Understanding Parental Alienation

Sienna Reef
Mar 4
5 min read

Why "pick a side" is the most damaging game a family can play.

We talk a lot about “ghosting” in friendships and romantic relationships. But when it comes to families, we often lack the modern vocabulary to describe a specific kind of abuse that happens when a relationship ends.

We are not talking about the initial pain of divorce or separation, but about a specific system failure that can occur afterwards. It’s called parental alienation.

Forget the legal aspect of it for a minute. Let’s try and look at it through a different, more particular lens.

The family dynamic like a war between a kingdom

Imagine your family isn’t a family but a small kingdom. After a war (the separation), two rulers now live in separate castles. Ideally the citizens (the children) would travel freely between them, maintaining peace and carrying news of goodwill.

Parental alienation is when one ruler decides the best way to win the peace is to brainwash the citizens.

This isn’t simple badmouthing the other parent, but often a calculated campaign to turn the child into a soldier against the other castle. The child stops being a free citizen and becomes a pawn.

'Programming' more than 'brainwashing'

For those who understand code, this analogy works well. Think of a child’s mind as an operating system that is constantly receiving updates.

The healthy update: “You have two homes. Mum’s home has different rules than Dad’s home. You are safe and loved in both. Your only job is to be a kid.”
The alienating update: this update installs a virus. It criticises the other parent, but it also corrupts the child’s core files. It installs scripts that say:
- If you love Parent B, you are betraying Parent A;
- Parent B’s love is dangerous/conditional/fake;
- You must be the protector of Parent A’s feelings.

Eventually, the child’s system becomes so corrupted that it starts running these scripts on its own. The child begins to reject Parent B without any prompting, because the virus has become a part of their core programming.

They aren’t choosing a side, but following a corrupted code.

The Stockholm Syndrome

For more general audience, the analogy of a hostage situation is powerful, though uncomfortable.

In Stockholm Syndrome, hostages develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy.

In parental alienation, the child is held hostage — not physically, but emotionally.

They are in an environment (the alienating parent’s home — Parent A) where the only way to keep the peace, avoid disappointing the parent they live with and ensure their emotional needs are met, is to adopt that parent’s hatred. They learn that loving the ‘enemy’ (Parent B) is dangerous and they reject them as a survival mechanism.

The “Clickbait” of Parental Alienation

The alienating parent often feeds the child a steady diet of emotional clickbait. These are headlines like:

“You won’t believe what your other parent did to me!”(Makes them resentful);
“She/He loves their new family more than you!” (Plays on insecurities);
“She/He chose their career over us. You deserve better.”(Plays on loyalty).

The child ‘clicks’ on this bait because it promises a stronger emotional connection with the parent telling the story (the only parent they believe they have left!). They get hooked on the validation they receive for ‘hating’ the other parent. The more they reject, the more they are praised. They do it because they hope they’ll receive more love in return.

The Invisible Strings

If loving both parents is forbidden and causes you pain — if every happy memory with one parent feels like a betrayal to the other — your brain will eventually solve that problem.

The solution is to stop loving one.

It’s not that the child stops feeling love; it’s that they bury it so deep even they cannot remember it. They tell themselves stories; they convince themselves they hate the other parent… because ‘hating them’ is easier than the constant pain of loving someone you’re not allowed to miss.

If you’ve ever seen a puppet, you know that the strings are visible to the audience, but the puppet just thinks it’s dancing.

In parental alienation the child doesn’t see the strings.

They don’t see that their anger was planted and neither that their rejection was cultivated. They don’t know that their ‘choice’ to cut off Parent B was engineered over years of small rewards and manipulations.

The exit doesn’t look like and exit…

Many targeted parents think that if the child could just ‘see the truth’, they would walk away from the alienating parent and run back to them. But that’s not how it usually works.

If you’ve been trapped in that situation for years, the person holding you hostage isn’t just the enemy. They’re also the person who fed you, held you when you were sick and stayed around for you.

So the child is stuck between the guilt of abandoning the parent they live with and the grief of losing the parent they are not allowed to love.

What being ‘stuck’ really means…

You can’t talk about good memories without feeling disloyal.
You can’t miss the other parent without feeling like a traitor.
You can’t love freely because love has been weaponised.
You can’t live your life fully as you are managing your parent’s feelings.

More likely, the child doesn’t even know this is happening. They just know that their relationship with one parent feels… wrong. It feels heavy and complicated. They just know that thinking about them makes them feel tired and angry.

Final Thoughts

If you made it this far, you are likely familiar with parental alienation, or maybe curious to learn more about it. So what do you do with these information?

It depends on who you are…

If you are a parent who lost a child: keep showing up — gently — careful not to add to their pressure. Don’t carry any expectations… send the message without expecting the answer. The answer might come years later. Most importantly: look after yourself. Heal. Become a better parent. I talk a lot about this in my other posts.

If you are the parent who might be holding the strings: ask yourself an important question: “Am I afraid my child will love someone else more?” That fear is human, but what you do with it is everything. You can tighten your grip and watch them suffocate. Or you can loosen it and trust that love doesn’t run out just because it’s shared.

If you are the grandparent, the relative, the family friend: stay connected. You are (hopefully) part of the few people who can love the child without being part of the war. You might become the only safe bridge for them. Stay involved.

If you are the young adult sitting with a knot in your chest: you don’t have to figure it out today or forgive. Ask yourself: who would I be if I wasn’t trying to keep someone else happy? And when you are ready… make that call.

If you are none of these people: you likely know someone who is. A coworker, a friend, a neighbour… this is more common than you might think. Don’t assume and don’t judge. Be present for them if they ever want to talk about it. Parental alienation is a wound that gets carried, every day, for years.

Thanks for reading.

Sienna

Learn about my book

Why "pick a side" is the most damaging game a family can play.

We talk a lot about “ghosting” in friendships and romantic relationships. But when it comes to families, we often lack the modern vocabulary to describe a specific kind of abuse that happens when a relationship ends.

We are not talking about the initial pain of divorce or separation, but about a specific system failure that can occur afterwards. It’s called parental alienation.

Forget the legal aspect of it for a minute. Let’s try and look at it through a different, more particular lens.

The family dynamic like a war between a kingdom

Imagine your family isn’t a family but a small kingdom. After a war (the separation), two rulers now live in separate castles. Ideally the citizens (the children) would travel freely between them, maintaining peace and carrying news of goodwill.

This isn’t simple badmouthing the other parent, but often a calculated campaign to turn the child into a soldier against the other castle. The child stops being a free citizen and becomes a pawn.

'Programming' more than 'brainwashing'

For those who understand code, this analogy works well. Think of a child’s mind as an operating system that is constantly receiving updates.

The healthy update: “You have two homes. Mum’s home has different rules than Dad’s home. You are safe and loved in both. Your only job is to be a kid.”

The alienating update: this update installs a virus. It criticises the other parent, but it also corrupts the child’s core files. It installs scripts that say:

Eventually, the child’s system becomes so corrupted that it starts running these scripts on its own. The child begins to reject Parent B without any prompting, because the virus has become a part of their core programming.

The Stockholm Syndrome

For more general audience, the analogy of a hostage situation is powerful, though uncomfortable.

In Stockholm Syndrome, hostages develop a psychological alliance with their captors as a survival strategy.

The “Clickbait” of Parental Alienation

The alienating parent often feeds the child a steady diet of emotional clickbait. These are headlines like:

“You won’t believe what your other parent did to me!”(Makes them resentful);

“She/He loves their new family more than you!” (Plays on insecurities);

“She/He chose their career over us. You deserve better.”(Plays on loyalty).

The Invisible Strings

If loving both parents is forbidden and causes you pain — if every happy memory with one parent feels like a betrayal to the other — your brain will eventually solve that problem.

If you’ve ever seen a puppet, you know that the strings are visible to the audience, but the puppet just thinks it’s dancing.

They don’t see that their anger was planted and neither that their rejection was cultivated. They don’t know that their ‘choice’ to cut off Parent B was engineered over years of small rewards and manipulations.

The exit doesn’t look like and exit…

Many targeted parents think that if the child could just ‘see the truth’, they would walk away from the alienating parent and run back to them. But that’s not how it usually works.

If you’ve been trapped in that situation for years, the person holding you hostage isn’t just the enemy. They’re also the person who fed you, held you when you were sick and stayed around for you.

So the child is stuck between the guilt of abandoning the parent they live with and the grief of losing the parent they are not allowed to love.

What being ‘stuck’ really means…

You can’t talk about good memories without feeling disloyal.

You can’t miss the other parent without feeling like a traitor.

You can’t love freely because love has been weaponised.

You can’t live your life fully as you are managing your parent’s feelings.

More likely, the child doesn’t even know this is happening. They just know that their relationship with one parent feels… wrong. It feels heavy and complicated. They just know that thinking about them makes them feel tired and angry.

Final Thoughts

If you made it this far, you are likely familiar with parental alienation, or maybe curious to learn more about it. So what do you do with these information?

It depends on who you are…

If you are the grandparent, the relative, the family friend: stay connected. You are (hopefully) part of the few people who can love the child without being part of the war. You might become the only safe bridge for them. Stay involved.

If you are the young adult sitting with a knot in your chest: you don’t have to figure it out today or forgive. Ask yourself: who would I be if I wasn’t trying to keep someone else happy? And when you are ready… make that call.

Thanks for reading.

Sienna

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