Alienating Strategies

A list and summary of established strategies used by alienating parents and through and to the child, according to some of the leading U.S.-based experts. Alienating parents may use many or all of them. They may employ a variation of them. This list is not comprehensive. The named experts and their strategies are not listed in any particular order or preference. The importance of this list is to demonstrate that the defined strategies are overall consistent across expert definitions.

Dr. Amy Baker (with Paul Fine, 2008) — 17 Alienation Strategies:

Badmouthing — The alienating parent uses verbal and non-verbal communications to convey to the child that the targeted parent is bad, unloving, unsafe, and unworthy. Existing flaws are exaggerated, and non-existent flaws are manufactured.
Limiting contact — Violating or otherwise disrupting parenting plans and time, or exploiting ambiguities to maximize their own time with the child. An example of the alienating parent would be making plans for a fun activity or trip at the same time the child is supposed to be with the targeted parent, and even deliberately overlapping with the targeted parent’s plans, which would entice the child to do things with the alienating parent instead of the targeted parent. The targeted parent has few to no opportunities to counter the badmouthing, which weakens the parent-child bond.
Interfering with communication — Demanding or expecting constant access to the child when they are with the targeted parent, such as constant phone calls or texts, but the child and allied parent do not reciprocate when the child is with the allied parent. The child and the allied parent are in constant communication. Meanwhile, the targeted parents’ calls and texts to the child and allied parent often go unanswered, or calls and texts are intentionally blocked.
Interfering with symbolic communication — Creating an environment where the child does not feel free to think about, talk about, or, in some instances, is not even allowed, or is discouraged from having or looking at pictures of the targeted parent. Meanwhile, the alienating parent’s presence is constantly felt even when the child is with the targeted parent, as the alienating parent and child make frequent calls or texts to check in, follow rules imposed by the alienating parent, and worry the alienating parent will be upset.
Withdrawal of love — Making parental approval feel so important that the child would do anything to avoid the loss of love experienced when the child has disappointed or angered the alienating parent, particularly if by showing affection, care, and interest for the targeted parent.
Telling the child the targeted parent does not love them
Forcing the child to choose between parents.
Creating an impression that the targeted parent is bad, dangerous, or unstable.
Confiding in the child about adult matters — Using the child as an emotional confidant in age-inappropriate ways regarding adult issues and the parents’ custody matters and court litigation. “Emotional enmeshment.”
Forcing or coercing the child to reject the targeted parent — Creating situations where the child actively rejects the targeted parent, such as calling to cancel parenting time or requesting the parent not attend events. Planning fun activities or events during the child’s time with the targeted parent to discourage the child from wanting to go with the targeted parent. Once the child has hurt the parent, the alienation becomes entrenched as the child justifies the behavior by further cruelty and devaluing the targeted parent.
Asking or expecting the child to spy on the targeted parent — the allied parent asks directly or indirectly suggests to the child that the targeted parent has information to be gathered, such as their activities, income, pay stubs, receipts, legal documents, or medical reports, that is not being shared.
Asking or expecting the child to keep secrets, or deliberately hiding information from the targeted parent, things like school, medical, activities, and travel.
Referring to the targeted parent by first name to diminish their parental role
Referring to a stepparent as “Mom” or “Dad” and encouraging the child to do the same
Withholding medical, academic, travel, and other important information — Not providing information to the targeted parent about illnesses, accidents, medical and mental health issues, school events, sports, any out-of-state travel plans, and failing to share schedules, reading lists, and notices, thereby marginalizing the targeted parent in the eyes of the child and other important adults.
Changing the child’s name to remove association with the targeted parent
Cultivating dependency and undermining the targeted parent’s authority — mocking, diminishing, refusing, or overwriting the targeted parent’s rules in the eyes of the child, thereby undermining the targeted parent’s authority. Instituting rules that the child must follow, even when with the targeted parent. Developing a dependency in the child rather than fostering self-sufficiency, critical thinking, and autonomy.

Dr. William Bernet — Eight Behavioral Indicators:

Campaign of denigration — the child repeatedly and often complains about the targeted parent.
Weak, frivolous, or absurd rationalizations — The child gives reasons that do not reach a reasonable level for never wanting to see the targeted parent again and for being cruel to them.
Lack of ambivalence — The child sees one parent as all good and the other as all bad, with no mixed feelings. “Black and white” thinking.
The “independent thinker” phenomenon — The child insists that their views are entirely their own and that no one influenced them.
Reflexive support of the alienating parent — The child automatically takes the side of the alienating parent in any disagreement.
Absence of guilt — The child shows no remorse for their cruel, dismissive, or hostile treatment of the targeted parent
Borrowed scenarios — The child recounts events using the same story and often uses identical or near-identical words as the alienating parent.
Spread of animosity to extended family — The child’s hostility and rejection extend from the targeted parent to that parent’s relatives — aunts, uncles, grandparents, even though these family members have done nothing wrong to them. This particularly applies to the extended family that won’t align with their rejection.

Dr. Jennifer Harman (with Dr. Edward Kruk & Dr. Denise Hines, 2018) strategies:

Badmouthing and derogation — Nearly all targeted parents report that the alienating parent has used some form of badmouthing, either directly or indirectly, and in front of the child. Alienating parents go to great lengths to destroy the targeted parent’s credibility, labeling them as “dangerous,” “inappropriate,” or “crazy.”
Erasing the targeted parent — Referring to the targeted parent by first name or using, and may include, derogatory third-person pronouns to diminish their role in the eyes of the child, or forbidding any mention of the targeted parent in the alienating parent’s presence.
Humiliation — Mocking the targeted parent’s hobbies, interests, personality, job, family, and friends, and fostering the child’s attention on that parent’s flaws, imperfections, and past mistakes.
Denigrating the targeted parent, forcing the child to choose sides, restricting emotional expression, and limiting contact with extended family —especially with those family members who don’t align with the alienating parent and child.
Psychological manipulation and gaslighting — The alienating parent employs psychological manipulation and gaslighting techniques to distort the child’s perception of the targeted parent, disrupting the child’s cognitive schema and creating a polarization effect where one parent is idealized and the other wholly devalued.
Power and control framework (Duluth Model adaptation) — mapped alienating behaviors onto a modified “Power and Control” wheel, encompassing emotional abuse (spurning, corrupting, exploiting, denying emotional responsiveness), threats and intimidation (terrorizing, stalking, legal and administrative aggression), isolation, and other forms of coercion.
Coercive control as an extension of intimate partner abuse — Parental alienation has increasingly been recognized as a form of domestic violence and coercive control, where alienating behaviors are used to undermine a parent’s relationship with their child as a continuation of intimate partner abuse post-separation and divorce.

Dr. Craig Childress — Attachment-Based “Parental Alienation” (Pathogenic Parenting):

Childress frames the pathology through clinically established attachment science, personality disorder theory, and family systems constructs rather than a list of discrete tactics. The pathogenic parenting patterns he identifies include:

Role-reversal relationship — The personality disordered (narcissistic or borderline) parent engages the child as an external “regulatory object” to stabilize the parent’s own decompensating psychological and emotional state surrounding the divorce and rejection by the other spouse.
Manipulation and exploitation of the child — The parent psychologically manipulates the child into rejecting the targeted parent and exploits the child’s rejection to define the targeted parent as bad, inadequate, or unworthy (a key feature of narcissistic pathology), thereby restoring the narcissistic defense challenged by the divorce.
Cross-generational coalition — Drawing on Minuchin (1974) and Haley (1976), Childress describes the parent using psychological control to coerce and maintain an emotional alliance with the child against the other parent — a covert coalition across generations that, when it becomes a repetitive pattern, creates a pathological family system.
Parental psychological control — Drawing on Brian Barber’s research published by the American Psychological Association, Childress identifies psychological control — intrusive parenting behaviors that manipulate the child’s thoughts, feelings, and attachment bonds — as the core mechanism of the pathology.
Induced trauma reenactment narrative — The child is induced into adopting the “victimized child” role in the narcissistic or borderline parent’s attachment trauma reenactment narrative. This follows a false pattern of “abusive parent / victimized child / protective parent” — a false drama where the targeted parent is not actually abusive, the child is not truly victimized, and the alienating parent is not genuinely protective.
Induced delusional belief system — The child uses a delusional belief regarding the supposedly “abusive” and “crazy” inadequacy of the targeted parent to justify rejecting and punishing that parent.
Three diagnostic indicators of pathogenic parenting — Childress identifies three specific symptom features that, when present together, warrant a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse: (1) suppression of the child’s attachment bonding motivations toward a normal-range and affectionally available parent, (2) narcissistic personality traits appearing in the child’s symptom display, and (3) an encapsulated persecutory delusion in the child for secondary gain to the alienating parent.
Information control and wholesale deceit — Controlling everything the child sees and what information they receive so the child comes to believe things that are fictitious and untrue about the alienating parent, the targeted parent, and themselves.

Summarization of the above:

Despite using different terminology, frameworks, and levels of analysis, all four professionals describe fundamentally the same phenomenon and reach remarkably consistent conclusions. Their work overlaps in several critical ways:

1. Denigration and destruction of the targeted parent’s image. Baker calls it “badmouthing.” Bernet identifies it as the child’s “campaign of denigration.” Harman categorizes it as “badmouthing and derogation” within a family violence framework. Childress describes it as the mechanism by which a pathogenic personality-disordered (narcissistic or borderline) parent assigns the internal working model of the “abusive parent” onto the targeted parent. All four agree that the alienating parent systematically poisons the child’s perception of the other parent through exaggeration, distortion, and outright fabrication.

2. Isolation and severing of the parent-child bond. Baker details this through multiple strategies — limiting contact, interfering with communication, and interfering with symbolic communication. Harman frames isolation as a core element of the Duluth model’s power and control wheel. Childress describes the same outcome as the suppression of the child’s attachment bonding motivations (his Diagnostic Indicator 1). Bernet observes the end result in the child: the spread of animosity even to extended family members, especially when they do not align with the child’s adopted beliefs, reflecting a severing of relational ties. All four recognize that cutting the child off — physically, emotionally, and symbolically — from the targeted parent is central to the process.

3. The child is weaponized against the targeted parent. Baker identifies tactics like forcing or conditioning through manipulation, the child to reject the parent, spy on them, and keep secrets. Bernet observes the child parroting borrowed scenarios and reflexively supporting the alienating parent. Harman describes the child being used as an instrument of coercive control and family violence. Childress explains the underlying mechanism: the child is recruited into a cross-generational coalition and induced into the role of “victimized child” within the pathological parent’s trauma reenactment narrative. Regardless of the language used, all four describe a child being conscripted into an alliance against their own parent.

4. The child’s independent thinking and emotional autonomy are suppressed. Baker calls it “cultivating dependency” and “withdrawal of love.” Bernet identifies the “independent thinker phenomenon” — where the child’s insistence that these are their own ideas actually reveals the opposite. Harman describes psychological control and gaslighting that distort the child’s cognitive schema. Childress identifies parental psychological control (drawing on Barber’s research) as the core mechanism that suppresses the child’s authentic feelings and replaces them with the pathological parent’s belief system. All four agree that the child loses the ability to hold on to their genuine thoughts and feelings about the targeted parent.

5. Black-and-white splitting of parents into “all good” and “all bad.” Bernet names this directly as “lack of ambivalence.” Harman describes the “polarization effect,” where one parent is idealized and the other wholly devalued. Childress explains it as the child adopting the narcissistic or borderline parent’s delusional persecutory belief system — an encapsulated delusion in which the targeted parent is entirely bad and the alienating parent is entirely good. Baker documents it through the cumulative effect of all 17 strategies working together to erase any positive perception of the targeted parent. All four recognize that this all-or-nothing thinking in the child is an unnatural developmental behavior and a manufactured distortion.

6. This constitutes child abuse. Harman, Kruk, and Hines (2018) clarified that alienation is child abuse with consequences potentially more damaging than those from physical or sexual abuse, including depression, anxiety, addictions, poor relationships, and suicide. Childress argues that the presence of his three diagnostic indicators warrants a DSM-5 diagnosis of V995.51 Child Psychological Abuse, Confirmed. Some scholars argue that the solution involves recognizing parental alienation as a form of emotional child abuse. Baker’s longitudinal research with adult survivors documents the lasting psychological harm. Bernet has advocated for formal diagnostic recognition. All four professionals, though approaching from different angles — behavioral strategy identification (Baker), child symptom observation (Bernet), family violence and coercive control science (Harman), and clinical attachment pathology (Childress) — converge on the same fundamental conclusion: these behaviors constitute a form of psychological abuse of the child, and the child is both the instrument and the victim.

7. The alienating parent’s needs drive the process, not the child’s. Baker’s strategies reveal a parent acting to control the child’s relationships for the parent’s own purposes. Harman frames the behaviors within power and control dynamics that serve the alienating parent’s agenda. Childress is most explicit on this point: the child is used as a regulatory object to meet the narcissistic or borderline parent’s emotional needs, not to protect the child from a genuine danger. Bernet’s observed symptoms in the child — the borrowed scenarios, the reflexive support, the rehearsed quality of the complaints — all point to a child performing a role scripted by the alienating parent. All four agree that the child’s rejection of the targeted parent does not originate from the child’s own authentic experience but is manufactured by and for the alienating parent.

Lastly, and in essence, Baker provides the most granular catalog of the alienating parent’s behavior. Bernet provides the diagnostic lens for what the child looks like as a result of alienating behaviors by the allied parent. Harman provides the sociological and family violence framework for how this fits within broader patterns of abuse and coercive control. And Childress provides the clinical psychological explanation for why it happens, which is the underlying personality pathology and attachment trauma mechanisms that drive the alienating parent’s behavior. Together, their work forms a comprehensive, multi-layered understanding of the same destructive phenomenon, viewed from complementary professional vantage points.