What is Parental Alienation?

“Parental alienation is a particular family dynamic that can emerge during separation and divorce in which the child becomes excessively hostile and rejecting of one parent.” (1)

Is Parental Alienation considered a statutory crime?

Yes. “All states make emotional child abuse or maltreatment of a child a criminal offense. (Emotional maltreatment is not included in statutory definitions in Georgia and Washington, but can be found elsewhere in their statutes.)

Whether “mental harm,” “mental injury,” “emotional instability,” “emotional endangerment,” “emotional damage,” or some other phrase, it is clear that emotional child abuse is a statutory crime.

When one parent intentionally encourages the child to turn against the other parent, he or she is employing parental alienation as a strategy.” (1)

Is Parental Alienation a Punishable Crime?

Yes. “48 US states include emotional abuse or maltreatment in their abuse definitions.

Some states make interference with child custody a criminal offense and many states make neglect and physical and emotional harm a felony.

Michigan “makes child abuse in the first degree a felony punishable by imprisonment for not more than 15 years.”

North Dakota: “A parent … who willfully inflicts … upon the child mental injury … is guilty of a class C felony except if the victim … is under the age of six years in which case the offense is a class B felony.”

New Jersey “makes interference a crime of the third degree that may lead to imprisonment for three to five years or a fine of $7,500 or both. “

Some extreme cases of parental alienation may warrant this response.” (1)

What can I do to enact change?

Sign and share this petition with others.

Write your state house representative.

Write your state senator.

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Additional Resources:

From The American Journal of Family Therapy.

Study from The Parental Alientaion Study Group

YouTube Channel The Anti-Alientation Project

Colorado Resistance - An Activist Hub

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(1) Sited from “Parental Alienation Can Be Emotional Child Abuse Ken Lewis Director, Child Custody Evaluation Services of Philadelphia, Inc”