Dr. Samantha Rodman is a licensed psychologist in the Greater Washington, D.C., area and author of the upcoming book “How To Talk To Kids About Divorce,” which is scheduled to be released in August 2015.
During the course of writing her book, Dr. Rodman reviewed much research regarding the effects of parental alienation. She recently joined DadsDivorce Live to discuss her book, and her findings on parental alienation.
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Parental Alienation! While it is too late for me to learn from this, my prayer is that Dad’s who are aware that they are being “pushed out” or in some other way alienated from their child pay close attention to this issue. Almost four years ago I filed for divorce after 20 years of a bad marriage. Our only child, a 21-year-old daughter, immediately took her mother’s “side” and refused to speak to me. Over the course of the intervening time period we have exchanged a dozen or so e-mail communications and one brief telephone conversation. My daughter’s primary position has been that she needs time to deal with all of this and that if I would simply give her that time she would figure out how best to proceed. Last November, after several months without contact, I sent an e-mail message in an effort to re-open communication. Her answer: “I ask that you respect my wishes to cease contact.” As Dr. Rodman suggested in this brief interview it “doesn’t get better” all by itself.