Topic : 12/26 "Brainwashed by My Parents"
(Original Air Date: 10/03/08) It’s being called the ultimate form of child abuse -- brainwashing your children against an ex-spouse to win custody. Could you be harming your child emotionally and not even know it? First up, Ken is a successful surgeon who says he’s the victim of parental alienation syndrome (PAS). He says he hasn’t seen his 14-year-old son since last October and claims his ex-wife destroyed what was once a loving father-son relationship. Mel Feit, director of the National Center for Men, says Ken’s situation is a classic case of kids being turned against their father, but family law attorney Liz Kates says PAS is a phony tactic used by some men to get out of paying child support. What does Dr. Phil think? Then, Karen lost custody of her children after she was accused of parental alienation syndrome by her ex-husband. Karen maintains her innocence, so why were her parental rights terminated when her daughters accused her ex of sexual abuse? Plus, 19-year-old Demi joins the show via Web cam and says her father verbally abused her mother during their divorce. Now, she fears that her 15-year-old sister is caught in the middle. Find out what you can do if you’re caught between sparring parents. And, meet a father so desperate to see his young children, he kidnapped them from his ex-wife and went on the lam for two years. Talk about the show here.
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Alienated Parents Everywhere
The death of a child is indisputably one of the most incredibly horrible tragedies one can imagine. Whether by sudden accidental circumstance, or by a more lengthy cause as in illness, the loss of a child is undeniably painful to experience.Painful to the parents, parents to the family, and painful to anyone related to the child. Never knowing the laughter of that child again or the tears, the joys and the accomplishements is a pain no parent should ever have to endure, and yet it happens. No one is to blame. It just happens. Imagine the same pain and the same sense of loss, with one exception-the parent is very much aware that the child is alive. The effects of Parental Alienation Syndrome are very similar to the loss of a child due to accident or illness. For the parent who has been alienated from their child, the bereavement does not end. How do we know? Each alienated parent separately, and all of us collectively have lived with both the cause and the effect of Parental Alienation for countless years. Like a terminally fatal childhood disease, Parental Alienation rips the innocent child from your arms slowly. You witness the suffering. You witness the effects. You can feel the impending doom is inevitable, but you are powerless to do anything about it. You try remedy after remedy hoping that one will finally rid your child of the "disease". You work like a person possessed in order to finance the efforts, and when the final blow comes, it is emotionally devastating. You question yourself. You blame yourself for the loss. You tell yourself you should have done more. The very sad part of the story, is it is not unique. There are hundreds of thousands of children and parents affected by PAS. We beg of those with the power to make people aware of this devastatingly horrible phenomena, to please do all they can to educate people on its effects, and to change the laws to protect the innocence of the children involved. Only then can we truly hope to keep children safe from the harmful side effects that are inherent with Parental Alienation itself. It's killing the spirit of family everywhere. 

