Parental refusal – or children who no longer want to see dad or mom – has become a national emergency. As an opposed and criticized phenomenon, for part of the company even non -existent, today it is increasingly present in conflicting separations. “Orfani” by choice of a parent in life. Fathers and now also mothers who do not see their children for years, who are blocked on mobile phones, removed, insulted. Children who suffer, develop anxiety and depression, low self -esteem, difficulties at school, relational problems, addictions, narcissism. Psychiatric pathologies that arise even after some time.
What is striking is the total lack of empathy. All the same stories, normal existences, then the separation. One of the parents in a subtle, manipulative way, appropriates the mind of the boys, guilty of them, comes to make them forget the happy memories of a life together in favor of a narrative based on anger and hatred. “The father never loved you”, “the mother left and left you”, are the recurring phrases.
Hanging from a rope pulled by both sides, the children sway on a abyss between senses of wisely instilled guilt and the fear of losing the parent’s affection. Breed families, a torn pain like that of a mourning.
All this is told in a book, parental refusal, born from synergy, comparison and sharing of different experiences: judges, lawyers, neuropsychiatrists, social workers, educators. An important reference to approaching, also in practical terms, a phenomenon still little known (on 18 September it is discussed in a conference in the Senate).
If only ten years ago the refused parents were mostly dads, now more than a third of the cases concerns mothers. Patrizia, 48, tells Treviso: «I haven’t seen my fifteen -year -old daughter for over a year. Neither I, nor my family. I separated in 2016, at the beginning we were both present and collaborative. Then he met another woman and relationships changed. I found myself with a request for judicial divorce. While my daughter had become aggressive, we argued, insulted me. It had never been so, I thought it was adolescence. One day, desperate, I opened her cell phone. There were several father’s messages: denigrators, guilty, I had become an enemy. He no longer wanted to come on vacation with me, when he was at home he closed himself in the room so as not to eat together. Then he claimed to speak to the judge, he said he wanted to be with his father. There was no serious reason, only futile things. After a while he blocked me on the mobile phone. I bought them as always the notebooks for the school, but I will not be able to give them. Pain consumes me. And all this to get a maintenance, for two money ».
Intimate and ruthless dramas, unsuspected as long as the couple enters the mined field of separation, between impulsive reactions and control attempts, as the film The island of Andrea Del Grande Antonio Capuano tells, just presented in Venice (and at the cinema from 2 October), the story of the defeat of a family and the painful judicial battle for the son.
Giovanni Lopez, psychologist and psychotherapist, observes: “In Italy, according to Istat, in the last year 82 thousand couples have separated, with a high possibility that there are minor children inside. We estimate are about 90 thousand. There are no certain numbers, but making a comparison with American data, according to which 20 percent of the children of separated are at risk of parental refusal, we would speak approximately about 15 thousand boys. They are span estimates, but there is no doubt that we are in front of a public health problem ».
The confirmation also comes from Giuseppe Gennari, judge at the IX Civil Section of the Court of Milan and co -author of the publication: «It is a frightening growth phenomenon and it is now equally distributed between fathers and mothers. The most complex files on my table are all of parental alienation. It is transversal, but does not intersect with gender violence. In the vast majority of real hypotheses of violence, the minor never refuses the parent, while in these cases he refuses it in a total way and for no reason. However, “continues Gennari” remains a theme too often hit by ideological issues that tend to obscure it. There is a part of the society that reads it as the attempt by the abuse of delegitimare those who suffer violence. Instead it is none of this, also because both parents are hit ».
The first to coin the term “parental alienation syndrome” was the American forensic psychiatrist Richard Gardner in the 1980s. The infantile neuropsychiatrist Giovanni Battista Camerini explains: «There are two terms internationally that are used to distinguish the refusal: estrangement for the justified and alienation, for the unmotivated one. The scientific community has been studying this problem for years. Unfortunately the misunderstanding is that it was defined as a syndrome, and it was a mistake. We need to talk about phenomenon. Just as there is stalking, but not a stalking syndrome, so there is the phenomenon of alienation “.
There are important alarm bells and it is not a few jokes to the glass and battles in the kitchen – as in the film I Roses (now at the cinema), remake of the famous La War of the Roses – here we are in front of false accusations, strongly denigrating expressions and, more disturbing, the planning of a fictitious reality.
“How many times have I heard:” I would like my father, or mother, died “,” the lumare continues. «The phenomenon must be recognized promptly and without ideology. We must use guided rapprochement methods and sanctioning measures, as they do in France, that is the daily fine of 200 euros for those who do not accompany their children on the other parent. The Cartobia reform in art. 473 bis. 6 of the code of civil procedure makes it possible, yet they are rarely applied by us “.
A father tells: «We had been together for 15 years with two teenage children. In 2018 the crisis broke out and a ordeal began. My ex said that the father no longer loved him, he did not think of their maintenance, he had abandoned them. All false. I tried to mediate and I was wrong. I wasted time and the situation was gone. The boys are now afraid of me, they seem like intoxicated by anger. We haven’t had a dinner together for two years. The smallest started to feel bad: he has dizziness, he cannot play sports. I want to stay close to him, but it’s not allowed to me ».
Acting promptly is very important, but the magistrate is pessimistic: “Today if I ask social services for a first psychosocial investigation, they return it to me after four, six months”.
Tatiana Amato, professional educator, pedagogist, clinical psychologist is the coordinator of the publication of parental refusal: «There are groups of meeting where always the same dynamics are told: the children, usually between 8 and 13 years old, in which the conditioned males are more numerous than females, also reject grandparents, write insulting messages, adding non -existent motivations for their removal. I met destroyed parents, who have not seen them for 15 years, women above all are ashamed, they feel judged, do not understand ».
Time is the key to beating alienation. Gardner claimed that it was enough to remove his son from the conditional parent for three weeks to restore the relationship. But perhaps the variables are too many: the age of the child, the severity of the damage inflicted by those who manipulate it …
That then, the triggering reasons are often common: the desire for revenge, the revenge that in order to hit the ex -tramphs the children, often there is a squalid question of money.
Professor Camerini, professor of forensic psychiatry in different masters continues: «In front of the increase in requests, the system blocks and you cannot identify effective solutions. In America the “Family Bridges” program is used, the rags guided to the refused parent, but it is not repeatable by us. It takes a specific preparation, which we do not have. Often useless interventions are put in place, such as psychotherapy or notorious protected encounters, which are the burning chamber of the relationship of parents and children ». Who live a deep conflict of loyalty, a sort of Stockholm syndrome.
Grazia, 48 years old, from Puglia, two daughters of 15 and 20 years old, says: “I grew up, but after the wedding is over, he took it away. I went through social services, absolutely non -existent, judges, lawyers. In the end I was abandoned by those who could help me and did not do it. The girls are angry, rude, bad. I have been living them at a distance for eight years now. This summer I tried on the beach to get closer to my big one, but in front of everyone he told me “go”, as if I were an extreme. Nobody can understand the pain that a mother canceled by the life of the children feels ».
