Why Some Children Confess to Abuse that Never Happened

Monday, 9 July, 2018

Written by Amanda Sillars,
Founder of Eeny Meeny Minie-Mo Foundation - a registered health services and advancing education charity supporting alienated parents.

In this article "Interrogation Techniques, Mental Illness Are 2 Reasons Why People Falsely Confess To Crimes" we have adults confessing to things they haven't done through highly aggressive forms of interrogation.

In parental alienation cases, children confess to things they never experienced because they are under the pressure of a parent who interrogates the child every time they see or hear from their other parent. The parent will emotionally confide in the child, denigrate the other parent or make the child believe the other parent is unsafe or dangerous. They will also tell the child about adult matters like family court, child support and things no parent should ever discuss with a child. The alienating parent will often lie about things that never happened and add a nasty twist to real stories to make them more believable.

The alienating parent, with their distorted parenting communications, puts pressure on the child to give them answers whilst interrogating them, usually with leading questions. "Did mummy (or daddy) hurt you, was she angry, did she say bad things about me?" The pressure is on the child to say negative answers after every visit, or every contact they have with the other parent. The child eventually gives in and tells the parent what they think that parent wants to hear, a negative answer to reduce the pressure they are under.

Then the drama arises, the alienating parent believes the stories and keeps the stories alive, they often make false claims in court, police reports and child protection claims of abuse. The parent tells everyone they come in contact with, other parents, friends, extended family, school teachers, GP's you name it. The whole community ends up hearing about the so-called abuse or bad parenting of the targeted parent.

Meanwhile, the child becomes suppressed and an emotional extension to their emotionally abusive parent. The child is turned into a traitor and there is no backing out now. The stories become very real when they see the alienating parent's response and so much emotion and drama they cause. The child now believes the targeted parent is a bad parent, who abused them and they end up fearing them.

There is a huge problem with many family court experts, psychologists, social workers and children's lawyers who are inexperienced with interviewing children in these types of cases, uneducated about distorted parenting practices and communications by personality disorders parents or mentally unwell parents, all which have a huge impact on children after parents separate.

The child grows up in emotional turmoil. The fact is we are seeing many professionals making matters worse, they keep the story alive, gain financially from handling these cases and the child grows up in an emotionally abusive home with a distorted view of the parent they once loved. They no longer get to see their good loving parent that has done nothing wrong.

All the professionals see and hear is a child rejecting a parent. They need to look deeper especially when there is no evidence of sexual or physical abuse by the targeted parent and there was once was a healthy relationship.

Often the children are interviewed and or interrogated by school teachers, school psychologists, social workers, children's lawyers, private psychologists, police and single experts witnesses. In one case recently I attended as a support person for a mother with child protection in Melbourne, I noted down the children were interviewed by over 18 people in the absence of any objective evidence of abuse. They also stated "children do not lie," despite a plethora of research showing that children can and do lie.

The child mourns every day for the parent they no longer see but are confused with the conflicting emotions, it is like a computer virus in their mind. No one there to restore and reload healthy thoughts.

Parental Alienation is emotional child abuse.

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