Children

Emotional Coercion, Psychological Abuse & Manipulation- Charlie McCready

The idea that the alienating parent is not standing in the way of your relationship with your child is pure theatre. It’s an act. Behind the scenes, they’ve already given the child their lines and coached them into believing the character they’re supposed to play. Indoctrination, such as when a child is alienated and without justification for their rejection of you, is what’s happening. The child isn’t being given choices. They’ve already been coercively controlled and enmeshed into an alignment with the alienating parent.⁠

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A child’s expression of wishes holds such power and is often a deciding factor in proceedings concerning them, but it should be acknowledged as a voice, not a choice. Placing the child in a position where they must select one parent over the other goes beyond being inappropriate. Children often desire things at age 8 or 9 that they’d go nowhere near ten years later. I’ll give you an example. I thought it would be incredibly cool to be a lion tamer. Thankfully my parents didn’t think to put me in a lion’s den with a whip and a whistle, thinking that my needs must be met because this is what I believed was right for me. I also wanted to be able to fly, and they didn’t send me off to be operated on with wings attached to me surgically. Of course, children need to be heard, but they also have to be guided, nurtured, given boundaries while not being totally indoctrinated. Children might not know better than to wish for something detrimental to them, as in the case of being allowed to choose to reject a loved, loving parent, having been encouraged by the alienating parent to do so.⁠

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Research shows that many adults who, in their youth, rejected a parent, having been given a lot of pressure to do so by the other parent, later came to regret it and wished somebody would have had the sense to help them realise this was not a good idea – friends, family, legal or mental health professionals, anybody. ⁠

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Taking, ‘it’s their choice’ at face value fails to recognise the extent of coercive control, psychological abuse, and manipulation at play, which can have profound negative effects on the child’s emotional development and well-being.⁠

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#charliemccready

#parentalalienationcoach

#adversechildhoodexperiences

#CoerciveControl

#custodybattle

#parentalalienation

#narcissisticparent

#mothersmatter

#FathersMatterToo

#FathersMatter

#FamilyCourt

#coercivecontrolawareness

#parentalalienationawareness

#mothersrights

#FathersRights

#ChildCustody

#traumabonding

#familycourts

Craig Childress, PsyD – Resume

I’ve got my new three licenses business card. Notice you’re third on the list of what I do.

Top of this list is early childhood ages zero-to-five. Then comes ADHD and grumpy angry kids. Then you in the family courts, then adults on personal growth issues.

Now that I have my WA license I’m going to go around the the local preschools to make them aware I’m here. I’m going to offer free consultation to preschools and parents of wee-ones on any domain of concern.

You’re paying for it. I’ll make my money off of you as a consultant in the family courts – that way I can offer free consults to preschools and parents of wee-ones.

Chalk it up to your karma – good job – you’ll be helping the little ones get a healthy start.

Then I’m going to open up an ADHD grumpy-kid practice online in three states, the Pacific coast of CA, OR, and WA. I use a parent-training consultation model with ADHD and ODD (there’s no such thing), which fits well with an Internet mediated service delivery in the states I’m licensed.

Then… I’ll post foundational seminars to YouTube on the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD and grumpy-angry kids – and – on parenting early childhood kids with challenging stuff (autism spectrum and emotional regulation problems).

I’ll bill for the ADHD clients ’cause that’s something entirely separate. Working with the wee-ones is for me, I like the little guys. Solving ADHD is for you guys.

The adult section of my practice is going to expand into death and dying. I’ve worked within that domain in the past with cancer kids at Children’s Hospitals – except they didn’t die because they have good doctors at Children’s Hospitals.

But death and dying is always within a zone of consideration whenever cancer is the diagnosis. When I entered private practice I joined a practice with another cancer psychologist in Pasadena. He worked with adult cancer patients, and I worked with kid cancer patients and their families.

I also have some background in geriatrics. When I entered private practice I checked out the two pathologies I’d never worked with – family court custody conflict and geriatrics. I’ve worked with everything else.

I got a job going to various “assisted care” facilities to assess and treat mental health issues there. THAT is depressing work. I don’t want to work geriatrics like that.

The old are our abandoned. No one sees, no one comes, they are alone. Whoa. Of the two, you needed me more. You have active child abuse (and spousal abuse) undiagnosed and untreated. Child abuse and attachment trauma is my pathology.

So I came to the family courts and fixed things here. There was a lot of fixing to do – you had (have) broken systems. Bad things were (are) happening… by the psychologists.

They are in the “betrayer” role in trauma – the one who should protect… and doesn’t. Oh my… patients should NEVER need to explain the pathology to the doctor. You need to explain the pathology to your doctors.

That’s so bad. So I did things. Now those things are evolving into solutions to fix the broken systems. Once the systems are fixed… you won’t need me anymore.

Hooray! A good clinical psychologist is always working themselves our of a job. For ADHD, for example, I want to fix your problem in six to twelve weeks – of consultation – six to twelve weeks is roughly how long I need to teach parents how to do the relationship based treatment… to fix things.

Less time for the grumpy-angry kids. Holy cow, “Oppositional Defiant Disorder” is such an easy fix – four to six weeks of consultation (then occasionally as-needed).

Do you know what’s easier to fix than ODD (grumpy-angry)? Attachment pathology. With a cooperative parent, I’d anticipate two to six weeks for substantial gain, and twelve weeks for full resolution.

The problem with attachment pathology out in the wild is that we don’t have a cooperative parent. We have a substance abusing parent or a narcissistic-dark parent. Then it becomes a child protection issue and we have to fix the attachment damage in other ways.

I’m a full scope clinical psychologist. I can seriously answer your questions on anything clinical psychology. Anything. Without looking it up, it’s all in my head.

That’s because I’m an old clinical psychologist – it’s the old part.

Now I’m an old-guy too, and I’m specialty trained in humanistic-existential therapy. I figure I can help other old folks along the Pacific coast where I’m licensed via the Internet.

Death and dying makes people uncomfortable, not me. I suspect I can help with transitions.

So individual adults are number four on my list of to-do.

You’re fixed. The moment you want to solve things – you solve things. As long as you don’t want to solve things – you won’t solve things.

It’s a motivational pathology. I’m working on that. We should be transitioning soon. Wheee…

Into complete destruction… then out into a full solution.

If you want to know what’s coming, look where Dr. Childress is positioning himself. I don’t live in today because today keeps vanishing. I live and work in tomorrow, because tomorrow keeps arriving, which makes my life now so much easier.

Oh look, the Petition to the APA just arrived – five years (minus two years for Covid), my estimates are pretty precise.

In five years I’ll be leaving not arriving. This next phase is building out my online presence in ADHD and Early Childhood, and I’ll finish my Diagnosis book and a second edition of Foundations.

Journal articles are in the works. It’s time now.

You know what happens when I have three licenses across the Pacific Coast, right? You have read the ancient prophesies about the Kraken that I’m just now making up, right?

Never mind, it’s too late for you to learn now. Just wait, it’ll all unfold in the calculational lines of the ruliad for observers like us.

Craig Childress, Psy.D.

Clinical Psychologist

WA 61538481

OR 3942 – CA 18857

Parental Alienation- Charlie McCready

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke⁠

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The problem with good people doing nothing, often due to constraints like job remits or instructions not to step in and take action, is that it sometimes allows harmful situations or injustices to persist unchecked. Their inaction enables the continuation of wrongdoing, And so it is with parental alienation. ⁠

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There’s a story about a teacher with a fishbowl on his desk. Before leaving the room, he gave strict instructions to his class not to touch the fish. He took a fish from its bowl and placed it on his desk. When the teacher had gone, the school kids stared at each other, shrugging their shoulders, confused and unsure what to do. They sat there. They stared at the fish, flapping desperately. Dying before their very eyes. One girl couldn’t bear it anymore. She rushed to the desk and put the fish back in the bowl. The teacher returned to the class. She expected to be reprimanded, but she didn’t care. Nor did he. Instead, he congratulated her and proceeded to give a lesson on how it’s sometimes best to break the rules, especially in a life-and-death situation. ⁠

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The problem with legal and mental health experts is that they tend to go by the book, but as parental alienation is yet to be recognised officially, there is no standardised method of identifying it, taking action, or supporting the true victims of this psychologically abusive family violence – the children and ‘target’ parents. Too often, they do nothing. And this is worse. It’s harmful to do nothing. ⁠

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However, I do believe this will change. Just as we now know, cigarettes are not healthy. We have safeguarding measures for domestic abuse (especially women). In time, parental alienation will be recognised as abuse.

#charliemccready

#parentalalienationcoach

#alienatedchild

#childpsychologicalabuse

#familycourts

#parentalalienationawareness

#custody

#FamilyCourt

#parentalalienation

#healing

Isolating ; Tuning Out in Parental Alienation

I noticed the distancing – preempting what I later became ‘parental alienation’ – happen sometime before my children left. When it was particularly unpleasant and upsetting in those weeks and months before they moved to the other side of the world, I tried to remind myself that this was how they were bracing themselves to cope with such a monumentally life-changing, scary/exciting/brave/unknown decision. I didn’t always deal with it well, either. I’d been through parental alienation before, as a step-parent in 2001, but this took me to another level of grief long before the alienation kicked in.

It was 2009, and in the time before they left, Eminem’s’ Beautiful’ was played a lot in my children’s bedrooms. It’s a song that expresses a struggle with depression, self-doubt and a yearning for understanding, acceptance, and a desire for a better life. After they’d gone and I heard the song, I grieved. I convinced myself that the lyrics were a child’s hope for a bridge between worlds, and that mine could come back anytime. The time with their other parent became permanent, and then I was cut off, no longer necessary, and even deemed unsafe. It’s the 180 turnaround from good parent with happy, healthy children to monster that’s nonsensical and horrifying.

But they don’t lose us – we’re still here.

The song ‘Beautiful’, to me, is about alienation. It’s about longing for connection after being rejected, building ourselves up no matter how many times we’re set back or fall. We and our children are disconnected by enforcement and manipulation. We cope with it the best we can. The ‘distancing’ or ‘emotional cutoff’ is also known as disassociation. This is something in our children that the alienating parent can exacerbate, too.

There are times we have to let things run their course. We need the time and space to figure things out, and so do they. We’re still here. Mine did figure things out, reach out, and they came back. It is my heartfelt wish that yours do, too.

#charliemccready

#parentalalienationcoach

#alienatedchild

#parentalalienation

#familycourts

#childpsychologicalabuse

#parentalalienationawareness

#adversechildhoodexperiences

#FamilyCourt

#custody

#custodybattle

#ChildCustody

Adverse Childhood Experiences-Charlie McCready

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events from 0 to 17. The original study in 1998 identified seven categories of ACEs, including physical and emotional abuse, neglect, parental substance abuse, parental mental illness, domestic violence, and having an incarcerated parent. These experiences were found to have lasting and profound impacts on mental health, physical well-being, and overall development. The research found that children who experienced four or more ACEs were 12 times more likely to suffer from alcoholism, depression, drug abuse, and suicide attempts. Subsequent research expanded the list of ACEs to include parental separation/divorce due to the recognised adverse effects it has on children’s well-being.⁠

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Parental alienation, a form of emotional abuse, usually following parental separation/divorce, usually involves at least these two ACEs. The attachment system, vital for forming bonds between children and parents, is severely impacted by parental alienation. It can lead to persistent fear and stress. The complete severance of a parent-child bond constitutes psychological abuse and damages this attachment system. Addressing parental alienation is imperative to safeguard children from the lasting trauma it inflicts.⁠

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Those who have faced ACEs are not alone. It’s estimated that 1 in 6 adults experienced as many as 4 ACEs before they turned 18. Support can be found through trauma-focused therapy, support groups, self-care, exercise, healthy living, but there is an urgent need for greater awareness about the problem of parental alienation and training for mental health and legal professionals working with separating families so that there is early detection and intervention. Let us collectively work towards a world where children can thrive, breaking the cycle of ACEs and creating a nurturing environment that fosters their potential and well-being.⁠

#charliemccready

#parentalalienationcoach

#alienatedchild

#childpsychologicalabuse

#narcissisticparent

#parentalalienationawareness

#FamilyCourt

#parentalalienation

#adversechildhoodexperiences

#familycourts

#ChildCustody

The child within

The child you once were does not disappear. They do not fade into the past like an old photograph or dissolve with the passage of time. They live within you still woven into your fears, your longings, your habits of self-protection. They are there in the way your body tenses at a raised voice, in the way you hesitate before asking for what you need, in the ache you feel when love seems just out of reach.

Healing is not about leaving this child behind. It is about turning toward them with the love and presence they were once denied.

Trauma is not just what happened to us it is what did not happen. It is the touch that never came, the safety that was absent, the soothing voice that never told us, You are enough just as you are. When we experience wounding at a young age, we do not just lose a moment in time. We lose trust, we lose connection, we lose the full expression of who we were meant to be. The child learns to survive, to adapt, to become small, quiet, or pleasing anything to maintain attachment. And so, they remain trapped in us, frozen in time, waiting for someone to come back for them.

But no one is coming except you.

Healing is not about discarding the past, as if we could simply will ourselves into a new story. It is about remembering. Not in the sense of reliving pain endlessly, but in the sense of reclaiming what was lost. To truly heal, we must become the very presence our younger selves longed for. We must speak to them gently, hold them in their sorrow, let them grieve the love they never received.

We do not heal by rejecting the child within us. We heal by turning toward them and saying:

“I see you. I know how much it hurt. I know how alone you felt. But I am here now. You are no longer abandoned. You are no longer unseen. You are safe with me.”

This is the work: to break the cycle of self-abandonment. To stop running from the echoes of our past and instead meet them with tenderness. Healing does not mean forgetting it means integrating. It means that the child who once felt unworthy of love is finally given the love they always deserved. It means that the pain that once defined us becomes the doorway to our deepest wisdom.

And so, the question is not whether the child within us still exists. The question is whether we will have the courage to go back for them.

Connected By Nature

Altar Of Earth

@highlight

Weaponized Alienated Children

To all those engaged in safeguarding the well-being of children, it is crucial to recognise and address the deeply troubling phenomenon of weaponised, alienated children. This behaviour is far from natural; it results from a manufactured conflict that transforms innocent children into emotional weapons aimed at a parent they have loved and would still love. Family courts and mental health professionals must grasp the gravity of this situation.⁠

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Imagine a scenario where an alienating parent loads a figurative gun and instructs their child on how to aim and pull the trigger against the other parent, a parent who loves them deeply. This shocking analogy draws attention to the psychological abuse and domestic violence within the dynamics of parental alienation. Just as a loaded gun can inflict physical harm, an alienated child, driven by coercive control, fear and confusion, can cause immense emotional and psychological damage to the targeted parent.⁠

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This situation is akin to a psychological war waged against a loving parent. The tactics employed by the alienating parent distort the child’s perceptions, turning them into unwitting participants in this emotional conflict. The consequences are profound and far-reaching. The targeted parent is hurt by the betrayal, the severed bond, and the false accusations, but the child also suffers grievously.⁠

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Family courts and mental health professionals must be equipped to recognise the signs of this weaponised behaviour. A child who acts like a loaded gun demonstrates the results of insidious manipulation. This destructive behaviour should not be trivialised or ignored. Instead, it requires urgent intervention to dismantle the psychological weaponry and to restore the child’s emotional well-being.⁠

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By acknowledging and addressing the gravity of weaponised alienation, we can work toward protecting the targeted parent’s and child’s mental and emotional health. We need to look at who is loading the gun and teaching their child to fire it, as well as educate them so they know the harm they are causing. We can then hope to rebuild healthy relationships and create an environment where the child can flourish without being caught in the crossfire of adult conflicts.

#charliemccready

#parentalalienationcoach

#alienatedchild

#childpsychologicalabuse

#CoerciveControl

#parentalalienation

#FamilyCourt

#custody

#mothersmatter

#FathersMatterToo

#FathersMatter

#ChildCustody

#narcissisticabuseawareness

#traumabond

#parentalalienationawareness

#mothersrights

#FathersRights

#narcissisticparent

#FamilyCourtReform

#attachmenttheory

#custodybattle