Beginning at noon (MST) on Wed., Nov. 8, and continuing through Thursday afternoon, Richar' Farr and KRights radio (http://www.krightsradio.com/) gave voice to non-custodial parents, alienated parents, and children of divorce all over the world.
Parental Alienation Awareness Organization (PAAO) (http://www.parental-alienation-awareness.com/) and Three Sides to Every Story (http://www.three-sides-to-every-story.org/index.html) joined such distinguished guests as Phyllis Schlafly, Glenn Sacks of His Side, family law attorney Alicia Crowe, and Stephen Baskerville, president of American Coalition of Fathers and Children. Sixteen-year-old Bill Sears, who testified before the Georgia legislature on shared parenting, and whose website, Bill's Arena, describes divorce from a kid's perspective, said, "Divorce stinks."
Topics ranged from the difficulties of non-custodial parents in maintaining relationships with their children, to child custody reforms, to shared parenting initiatives and changing state laws.
Sarvy Emo, co-founder of Parental Alienation Awareness (http://www.parental-alienation-awareness.com/) described the focus of PAAO as a resource center for Parental Alienation and Hostile Aggressive Parenting (PA/HAP). "We offer tools for the public and professionals who work with families and children to help them become aware of alienating behaviors and their effects on children, and to help with the question, 'What do we do now?,'" explained Emo. She described the workshops, webinars, and establishment of April 25 as Parental Alienation Awareness Day.
Grandmother Bessie Hudgins of Three Sides to Every Story spoke poignantly about how Parental Alienation affected her childhood. Alienated from her parents by her grandmother, with whom she lived, Bessie was not allowed contact with her parents and was told her parents didn't want her because "She wasn't a good girl."
Bessie was tormented by this belief, and when she finally ran away at 15 to find her parents, her father had passed away. Bessie spent many years trying to forgive her mother for not rescuing her, and to understand that her mother had always loved her. Bessie then spent 12 wonderful years with her mother, who died in her arms. To this day, this 58-year-old grandmother still suffers the scars of Parental Alienation.
"Parental Alienation can occur when caregivers put a child in the middle of adult conflict. Alienating parents who demean one another cause a battle within the child - one that they can never win," says Robin Denison, co- founder of Parental Alienation Awareness. "To rob a child of a loving parent can scar them forever."
Parental Alienation Awareness and Three Sides to Every Story thank KRights radio for putting the focus where it should be - on the well-being of families and children.
For more information on Parental Alienation and Hostile Aggressive Parenting visit http://www.parental-alienation-awareness.com/.
