Alienated Maine

One mother. One truth. Many families in Maine.

Mandated Reporters

What is commonly called “Parental Alienation” matches what is called Child Emotional and Psychological Abuse: What Maine Mandated Reporters Need to Know

Under Maine law, abuse includes a threat to a child’s health or welfare by mental or emotional injury or impairment by a person responsible for the child. “Parental alienation” is a vernacular term used to describe how one parent engages in post-separation and divorce coercive control to manipulate a child to reject their other parent. This seems to fit squarely within the definition of Maine domestic violence law (Title 19-A §4102) and child abuse law,, which defines it as “serious mental or emotional injury or impairment which now or in the future is likely to be evidenced by serious mental, behavioral or personality disorder, including severe anxiety, depression or withdrawal, untoward aggressive behavior.” This harmful behaviour may emerge in children whose parents are engaged in what some experts call a “high-conflict” separation or divorce, except it is not at all “high-conflict” because there’s a power imbalance where one parent holds control over the other parent using their child as a weapon.

Maine mandated reporters, including doctors and other medical professionals, school staff, and mental health professionals, are in the best position to recognize and report suspected child emotional and psychological abuse, and are required by law to do so. Maine law requires that every mandated reporter complete approved mandated reporter training at least once every four years. That training should go beyond the basics. This kind of child emotional and psychological abuse, commonly referred to as “parental alienation,” is too often missed, dismissed, or ignored by the child protection authorities who are responsible for protecting children from it.

Are neurodivergent children especially vulnerable? Some experts who work in domestic violence spaces say so. A child’s social understandings are different, and an abusive parent may have found a way to exploit them, redirecting, distorting, and gaslighting the child’s own beliefs and memories. What looks like a child’s choice to reject a parent may actually be a trauma response or a conditioned fear.

Schools have a vital role to play. A child spends most of their waking day in school. School should be a safe, neutral space where no one will ask them to take sides and where both of their parents are welcome, respected, and encouraged to belong and engage. When one parent is being excluded or sidelined from school communications and events without a court order, that exclusion is itself a red flag. Schools must resist pressure to sideline or exclude a parent and recognize this as a potential indicator of harm. The targeted parent may even express their concerns to school staff, and they often do so with the understanding that it is not the school’s place to choose sides in family issues, nor do they want the school to. But, it is the school’s job, by law, to report suspected abuse.

Ten warning signs mandated reporters should know, according to experts working in this space:

  • A child’s rejection of one parent begins or intensifies during or shortly after separation or divorce, in a way that appears sudden, total, and completely disproportionate to anything that parent has done.
  • The child unjustifiably resists or outright refuses to interact with one parent, particularly following separation and divorce.
  • Behavioral changes appear, including extreme withdrawal, hostility, or aggression towards the targeted parent.
  • School attendance problems, such as full-day absences, dismissals, and tardies. Schools should note the frequency with which an allied parent is involved in the absences. Maine law recognizes truancy resulting from a caregiver’s neglect as a form of child abuse.
  • The child develops or shows signs of anxiety, depression, hygiene neglect, low self-esteem, and diminishment of the child’s self-identity.
  • The child shows anxiety, hostility, or panic when asked or expected to spend time with the targeted parent. This may be enhanced when children have also witnessed physical domestic violence against their targeted parent.
  • The child internalizes hatred toward the rejected parent, believes that the parent did not love or want them, is “bad,” “crazy” or “unworthy”, and may even be denied the opportunity to mourn or speak about that parent. The alienating parent projects their own issues onto the child, creating a fictitious and delusional belief in the child that they are being victimized, and a cross-generational coalition against the other parent.
  • The child uses adult-sounding, rehearsed language about the targeted parent but cannot support accusations with credible personal experience that justifies the extreme negative treatment or cut off of the targeted parent.
  • The alienating parent denigrates the rejected parent to the child, over-involves the child in adult conflict, problems, and family court litigation, and this forces the child to take sides or feel guilty.
  • Older children may act out with aggression and defiance and show hostility toward one parent.

To report suspected child emotional and psychological abuse in Maine, call the Maine OCFS statewide hotline at 800-452-1999, available 24/7. Good-faith reporters are immune from criminal or civil liability for reporting or participating in a related child protection investigation.