Tag: education

Walking my dog yesterday, I was thinking about The Snow Queen, a fairy tale which is essentially about the struggle between good and evil and the analogy with parental alienation.

An evil troll has invented a magic mirror that distorts the appearances of everything it reflects, magnifying only the worst and ugliest aspects and shows nothing of beauty or goodness. The troll’s friends try to take the mirror to heaven to see what God and the angels look like, but it falls to earth, smashing into millions of pieces. These splinters spread all over the earth, distorting people’s view of the world, making it seem dark and terrible, and making their hearts cold as ice.

One summer, years later, some splinters get into the eyes and heart of a boy called Kai, and he becomes aggressive, cruel, and destructive as everything and everyone now appears ugly and despicable to him. He no longer cares for his childhood sweetheart, Gerda. He meets the Snow Queen. She kisses him – once to numb him of the cold, and another kiss to forget about the past and those he loves. A third kiss would kill him … You can probably see where I’m going with this. Gerda, like a ‘target’ parent, searches everywhere for Kai. She discovers he is still alive but out of reach. On her travels, Gerda comes across a sorceress with a garden of eternal warmth and summertime and promise. It is trickery, and it holds her there, wasting her time (like family courts). It’s now Autumn, and Gerda is cold and exhausted. Her arduous, difficult journey continues with more setbacks and small triumphs emboldening her. Gerda learns that her love and pure, strong heart are all, and everything, needed to save Kai. (We are more powerful than we know!) The Snow Queen has Kai in a frozen-hearted stasis and under her control. Kai does menial tasks she sets for him. Supposedly if he finishes his tasks, he will be free, though that is not her intention. (Governments/tyrants/alienating parents). Gerda reaches Kai. Her love warms him, and the ice splinters are dislodged. He remembers Gerda. He remembers love. He is free. Everything becomes as it ever was. He sees beauty in life again, and it’s as if no harm or cruelty had ever happened.

What is interesting and different about this tale is that the glass splinters don’t ‘infect’ everyone (like Gerda, not all children are alienated). Kai wasn’t to blame for his behaviour when it was bad – it was circumstantial. He was unlucky to get the shards of ice in his system. Also, of note, neither the troll nor the Snow Queen gets their comeuppance, but once justice and love have overcome them, they hardly matter.

#charliemccready

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#narcissisticabuseawareness

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#FamilyCourt

#DomesticViolenceAwareness

#familyviolence

#divorce

#childabuse

#custody

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#childcustody

#psychologicalchildabuse

#coercivecontrol