Robert discusses parent alienation with expert Charlie McCready. Parent alienation is when one parent tries to damage the relationship between the other parent and their children. It often involves withholding the children from seeing the targeted parent and spreading negative narratives about them. Parent alienation can be divided into two phases: pre-alienation, where negative comments and undermining behaviors start to occur, and full-blown alienation, which intensifies after separation. Alienators are often driven by fear and insecurity, and they use control and manipulation to maintain power over the children. Charlie advises parents to focus on their children's needs, disengage from their own emotions, and send positive messages of love and support. For parents with no contact, he encourages them to learn about alienation and never give up hope. The principal themes of the conversation are reaching out to alienated children, the challenges of limited or no contact, the importance of patience and love, the need to focus on the present and future rather than the past, the danger of overwhelming children with emotions, the importance of being a positive role model, the impact of subconscious programming on children's behavior, the handling of angry children, the importance of self-help and personal growth, and the message of hope and resilience.
Key Takeaways:
Robert discusses parent alienation with expert Charlie McCready. Parent alienation is when one parent tries to damage the relationship between the other parent and their children. It often involves withholding the children from seeing the targeted parent and spreading negative narratives about them. Parent alienation can be divided into two phases: pre-alienation, where negative comments and undermining behaviors start to occur, and full-blown alienation, which intensifies after separation. Alienators are often driven by fear and insecurity, and they use control and manipulation to maintain power over the children. Charlie advises parents to focus on their children's needs, disengage from their own emotions, and send positive messages of love and support. For parents with no contact, he encourages them to learn about alienation and never give up hope. The principal themes of the conversation are reaching out to alienated children, the challenges of limited or no contact, the importance of patience and love, the need to focus on the present and future rather than the past, the danger of overwhelming children with emotions, the importance of being a positive role model, the impact of subconscious programming on children's behavior, the handling of angry children, the importance of self-help and personal growth, and the message of hope and resilience.
Key Takeaways:
Robert (00:00)
Hey everyone, welcome back to the dad to dad's podcast. Today's subject is one that I received numerous messages about asking me to cover it. Parent alienation, a form of abuse that affects a lot of children as well as causing harm to targeted parents. So I wanted to bring in an expert, Charlie McCready, who works with parents who have been targeted and helping them through that and also helping them reestablish relationships with their children.
And I thought we would go through parent alienation. What is parent alienation? What does it look like? And most importantly, find out from Charlie the advice, what advice he would give for those experiencing it. Charlie, welcome to the show.
Charlie (00:46)
Good afternoon, Robert. Thank you very much for having me here. It's an absolute pleasure to join you today.
Robert (00:50)
Well, look, thank you again for coming on. And Charlie, I get a lot of messages, and I have for a while about parent alienation. I'm experiencing this, or my ex is keeping me from the children, restricting phone calls, restricting time, going against court orders. Can you guys, can you please cover parent alienation?
You know, I've looked into it's harmful. I mean, it's, you know, we're not going to touch on the legal aspect of it, but I just wanted to find out from you. You know, what is it like? What is parent alienation? What, and what does it look like? I know it's kind of a broad, it's kind of broad, but
Charlie (01:26)
So basically, yeah, no, absolutely. And as we go through the conversation, it'll become a lot more apparent onto the nuances of it. But basically, it's where one parent is objectively trying to damage a relationship between you and your children. And usually this is done by mechanisms of kind of, as you say, withholding the kid from seeing you. There's a lot of negative narrative.
And I actually break this down into two distinct phases. So for a lot of people, there's something what I call pre-alienation. So this is where in your relationship, you're still married, you're still together, but your partner is starting to say negative things about you, or they might undermine you. They might say the opposite things in terms of your parenting style. And what they're doing, unbeknownst to a lot of people, is they're setting you up.
for what I would call full blown alienation. So at the point in time, typically at separation, that's when the gloves come off and they're on a mission to hurt us. You know, let's not be too kind about this. At this point in time, the alienators, they hate us and they vilify us. And what's really hurting, what's really happening is these people are hurting inside of themselves. And the way that they express that is that they try to destroy
our relationship with our kids and try to extricate us from that family environment. But I should say as well, it's a spectrum. So everybody's having different experiences. Some people have quite sort of minor versions of alienation where the kid is a bit unsettled because he's hearing some bad things about dad or mum. And then you've got severely alienated where the kid is effectively being cut out of your life completely and there is no contact whatsoever.
and parents will fit somewhere along that spectrum.
Robert (03:23)
Well, I've never heard of the pre alienation. So that can basically they're used, they're triangulating the children. Is that correct with that? And so that can be what like talking bad about the other parent to the children, putting them down, name calling that type.
Charlie (03:31)
Yeah. So then.
Yeah, you know, and accusing them of being mean, suggesting that they're a bad parent, being derogatory about their broader family. And some alienators, they get very possessive about the children, which is about their own insecurity, so they don't really want the other parent engaging with that child. So the other parent is not allowed to be a parent to that child. You know, it's always got to be the alienator's rules. And in other instances, you know...
Everything seems to be normal co-parenting, but there's a little bit of niggling going on about, yeah, well maybe your dad doesn't quite know what he's doing or maybe your mom might do that differently. But it begins this process of undermining who the other person is. And they'll do things like the things that we enjoy, they'll start putting negative associations with that. You know, so if we like camping, camping will be bad. If we like football, football would be bad.
you know, if it's a woman she likes dancing or painting, that will be bad. But it's just these very, sometimes quite subtle messages that the kids get that the other parent is somehow inferior.
Robert (04:52)
Oh my gosh, that's horrible. That's absolutely horrible. And then, so normally that happens first and then you move into the alienation part of it after separation or divorce.
Charlie (05:02)
Yeah.
And this is one of the reasons that parents are so surprised that the kids can in some instances change incredibly rapidly as far as they're concerned. So in my own particular instance, I don't talk a huge amount about my personal experience, but I went through 10 years on reflection of pre-alienation. And it was predominantly around money. And it was all to do with
my ex's insecurities about money. And so I became this person who was never providing enough. So for me, but for so many other people, they're surprised that when the gloves come off, you separate, the kids can change literally overnight or within a few days. Sometimes the alienator hasn't turned on all the full alienation, which is really sort of a...
conflict of loyalty that they create between you and the kid. So the kid has to do everything to appease the alienating parent. But when they turn that on, it's incredibly powerful. So in a lot of instances, the alienation is a fear-based relationship. So that parent is normally providing something to the child. The alienating parent is providing something to the child. So it might be...
love, it might be money, it might be support, but it's conditional. And so the child knows that unless they appease that parent, the things that they're going to be given will be withdrawn. And in some instances of alienation, the alienators never even give those things. So in a lot of instances, the alienators are quite aloof individuals who don't give love and support to their child. So their child is...
Robert (06:43)
Well.
Charlie (06:58)
constantly seeking the thing that they'll never get. And that's their power base. So when we talk about alienation, it's really quite a broad spectrum of different ways that different people classified as alienators are exercising power over our kids. I consider it's like a jigsaw puzzle. And my job is to help parents to navigate the jigsaw puzzle.
Robert (07:07)
Well.
Charlie (07:26)
And there are three key elements to that. So the first part is, what is your kid going through? Because we tend to view the world through our eyes. And that's something that every parent needs to do differently. It's like, stop looking through your lens, look through what's happening to your kid. Because you'll see something completely different happening. You need to look at their coping mechanisms, how they're dealing with it, what they need from you.
The second part is the alienators, because they all do very, very similar things, but they're all unique as well. So you really need to get into their mindset to understand what are they gonna do next? How are they gonna damage the relationship with your kid? And also understand they're not gonna change. You're in damage limitation mode with alienators. And then the third part of the equation is you. Because...
We come into this with so much of our own baggage issues, insecurities, and what happens to us is all of that stuff bubbles up to the surface. A large part of what we're experiencing in alienation is actually us experiencing our own insecurities.
Robert (08:42)
That's interesting. Can you go back when you said it's fear based? What is that fear?
Charlie (08:46)
Yeah.
So typically the child is being basically told by the alienating parent, you have to side with me rather than siding with the other parent. And normally if you don't, I'm going to punish you in some way. So I'm going to put you under psychological pressure, I'm going to stop you from, you know, I might stop you from seeing your friends, I might embarrass you publicly, I might withdraw my love, I might withdraw money. But it's all things that are going to
There will be a punishment unless you do what I say.
Robert (09:21)
Okay, what I was curious about was, is there fear on the parent that's doing the alienation? Is there fear behind the reason for them doing that?
Charlie (09:30)
Totally, totally. I think one of the misconceptions that people have of the alienators, because they often come across as being quite powerful people, they're not really powerful people. These are terrified people who are trying to control the environments around them, which manifests itself as being stronger than they really are, but it's fear. So they're massively fearful.
What I've discovered is, you know, people use the term, they talk about narcissists and psychopaths and cluster B personalities. And there's a debate about whether this stuff is nature or nurture. And I'm sure there is an element of nature, but every single case that I've come across, we're talking about hundreds of cases with parents, there's always been, the strongest case has always been nurture. So the alienators.
have either had some sort of negative experience in their past that they brought with them into their adult life and the controlling mechanisms that we see them using are them trying to stop or to avoid repeating ever experiencing that trauma again. And it stunts them as people. So they come in.
Robert (10:43)
interesting.
Charlie (10:48)
They come in basically with some very infantile or childlike qualities, which is where the whole non-compromising aspect comes from. The controlling is all about not wishing to revisit their past, but what you're dealing with is, because they're often quite volatile people as well, so they're very insecure, they're very vulnerable, and they have five big triggers. So first of all, when you break up with an alienator...
that makes them feel massively insecure because you're taking away their security. The second one is anything to do with any sort of court hearing or legal matters because they find that very difficult to control. So the decisions are being made beyond their sphere of influence. That makes them really vulnerable again. So that's their second one. The third one, money.
Robert (11:24)
Gotcha.
Charlie (11:45)
a really important security blanket for the alienators. The fourth one is if you get into a new relationship with somebody else, they really hate that because now there's one, there's the risk that you might be happy again and that's something that they don't want to see happen. But the other side being that you might introduce a new person into the life of your child and
Robert (12:11)
Gotcha.
Charlie (12:12)
that person might be a positive influence or they're really nervous that they're going to be replaced as the mum or dad. And then the fifth trigger is if you're having a good relationship with your child because they're trying to cut you out, they're trying to damage that relationship. And in all five instances, their typical reaction is to further alienate the kid because that's the most effective way of hurting you.
Robert (12:20)
Mm-hmm.
Well, it sounds to me like the alienating parent, you know, seems to me there's probably a personality disorder that's behind that. Because a lot of what you're saying is talking about control control. There's, you know, insecurities, feeling inferior. Yeah, that's interesting. That's very interesting.
Charlie (12:57)
Hmm.
And they don't go and seek help. These are people who typically don't get therapy for themselves. And I always, they don't like our kids having therapy. And so many parents have had the experience that if you go to a marriage counselor to try and resolve issues before the relationship comes to an end, they're quite happy talking about you and your issues. But as soon as it comes on to them, they're out of there. That's not...
Robert (13:30)
Yeah.
Charlie (13:31)
They're only there to criticize you, not to reflect on themselves. And that's the problem, because they won't... They don't have this ability to look at themselves and consider ways in which they can grow, like we do. And that's how we evolve and we change, but they don't.
Robert (13:33)
Right.
Right.
Wow, that is a subject for a whole nother day. alright, so somebody comes to you and, you know, they find you, they come to you and, and they're, I need help. You know, I'm being alienated from my children. What, what do you do? Like what, what advice do you give?
Charlie (14:12)
The first thing I tried to do is try to understand their personal jigsaw puzzle. So the age of the child, the experience of the child is kind of some of the most important stuff. So how long is alienation? What age are your children at the moment? Because if they are older than their teens, then they're probably having a very different experience compared to if they're six, seven, eight.
because the sorts of information, the sorts of lies that they're being fed tends to be quite different. And also the way that they're treated by the law is very different. So depending on which state you're on, which country you're in, from kind of 12 to 14, the laws typically start listening to what they call the voice of the child. But what they're listening to is the voice of the alienator, which kind of plays so that the laws end up actually disempowering the target parent because it favors...
the narrative that's been echoed through the kids saying, well actually I want to spend the time with my mom or I want to spend the time with my dad, who's the alienator, because they're putting the pressure on me and I have to appease them. So I like to understand, you know, how long has, how old are your kid, how long has this been going on for, what sort of contact do you have? So some parents have got pretty good contact, that's really helpful by the way. If you've got contact, you've got a foundation.
with which you can kind of work with and try and create some balance for the child in terms of their experience of you as an adult. So rather than just hearing all the negative narrative about you, if you've got no contact, you have no opportunity to correct their experience of you. And here's a complete no-no by the way, never ever talk about alienation to your kids because that is the one subject they don't want to cover. The reason being...
because of that loyalty conflict, they don't want to say anything negative about the alienator. So if you start defending yourself, by extension you're saying something negative about the alienator. And then when you also start criticising the alienator. So most of us get caught in this bear trap where our kids are starting to demonstrate science being alienated by being cold with us, they might be rude with us and there's different, there's whole, there's...
Robert (16:09)
Hmm
Wow.
Mm-hmm.
Charlie (16:32)
everything's on the spectrum, there's different degrees of bad behaviours they might demonstrate to us. And what we do is we start defending ourselves. So you've got a kid who's been in a household who hears something really negative about you and it's really uncomfortable, then they come and spend time with you in your household and they get the same thing from you but about the other person. So guess what? Your kid doesn't want to come and spend time with you.
Robert (16:43)
Right.
Charlie (16:59)
because you're putting them in the same situation as they are in their hostile environment with the alienator.
Robert (17:07)
So what is a parent to do? Like if, you know, let's say that you do have some contact and I wanna go to the ones that have no contact in a minute but if you have some contact and you are being alienated, you are being basically trashed to the kids, what is, you know, I would imagine that a lot of parents would wanna share their side of the story. No, I'm not like that. No, this didn't happen. And you know, no, I'm not mean.
Charlie (17:15)
Mm-hmm.
Yep.
Robert (17:39)
What do you do?
Charlie (17:40)
So, I'll just cover one of the things you don't do, which I see happening a lot, is parents, if they are not getting the response they want from their child, because your child will no longer, they no longer see you as a parent in the way that you were previously in a lot of instances. So that's one of the things that we need to recognize. You're no longer a parent with a capital P, you're a parent with a little p. You've been disempowered. So,
you basically need to move into a coaching role with your kid. And you can help your children by really being aware of what does this kid need from you. Even when the kid's being difficult with you, the kid does not need you to be difficult back. Your child actually needs you to be loving and supportive for them and recognizing they're going through a really, really hard time. And I talk about this two universes model, which I've kind of created.
And it's very simple. So if we imagine the universe of Robert and the universe of your child, what tends to happen is that when we're dealing with an alienated kid, we're coming at it from the universe of Robert. With all of Robert's issues and Robert's insecurities and Robert's emotional needs to be seen as, you know, the parent who you really are, not hearing all these untruths from your child. So that's where we typically come from.
What our kid needs from us is completely different because our kid is having all this pressure put on them by the alienating parent, so that the time spent with us feels uncomfortable because they know that spending any time with us gets them into trouble with the alienating parent. And then they've heard all this negative stuff about us and the kid doesn't know what's true, what's false. So it's really confusing for our kids. So...
Robert (19:32)
Right.
Charlie (19:36)
If we're stuck in our universe, we're not looking at what they need from us. So the first piece of advice I give to every parent is, you need to disengage from you and focus on your kid. And the best way of doing that is dealing with your own issues first. Now this is completely counterintuitive to what most parents think, because most parents...
they immediately dive into, I must do everything possible to help my kid. And when you say to them, no oxygen mask first on you, then you can help your kid. I find a lot of parents really struggle with that at first. They just can't get their heads around that. And it's a permission thing. It's like, well, how can I look after me when my kid is suffering? And the simple answer is, your kid will continue to suffer more until you look after you. Because...
Robert (20:06)
Right.
Charlie (20:31)
only at the point in time that you're emotionally resilient. Let's just call it that way. When you are no longer triggered by the stuff your kid is doing and the stuff that your kid is saying, you're now properly focused on your kid. So if your kid comes to you and they're in, say they're quite distraught because they've had some issues somewhere else.
or just being in your presence can make them deeply uncomfortable. If you're getting triggered by their reaction to you, you're not focusing on them, you're focusing on you. So how are you going to help your kid? When you're healed, your focus is on your child and you're looking for the symptoms, okay? How are you behaving? What do you need from me? The sorts of questions you'll ask them will be completely different. The sort of support you'll give them will be completely different. You're not going to be angry with them.
Robert (21:26)
That makes sense. Yeah.
Charlie (21:27)
you'll give them love. If they're rejecting you and what they receive back is love, then that's a much better outcome for them. If they're rejecting you and what they receive back is anger, guess what? You push the kids apart further away from you.
Robert (21:45)
Wow.
Charlie (21:45)
It's really counterintuitive.
Robert (21:47)
All right. So, you know, I've heard from different ones.
that have said, I have no contact. I have absolutely no contact with my children. Of course, because I talk to a lot of dads, I'm just coming, and this can happen with either sex or either parent, male, mom, dad, whatever. But these dads that'll say, I have no contact. She has basically pushed me out of their life. The court has ruled in her favor.
Charlie (22:07)
Absolutely.
Robert (22:16)
You know, she is painting me to be this horrible monster of a father, which I'm not. I won't contact with my children. I haven't seen, gosh, I had a message from a guy two nights ago. He hasn't seen his child in three years, three years. And, you know, when he goes, he can go to their games, but...
The kid won't come up to him after the games, after they finish basketball or soccer or football for you. But so what is their hope? What can a parent in that situation, what can they do?
Charlie (22:48)
Huh?
Absolutely.
Absolutely. So again, the one at one of the challenges that parents have is they ask, they ask me quite innocuous, simple questions. But what then what they're not taking into account is the this jigsaw puzzle complexity that sits around what's the correct answer for them. So again, it comes back to what's the child going through?
Who is the alienator? What are they like? And who are you? What's the version of you? So for the dad that's sitting in a game that has no contact, there are different versions of no contact. There's like genuine no contact where you never see your kid and they don't see you at all. Now that's the most extreme and that's the worst because it gives the alienator a real opportunity to create complete imbalance on
about the kid's perspective. So there's no opportunity for you to be physically there just to remind the kid of, oh yeah, I've just seen my dad, well maybe my dad's not such a bad guy because he's turned up at a game. Or maybe I do have some fond memories of my dad. And most kids still love us deep down. But no contact for some parents also means that they're still able to message their kids. So if a kid hasn't blocked you,
what they're doing is they're actually leaving the door open to you and you'll hear this from a
Robert (24:30)
Or if the parent hasn't blocked the kid from
Charlie (24:33)
Or if the parent, yeah. And quite often we'll find that the kid hasn't, or we're not blocked on email or text or WhatsApp or whatever, TikToks. When we're not blocked, because don't forget the kid has the choice to do that, that is them leaving the door open. And then a point of frustration for a lot of parents is we message them and they don't reply. And the reason why they don't reply is that
It's one thing to passively receive a message from you. That kind of is not crossing a line. To respond to you might then get the anger of the alienating parent, because now you're actively engaging with the person they don't want you to be speaking to. So as parents, we, again, it's from our universe, our emotional needs, we get really desperate about losing contact with our kids. So guess what? We bombard them.
with text messages, we bombard them with voicemail messages, we bombard them with requests to meet up with us. It's like back down, dial it down parents. Think about the kid. Send messages and never say you miss them by the way because that just guilt trips them. Because they're thinking, they know already that they're not seeing you and that's making you feel really bad. You don't need to tell them that they're making you feel bad.
Send them love. Send them positive messages. And if you get no response from texts, just keep going. Just do it like once a week, maybe twice a week. Keep it something really simple. If you're managing to still have an understanding of what's going on in your kid's life, send a message about, oh, I hear you did really well at baseball, or I hear you did really well at soccer, or I hear you did really well at school. Let them know that you're still engaged.
and the kids who are alienated, so just, so the kids who are alienated who were receiving those text messages but never responded or only responded very intermittently, all say the same stuff, which is, you know, mom, dad, really, that was my lifeline. I knew you hadn't abandoned me because you kept messaging me. And the time that you stop because you give up,
Robert (26:27)
So what, go ahead, sorry.
Charlie (26:55)
that's when the kid believes that you've abandoned them because that's what they're being told all the time by the alienating parent.
Robert (27:04)
So don't give up.
Charlie (27:05)
Don't give up. I say to everybody, never give up hope because you just don't know when things are gonna change. Kids get kicked out of home by the alienators and suddenly arrive at your door or they suddenly decide that they really do miss you and they now feel enough courage to reach out. The whole going to college when they're more independent, that's often a time when kids start trying to rekindle the relationship.
So keep going, but just reality is where you are today. Accept and deal with your reality today, but hope is what will get you to rebuilding your relationship in the future. Never give up hope.
Robert (27:52)
What about those? What, what about the parents that have no contact? They have absolutely, you know, the most extreme cases is their hope for them. What, what, what do they do? So let, and let me, I might've, I might've really messed up, but, um, I, I told this one gentleman, I said, um, you know, and of course I prefaced it, but prefaced it by saying, I'm not a doctor. Um,
And first thing I would do would be go and talk to a therapist and find out. So, but I said, you know, my layman's opinion would be, I would just go and buy a notebook. And every time I thought about them, or if I wanted to write them a letter, I would date, put a date at the top and write them a letter and just use that notebook and maybe, maybe one day you'll be able to give that to them.
Charlie (28:40)
Mm-hmm.
Robert (28:48)
Um, what, what do you, what do you suggest? I mean, my heart breaks for these people. Did I screw up?
Charlie (28:53)
I'm with... no, because that is something that I think will really help the mum or dad who's going through the alienation, because it's their way of kind of emotionally linking them in with your child. Just taking a backward step to come back to your question, my advice to every single parent without exception is...
Go and learn about alienation. Really understand what your kid is going through. So if you've got contact with them, you can use that skill to start helping them immediately. If you haven't got contact with them, what you're doing is you're preparing yourself for the time that the kid engages with you. And you also learn about, you know.
reaching out and trying to send them communications and how to not overstep boundaries and how to do it gently and how to be patient. Patience is a virtue. People say patient of a saint. Well, that is nothing compared to what we as alienated parents have to do. And we have to have patience and love that extends beyond anything we ever imagined we were going to have to exercise before. If anything, it teaches us love because we have to be so loving.
and give our children latitude that is kind of done at our own personal expense, we have to go through the pain to reduce their pain. But for the no contact kids, you, as I say, the dynamics can change at any point in time. The worst case scenario is you might never see your kid again.
that is the harsh reality. And that also links to another theme which we should cover about how you need to carry on conducting your life, regardless of where you are on that spectrum of contact, no contact. But for some people, they will not have contact with their kids. For some people, they will have very limited contact with their kids and it will always be a very strained relationship.
And that's because our kids are not going through their own healing process and have the ability to deal with rekindling with us. But we as parents always need to be prepared for helping our kids as much as we can. So there is a massive bear trap again. If a kid reaches out to you and you're not prepared as a parent.
you're gonna screw it up in most instances. And one of the big traps we fall into is we think, yippee, it's been one year, five years, 10 years, my kids reached out to me, they wanna have a conversation. Now is my time to set the record straight. And the kids basically put a tiny little toe into the water to see if it's safe to go in.
Robert (31:51)
Mmm.
Charlie (31:59)
and you slam dunk them with this enormous tsunami of all this stuff you've been painting up for years and years and years, which again, that's all your stuff in your universe. That's why you need to get rid of that stuff, deal with it. And that's where I spend most of my time with parents is helping them deal with the stuff in their universe. Because if you hit the kid with a tsunami, they're gone.
Robert (32:11)
Right.
Charlie (32:26)
They're gone. If they didn't see you for one year, they might not see you for another one or two or three years. So we have to learn as parents, and it comes back to the thing, never talk about alienation. And what you were saying about writing stuff down, you have to be careful that in sharing with your child the stuff that you were doing when they were alienated is reminding them of alienation.
Robert (32:26)
Yeah.
Wow.
Gotcha.
Charlie (32:51)
And as I said at the beginning, the conversation they don't want to have is about alienation. So your relationship with your kid is always about today, never the past. It's today and tomorrow. Whatever's happened in the past is in the past. Forget about what the alienator has done to you. Forget about what the kid has done to you. It's just today and tomorrow. And I say to all parents,
Robert (32:59)
Gotcha.
Charlie (33:20)
because there's this big thing called injustice. And I say, you've got a tongue for two reasons. First thing is to help you communicate to people. And the second one is it gives you something to bite down on when you're getting triggered or you wanna say something that you need to just bottle up.
Robert (33:32)
the
Charlie (33:37)
So get used to having a cast iron tongue, because you're gonna be, until you heal everything in your universe, you're gonna get triggered a lot. And you need to...
Robert (33:45)
You know, Charlie, I think about, as you get older and you go through, you know, high school, go off to college, you start thinking about, I'm thinking that from the point of a child or, you know, the child that's being alienated or that's, that's affected by it, I was thinking to myself, you know, you start wondering about your life, you start wondering about your parents.
You know, I shared with you that I lost my father when I was young. And I remember when, you know, it was college right after college. I kind of went on this quest wanting to know more about him. What was he like? What, you know, what was he like as a kid? What was, what was he like as an adult? And just really trying to find out. I think that's kind of natural for.
adolescents and young adults to want that. So there is that hope also that they will reach out during that period of time. And it might be with anger, because they could be angry because they've been fed all this BS the whole time, you know, that you were this horrible person. And...
Charlie (34:40)
Yeah!
I think it really depends on the kid. And again, it's this spectrum thing. It will depend on, first of all, the nature of the kid. Has the kid been relatively independent during their period of alienation, or have they been completely malleable and have become totally enmeshed with the alienator? Which can happen. There's also the degree of the alienation. So, worthy in that kind of...
less alienated or have they been severely alienated? There's the length of time is important. So has this been going on for two years? Has it been going on for, you know, 20 years? And what a big part of what we need to kind of consider again, looking from our kids' perspective is that the subconscious programming that's been taking place over a period of time. And one of the things that the alienated kids struggle with is that their conscious mind
can become curious and say, I wanna reach out to my mom, I wanna reach out to my dad. But then their subconscious mind is saying, oh yeah, but if you do that, you're gonna get into trouble. And so they've got this like battle going on between conscious and subconscious mind. And we all do the same thing. Anytime we try to change something in our own lives and about our own programming, we hit the same scenario. So,
One of the challenges for our kids, even when they've had contact with us, is that they're in our company, but their subconscious is saying, Ah, I feel uncomfortable. This doesn't feel good because I correlate being with that parent with getting into trouble. So they get, and if they've experienced that for a few years, that becomes their programming. And, and
Robert (36:34)
Well.
Charlie (36:41)
even when their conscious mind says I now want to change things, it can be really difficult for them to understand and then change that kind of subconscious programming.
Robert (36:51)
Before we go on, because I definitely want to move forward and talk about the parent that's alienated and how can they go on with their life? What about on the instances where a child will reach out and they're just, they're pissed, they're mad. They have this anger at the parent. What
How do you, how do you, how do you handle that? If you're that parent and you know, you've had all these stories told about you and you know, you've been told you're a deadbeat dad. You never did anything. You didn't want to be a part of the child's life. And so then your son or daughter one day down the road reaches out to you with anger because, you know, in their mind, they've been told these things. How do you handle that? What do you, what do you tell, what do you tell your clients?
Charlie (37:31)
Mm-hmm.
So I'm like a politician, Robert. I always answer the question with a different answer. But I will come back to your question. The thing that a top tip, and I try to ingrain this in every single parent, because I would hope that I come across to people as being fairly positive. And it's like, you need to get back into being the person who you are as a parent.
Robert (37:47)
Okay.
Charlie (38:05)
but you need some positivity because we get terribly down and depressed and we're just a wreck when this is happening to us. I've been there, I've done that, I don't do that anymore, I've not done that for a very long time, I've learned not to. Turn the stuff that looks like a negative into a positive, that's top tip for any parent. So if you're not having contact with your kid
and you're struggling with the fact that you're not having the time with them, flip it on its head and say, I am such a loving parent, I have so much love in me for my child, I have the capacity to give them that breathing space, so as not to put pressure on them, so that they're in a better space and I have enough love to gift that to them. So looking at the angry kid...
flip it on its head and say, rather than see the angry kid, you've got contact. This kid's with you. They're not, you know, you can do something with contact. It's very difficult to go against no contact. So the most powerful thing you have in your armoury, because you're now a parent with a little P and you're now a coach, but the thing that they're going to look at the most is
Robert (39:09)
There you go.
Charlie (39:30)
who you are as a person. Because you can't talk about alienation, you can't defend yourself, but you can be a role model. And this is how you kind of basically reprogram your kids. So if they see an angry parent responding to them, the message you're sending is, well, it's all about you as a parent, it's not about them as a kid. So you're not listening to
Robert (39:56)
at you.
Charlie (39:58)
their feelings, you're not listening to their perspective, you're just focused on you. So once, that's because you're still hurting in your universe. So you're not even listening to your kid. But then when you, what you also can't do is like, when you're a parent with a capital P, they're spending time with you, you can teach them your values, you can teach them how, you know, what you think a good way of conducting themselves in the world is. You can kind of
Robert (40:07)
Mm-hmm.
Charlie (40:27)
help guide them through the different experiences they're gonna have in life. You're not getting that opportunity when you've got this angry kid that you're trying to deal with. But what you can do is be the best role model possible of who you want the kids to experience. And that's a really important thing. Not who you normally are, but who you want them to experience. And the person you want them to experience is the
is the adult who is loving, caring, supporting, healed, resilient. If a kid says something that is irritating for you, that doesn't phase you. You just go, they need my love. Right, I'm going to give you my love. That's how you, in my view, that's how you deal with the angry kid.
Robert (41:17)
So it could be even so much as just validating their feelings. I can understand how you would feel that way with, you know, maybe that's it.
Charlie (41:25)
Yeah, talk, give them an opportunity to talk about how they're feeling. Yeah. And, and again, they kind of what they're doing is, is your relationship with trust has been very damaged by what the alienator has been doing. So these kids feel quite unsettled with us. And, and even when they're being angry.
Robert (41:29)
I appreciate you sharing that and mirroring and validating.
Charlie (41:53)
they're actually trying to kind of work out where they stand with us. And it's all part of that trust building process. If we can talk to them very calmly, very lovingly, very supportingly, ask them about them, keep the focus always on them, not you, you know, they'll start to talk a little bit. And when they say something about the alienator, that's a sign of them developing the confidence to think that, okay, maybe I can talk to my mom or my dad now.
without them saying something negative about the alienator, because as soon as we do that, the kid's going to shut down. So if they then start saying this to somebody that they can confide in, and that we are healed, and we're OK to be with, because we're just living our lives normally, and being a great moral model, they're still sponges. Even when they're in their 20s and 30s, they pick up on this stuff.
Robert (42:32)
It's really good.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Charlie (42:53)
And that's how you rebuild your relationships with them.
Robert (42:57)
No, I think that's very helpful. I know your time is very limited and I appreciate you coming on. But you touched on it and moving forward for the parents, what advice do you have for them, the kind of the self-help, what advice do you have for them?
Charlie (43:09)
Mm-hmm.
What I think the big thing that most parents don't kind of get their heads around at first because they get blindsided by what I call the emotional roller coaster and there are nine specific things that we all experience but it's very related to alienation so there's grief because we don't have the kids in our life there is guilt because we always beat ourselves up for not having done enough.
There's shame, which is particularly powerful for women, because the people around them are very critical about the fact that the kids are not with them, and they're with the dad. So the women get super beaten up by that. Then there's powerlessness, because we feel that whatever we do is wrong, everything is used against us, which leads into injustice.
Robert (43:55)
Makes sense.
Charlie (44:06)
It's like how can everybody be getting away with this and the legal system doesn't support me and nobody's supporting me Which all leads on to isolation because we're the only people in our view We're the only people going through this and nobody else we know Typically is able to talk about our experience and give us advice that's helpful Because they all see it through the normal lens of ours just the kid being difficult, you know Go and reprimand them or you know, give them been be
Robert (44:24)
Right.
Charlie (44:34)
give them stronger boundaries, that's the problem. It's like, no, stronger boundaries will estrange your child. We also get anger, we get anxiety, we get fear. And what happens is that the alienator creates that conversation within us, because they basically place all those emotional pressures on us. And this is where it gets crazy. We then start self-perpetuating that. So...
They put us on that roller coaster ride, and unless we do something about it, we will stay there for years. I've met some parents who've been on that ride for like 20 years, just going around and around and around and around. And part of it is a permission thing, and part of it is just recognizing that you're just looping. And you have to unpick what is in that kind of emotional roller coaster for you. So I'll pick a couple of examples. One is...
Robert (45:14)
Ugh.
Charlie (45:31)
your parenting expectations. So when you had, or even before you had kids, you look at your own parenting experience and you say, what was good? I'll repeat that, because that was good. And you say, what was bad? And you say, I'm gonna make sure that never happens to my kids. So even before your kids are a few years old, you already have this mapped out journey for what it was gonna be like.
Robert (45:44)
Mm-hmm.
Charlie (45:58)
going to their graduations and seeing them being adults, sorts of people they might be. So you create this blueprint and then you go through alienation. And what happens is that the blueprint you have in your head is now very different to the experience that you expected to have with your child. So the things that you thought were bad in your childhood, for instance, which you wanted to correct in your child's childhood.
Robert (46:00)
Right.
Charlie (46:27)
which isn't now happening. So you feel a lot of pain because they're now going through a negative experience. So you feel pain because they're going through it. Then you feel pain at a different level because you failed as a parent because it's not meeting your blueprint. And then you feel pain at a third level because it reminds you of what you went through as a kid. So that's just one example.
Robert (46:31)
you.
Charlie (46:54)
And then we have all of these insecurities and vulnerabilities that we brought in. So a lot of us are empaths, which is why we ended up marrying narcissists, sociopaths, whatever, these alienators. And being empaths, a lot of us, you know, we're not, we have confidence issues and self-worth issues. And so we got a lot of triggers. And so, you know, one of the confidence issues might come from
Robert (47:14)
Right.
Charlie (47:21)
our parents not giving us love and support that we should have received. So guess what? We're always looking for approval from the parents. The way this manifests in alienation is when your kid starts rejecting you, you suddenly find yourself looking for approval from your kid. Instead of, you know, it flips the child relationship, so the child-parent relationship on its head, instead of them looking to you for approval, now you're looking to them.
Robert (47:29)
Right.
Charlie (47:48)
they will do things when they're rejecting you that trigger your memories of constantly trying to seek approval from one of your parents, for instance. So that universe, that universe is full of things you need to understand, unpack, deal with. And when you're dealing with it, by the way, it creates a void. When you start getting rid of stuff,
Robert (48:00)
Mm-hmm.
Charlie (48:18)
I describe it to people as it's like imagine your subconscious is this huge warehouse. It is full of other people's stuff. And I think somebody I was watching a great thing the other day where they said 70% of what's your in what is in your subconscious is detrimental to your well-being because it's negative beliefs. 70% is really ignorant. Yeah. So you
Robert (48:41)
Yeah, I could see that. Wow. Yeah.
Charlie (48:47)
All of that sitting in your universe. So you need to start unpicking what's in there and throwing it out. When you throw it out, it creates a void. And if you don't fill the void, you then end up in the situation where you'll just go back to those old habits that you have. And the biggest piece of advice I have for any parent is get back on with your life. If you've been...
alienated to a smaller degree or if you've been cut off, you have to get back on with your life because think of those universes again and think of a cutoff situation as in no contact. When you're going through sadness and depression, you're on that emotional roller coaster, it's not impacting the universe of your child.
If you're living your life to the full, and you're embracing life and you're joyous and happy, it's not impacting the universe of your child. But it sure as hell is impacting you. And that role model, when you get to have contact with your kid again, if the kid meets the sad, depressed version of you, they don't wanna be with you. You're full of bitterness and sadness, and like, you're just...
Robert (49:44)
Yeah.
Charlie (49:59)
toxic to be with. What they want to be with is the happy, joyous parent who's giving them an example about what their life can be like. And it's again, it's counterintuitive. Alienation is just stuffed with these counterintuitive points.
Robert (50:16)
No, that's so I would think that's so hard, but that is so beautiful the way you put that. I mean, it really is.
Charlie (50:21)
But it is the truth, and it's a journey. You're not gonna clean that warehouse out quickly. I help people to shift their mindset within just a few weeks. But I've been doing this for, I've had 10 years of pre-alienation, 15 years, so five years of full alienation, another decade of kind of post-alienation and dealing with the scars. And I'm still on that journey.
I still have conversations with my own kids and I'm still seeing things that they need support with. Ah! And the thing I do for parents now is I help them to avoid the mistakes that everybody makes with their kids as well as fast track getting off that emotional roller coaster because you don't need to be there.
Robert (50:58)
So you can relate. You can relate. You've been there, done that.
Charlie (51:19)
In fact, when you're there...
Robert (51:19)
So people can reach out to you through your own, we found each other through Instagram and they can reach out to you through Instagram. Doesn't matter if they're in the US, Australia, wherever it may be, you'll help them.
Charlie (51:23)
Mm-hmm.
Global. Yeah, so the way that people can reach me is I've got a website which is very easy. It's CharlieMcCready.com. I'm on Instagram as Charlie McCready. I'm on Facebook as Charlie McCready. I'm also on LinkedIn in the same way. I've also got a group page called Overcoming Parental Alienating Behaviors on Facebook. But if you just look up Charlie McCready, you'll find me.
Robert (52:02)
And that's McCready. It's M-C-C-R-E-A-D-Y, correct? Okay.
Charlie (52:07)
Yeah, and I help parents all over the globe because this parental alienation is exactly the same wherever you are. Because it all sits in this spectrum of spectrum of the kid, spectrum of the alienator, spectrum of you, it's all the same stuff. But what is different is all the legal systems. But the way I help parents is I do two things.
The first one is just one-to-one coaching. So some people want to dip in and out. They just want to get an hour. Some people want to have three or four hours to help them through specific situations or just help them through getting a little bit more understanding of alienation or rebuilding their resilience. And then the second thing I do is what I call the nine step program. So it does what it says on the tin, nine steps. It's over an eight week period.
and it basically takes you through those three key things of understanding alienation to help your kid, getting into the mindset of the alienator so you start playing a better game with them, and getting you into a much better mental and emotionally resilient state. So over eight weeks, and what I do with both of them, so for the program it's tutorials and live coaching with me, and for the coaching it's just live coaching.
which is all done over Zoom. So people can access my expertise anywhere in the world.
Robert (53:42)
Wow, that sounds very powerful though. I love that with the step program. I definitely do. I think that's great. Charlie, what else did we miss? Did we miss anything else? I know we missed a lot, but it's...
Charlie (53:46)
Hmm.
I mean this is a vast subject. I think a good way to kind of finish up is hope. It's really important for everybody to have hope because we go through some really dark moments and we kind of think, you know, I'm missing my child right now and we get very caught in the weeds of the moment. And one of the things I teach all of the parents is, learn to take an elevated view.
Take a higher perspective, be the observer of what's going on. Because when you do, it gives you the emotional space from the pain that you're going through right now to be able to say, okay, right now, imagine it's a war. But this war is gonna go way longer than you anticipate. So this war is basically your lifetime and your kid's lifetime. So for most of us, we've got
depending on the age of the parent, you might have 40 to 50 years left in your life. If the alienator manages to steal 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, it's still only a small number of years out of 50. So it might feel like they're winning right now. Be patient. Do the right things. Don't rush this.
Let your kids come back to you in a way that works for them. Then you get to win the war. Because once they start having good relationship with you, it's really difficult to re-alienate them again. So it might take you five years, but take the five years to win the next 40.
Robert (55:37)
Great advice, great advice. I definitely understand why you're an expert in this. And I highly recommend to anyone listening, to those listening out there to reach out to Charlie. If you're dealing with this, struggling with it, I know there's several people, reach out to him and see what he can do for you and how he can help you out and help you through this.
horrible journey that you're on. And I love your part of hope. Seems like hope and patience is a big part of this.
Charlie (56:17)
And remember, you're a great parent. That, that is the truth. Whatever else the kids are saying, the alienators are saying, none of that is true. You know, you guys are great parents. Hold onto that truth and let that shine.
Robert (56:20)
Yeah.
Charlie, thank you. I really appreciate you being on, and I look forward to maybe future conversations as well. And again, I know your time's limited, but thank you for coming on. I really appreciate that. And hey,
Charlie (56:44)
It's been an honor and thank you so much for inviting me, Robert. I think what you're doing is amazing and we need you to keep going with all this education and this support you're giving parents. It's the lifeblood of success going forward.
Robert (56:47)
definitely looked
I'm trying. I'm trying. It's a struggle at times, but I'm trying. So well, Charlie, look, thank you again for coming on and look, thank you also. Uh, thank you all for listening to the dad to dad's podcast and you can find us on Spotify or Apple podcasts as well as on YouTube and Instagram. And don't forget to hit that like and subscribe button so you don't miss any future episodes and we'll see you all next time. Thanks so much.
Charlie (57:03)
You're amazing. You're amazing.