…Say alienated parents who organised a two-week campaign to mark April 25, observed as ‘Parental Alienation Awareness Day’ worldwide, writes Aruna Raghuram April 25 was observed as ‘Parental Alienation Awareness Day’ around the world. On this day, parents’ groups organise programmes to raise awareness about parental alienation — defined as when one parent’s relationship with his or her child is harmed by the other parent. With divorce/separation cases rising, parental alienation is becoming widespread with devastating consequences for children. In India, a two-week awareness campaign was organised by two Mumbai-based ‘alienated’ male parents, Zian Lakdawalla and Ashraf Ansari. The campaign started on April 23 with ‘Bubbles of love’ with some parents blowing soap bubbles at selected public places across the country in honour of children forcibly separated from one of their parents. Brochures were also distributed to raise public awareness about parental alienation and its harmful consequences for children. On April 29, an art therapy workshop was conducted in Thane followed by a ‘Prayer run cyclothon’ on April 30 in Mumbai. Comments Zian Lakdawalla, a learning and development professional and alienated parent of five-year-old son Zivan: “Through our two-week awareness campaign we hope to educate the public about parent alienation and its adverse impact on the emotional well-being of children. In my case, I have been alienated from my son since 2019. After taking recourse to the law, I now have vacation rights. I want to be a fully involved father but all I have is limited vacation time with him. Parent alienation has affected my son deeply – he is reporting problems of delayed speech, hyperactivity, and poor socialisation skills.” Ashraf Ansari, a media professional, has been separated from his daughter (11) and son (7). “I have been alienated from them for the past two years. I get barely four hours in a month to meet my children. This has emotionally devastated me,” he says. According to Ansari, an estimated 1.5 million children in India are victims of parental alienation. “More than 120 parents are actively involved in our Parent Alienation Awareness Group and we have personally connected with 6,000 alienated parents across the country, a majority of them — 90 percent — are male parents,” he says. Types of alienating behaviours Dr. Jennifer Harman, a US-based global expert on parental alienation, says there are several types of alienating behaviours. “The alienating parent might badmouth the other parent in front of the child to gain her loyalty. Or one parent might reconstruct past events to make the child believe horrible and untrue things about the other parent, or prevent the other from spending time with the child. A parent may also intrude excessively (e.g, frequent texting) into the other parent’s parenting time with the children, or make false claims of abuse to limit their time with the children indefinitely. The result is the child can feel extremely negative toward the targeted parent for unjustified and often untrue reasons,” explains Dr. Harman, associate professor of applied social and health psychology,…
