Accusations, TROs, supervised visitation and PAS

David Heleniak illustrates the path laid down towards parental alienation by the institutionalized cruelties of false accusation, spurious restraining orders and that most pernicious of humiliation, supervised visitation. Against these three, what defense does any father have? Heleniak argues that restraining orders should not be thrown about with quite such abandon and this would reduce the incidence of PAS. He may have a point, but he, as do so many others, misses the point that parental alienation is enshrined in the basic laws that the courts practise. As long as we insist in grading parents between "custodial" and "non-custodial" we show the children that one parent is more valuable than the other and sew the seeds of their alienation. DV laws, TROs and supervised visitation are all intended to protect the weak from the abusive, but they also can be used by the abusive to persecute those rendered weak by the same weapons, that weakening starts with the law's reflex removal of parental rights.

Tags: False Accusation, Parental Alienation, Restraining Order, Supervised Visitation, Domestic Violence, Child Abuse