Divorce Poison New and Updated Edition: How to Protect Your Family from Bad-Mouthing and Brainwashing

By Richard A. Warshak

Book Overview

Your ex-spouse is bad mouthing you to your children, constantly portraying you in a negative light, perhaps even trying to turn them against you. If you handle the situation ineffectively during a high-conflict divorce, your relationship with your children could suffer. You could lose their respect, lose their affections-even, in extreme cases, lose all contact with them. The conventional advice is to do nothing, that fighting fire with fire will only result in greater injury to the children. But after years of consulting parents who heeded such advice with no success, Dr. Richard Warshak is convinced that this approach is wrong. It doesn't work, and parents are left feeling helpless and hopeless. DIVORCE POISON instead offers a complete co-parenting guide for an effective response. In it, you will learn how to distinguish different types of criticism, how and why parents manipulate their children, how to detect the signs of parental alienation, and how these practices damage children. Most importantly, you'll discover powerful strategies to preserve and rebuild loving relationships with your children.

DIVORCE POISON is a time-tested work that gives parents powerful strategies to preserve and rebuild loving relationships with their children-and provides practical advice from legal and mental-health professionals to help their clients navigate child custody disputes and safeguard the welfare of children. Whether they are perpetrators of divorce poison, victims of it, or both, parents who heed Dr. Warshak's advice will enable their children to maintain love and respect for their parents-even if their parents no longer love and respect each other.

This essential guide provides evidence-based strategies to:

Understand Malignant Motives: Discover why a parent might try to turn a child against the other, from revenge and insecurity to a systematic campaign of brainwashing.Implement Counter-Intuitive Strategies: Learn why the conventional advice to "do nothing" often fails and gain powerful, proactive tactics to respond effectively to bad-mouthing.Protect Your Children's Well-Being: Equip yourself to shield your children from emotional harm and help them maintain love and respect for both parents, even when their parents no longer respect each other.Find Professional Help: Get practical advice for working with therapists and lawyers, and learn how to navigate the family court system to safeguard your child's welfare.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061863262
• ISBN13: 9780061863264
• Release Date: January 2010
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.91 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Must buy during a custody dispute and after the divorce!

I can say from personal experience that this book is priceless if you have a vindictive ex that uses the children to hurt you during and after a divorce. What your ex does not understand is the substantial damage it will do to the children long-term. To save your relationship with your children and to combat Parental Alienation the only book that actively helps you with point by point examples is this book. Not only have I bought "Divorce Poison", but my children's grandparents have as well. In "Divorce Poison", Dr. Warshak provides many different means by which a vindictive ex will attempt to alienate your children from you. What makes this book so valuable is that Dr. Warshak takes each alienation example and then gives you a TAKE ACTION assignment on how to best combat the attempts by your ex. There are numerous TAKE ACTION sections throughout the book and I must say that his advice truly does work. If your ex is poisoning your children and your relationship with them, this book will help you actively keep control of the situation and maintain a meaningful and loving relationship with those caught in the middle. An interesting point that Dr. Warshak presents is that oftentimes an ex that alienates their children against the other spouse, is the product of a mother or father that also actively attempted to alienate their children. Sad how history repeats itself. By purchasing this book you will help your children, your relationship with them, and you will learn the seven most common errors made by rejected parents. Fatherachildsright.org RobertPedersen April 25th is Parental Alienation Awareness Day!

If the other parent bashes you, if your child mysteriously dislikes you (or is uncomfortable), THIS

It's an unfortunate reality that some parents will do their best to destroy a child's relationship with the other parent. So long as those misguided or sick parents have unsupervised time with the children, there's always a risk of confusion, conflict, or long-term damage to the bond with the "targeted" parent. The most important aspect of this phenomenon is to catch it early, even if the bashing seems to occur on occasion or is subtle. Eventually, enough little drops of poison can have a devastating consequence. This book is an excellent tool to help "targeted" parents recognize signs of what the author calls poisoning (also called alienation tactics). Though the book's readership would likely readily agree that taking the higher road is always best, what the author emphasizes is that if the higher road is not coupled with a proactive approach, devastation to the parent/child relationship can be the result. What I found most helpful about this book are a couple areas: A) I realized that no court order, and no amount of counseling, and no common sense discussion would stop my ex from her subtle, on-going attempts to undermine my relationship with my daughter. B) I realized that there are many tactics I could employ to combat my ex's attempts... tactics that are nearly all positive and proactive. The author provides many ideas to the reader on how to help ensure the poisoning parent's attempts fall on deaf ears in the child. Strategies that I learned from this book have proven themselves with amazing results in how I handle my own situation... and the outcome is a young child who (on her own) has been able to conclude that her mother says untrue things about her father. That's a best-case scenario when you face a parent who refuses to shield the children from conflict or disparaging remarks. Though the attempts at alienation may never end, helping to insulate the effects is where this book shines.

The One Book on Divorce you Need to Read

If you should read one book on divorce and the impact on children, this is the one!This outstanding book provides great advice for parents who are badmouthing other parents, as well as ways the target parents can combat this abuse. Unlike "experts" who have not researched the most effective ways of combatting this type of child abuse, Dr. Warshak has determined through studies that parents who do nothing and say nothing are at risk for eventually losing contact with their children.Dr. Warshak carefully navigates the misconception that alienation is typically a "woman thing" by citing examples of fathers who alienate. In doing this, the author is able to assure readers that the book is indeed written "in the best interests of children," and not for any gender-based political agenda. Dr. Warshak's outlook on children, parenting and custody is refreshing and should be required reading for every family court judge, every family law attorney and every person going through a divorce. The author argues very succinctly and very successful that the two parents who were so vital to the welfare and growth of the children during the marriage are just as vital after the divorce. He also illustrates how family courts and mental health experts remove children from the target parent at the first sign of alienation -- which is the exact opposite of what actually works in these cases. Dr. Warshak argues that target parents need time to rebuild this relationship -- to show that they are not the parent depicted in the diatribes of the parent who is attempting to alienate. Instead, courts typically accept irrational reasons from a child for not wanting to see a parent without examining the root causes for the alienation. Dr. Warshak carefully crafted a "how to" book for target parents, but, more importantly, he has helped all parents become better parents by encouraging them to examine their true motives for making negative statements about their former spouses. In doing so, this author has created a classic that must be read by anyone who truly cares about children and the impact that divorce has on them.

Divorce Poison

This book offers both parents and professionals a practical and understandable road map for dealing with parental post-divorce anger and alienation that infests and poisons parent-child relationships with antagonistic brainwashing, false accusations, disparagement, and memory revision directed at the child against the other parent. The book provides workable suggestions for parents and therapists, suggestions that are long overdo and that correct once-popular and well-intended, but likely misguided, ideas about parental alienation. In another, important sense, this is a book for children - that is, for the mental health of children.Warshak gives readable case examples that explain clearly and understandably what to do and what not to do. His book separates true alienation from the alienation children create on their own, when the parent himself or herself alienates the children by their own actions. His book empowers parents affected by deliberate alienation with strategies for coping with their own feelings while meeting the emotional needs of their children. The book also offers encouragement and practical strategies for parents to help deal with their own feelings and behaviors, both when they are tempted to speak badly of the other parent, and when they have already done so and recognize the need to neutralize toxins they may have passed on to a child. In short, Warshak's book is a must-read, a survival manual, for divorced parents with children. It is particularly helpful for parents who suspect that their children might be alienated, or that the other parent may be attempting to alienate the children.

High Conflict Divorce Parents ...PLEASE READ THIS BOOK

I bought this book before the store even unboxed it for their shelf. I have to say that I was totally amazed at how Dr. Warshak nailed the description of my experience with divorce poison, the personality profile of my vindictive ex, and the response and effects I've seen it have on my child. It was like Dr.Warshak had interviewed and observed my family personally.Divorce poison is a sick and serious issue. I don't wish it on any child or parent. If you feel like you are the target of parental alienation, educate yourself, your ex and anyone (lawyers, therapist, family, etc) who has any part in your custody matter. One of the hardest things about the recent outcome of my two year custody battle is to realize how ignorant the court, forensic psychologist, therapist, school system, and especially the father of my son, are about the power and damaging effects divorce poison has on a child. If you are recently separated and struggling with a vindictive ex, please do not assume things will blow over or die down. People whose personalities allow them to justify bad-mouthing, bashing or even brainwashing often become consumed by revenge and cannot let it go even when it is detrimental to the child. Read Dr. Warshak's book and take action appropriately. My lawyer made sure Divorce Poison was on our table in full view at all times during our three day custody trial. I just wish the judge could have read it before interviewing my son. I totally agree with the prior reviewer that said this book is a bible. Picking it up and reading it every time I feel the frustration reassures me that I am not the sick one here nor am I the bad parent. With Dr. Warshak's recommendations, I can continue to try to foster a healthy relationship with my child while trying to address the poison he is being given.