First Do No Harm
Since I created this post three years ago, a hearing took place on July 20, 2023, in Charleston County Family Court where my fiancé’s parenting rights were effectively stripped away, and still have not been restored.
A hearing he knew nothing about.
This father and child had spent two uninterrupted weeks together just three weeks before the July 20, 2023 hearing….
At the time I made this post, we had no idea what was coming.
We did not yet know:
— that the “family counselor” would eventually provide therapy only to the child.
— that the now child’s counselor, was allegedly practicing telehealth across state lines without proper licensing.
— that opposing counsel would later step down and become counsel for that same counselor in this case.
— that six different professionals, including therapists and a GAL, would all somehow fail to reunify a father and child after allegations that he “yelled,” “showed anger,” or “hurt the feelings” of his teenager.
Apparently, alleged yelling now justifies a three-year-and-counting parent-child separation.
We also had no idea what “therapeutic communications” or “clarification therapy” even were.
Truthfully, we still don’t.
No one can clearly explain:
- what they are,
- when they officially begin,
- what success looks like,
- or how families ever actually finish them.
We certainly did not know the attorney supposedly appearing on behalf of the father at that July 20 hearing had allegedly been working for free leading into and through the hearing and has since refused to provide detailed records for that work… because he did it for “free.”
And let’s not forget:
the gag order and the sealing of the records,
at the hearing where posts like this one exactly, could have been presented…
Meanwhile, the system kept this family trapped in litigation long enough for the child to age out entirely and all that this family can now litigate are the fees associated with it all…
All because this father asked the Charleston Family Court and their “employees” for assistance in enforcing an already standing order of his parenting time.
So maybe I wasn’t that far off three years ago after all.
This is exactly why Parental Alienation Resource exists.
— Nicole
It sounds like due process was never provided to protect the child's right to a relationship with her father, and her father's right to be with his daughter. I'm experiencing a similar situation in Washington state.
prepared to do the job they are tasked to do, regardless of whether it is an alienation case. And then, when it does come to cases of provable alienation, the courts, in their bewilderment of what must be going on, and consumed by a need to first protect themselves from issues of liability, too often take the easiest and safest (for themselves) way out.
What ends up happening is that courtroom personnel get drawn into gazing at the mirage of so called abuse, for example a father showing anger, while looking the other way and ignoring the real, identifiable abuse that is happening in plain sight. Perhaps it’s more exciting to corner a father with false allegations than to hold an alienating mother accountable.
I have also previously written about the failure of so many in that family court system to actually understand parenting, itself, and especially that mothers and fathers are culturally different in how they parent their children, leaving themselves jumping on the bandwagon of believing that a father is being abusive just because he expresses his anger.
I believe that such is not so much being ill-informed or ill-prepared but is intentional ignorance on the part of the family courts.