PAS AWARENESS EXPANDING !!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: mensdaily
By Robert Franklin, Esq. | Apr 25, 2009


Here's the link to a press release by the Parental Alienation Awareness Organization. It's sponsoring its fourth annual parental alienation day.

The incidence of PAS is hard to know. As the site points out, many people know of divorced couples who use the child to express their anger towards each other. Many people know parents who actively turn children against the other parent. The movement to spread PAS awareness is, at its heart, a movement to make as many people as possible aware that that behavior injures children. The PAS awareness movement is aimed at getting people to understand how detrimental to children alienating behavior is, with the goal of altering that behavior. Family court judges particularly need to be aware of the corrosive effect of PAS on children.

Those who want to ignore PAS focus on the word "sydrome" and point out that the American Psychiatric Association has not yet officially recognized a particular set of behaviors in children as a syndrome resulting from parental alienation. That's true and, to my mind, largely irrelevant. What's important is not whether the behavior on the part of the parents or the child fits a particular definition. That's appropriately of interest to behavioral scientists, but to children and non-custodial parents, what matters is that alienating behavior be recognized for what it is and steps taken to end the practice.

Groups like PAAO are helping to do just that.

As a sidelight, Wendy McElroy at iFeminists.com also linked to this site. McElroy's site is worth visiting. She's generally too libertarian for my taste, but she's a good example of the fact that feminists don't have to engage in the intellectual dishonesty that's so often associated with feminism.