On this episode I talk to Paul Withall and Amanda Sillers about parental alienation, male suicide and family law.
Paul is the Founder of Zero Suicide a not-for-profit organisation that advocates to make bulk change on the issues in society that cause people to have suicide attempts or thoughts at an institutional and government level. Zero Suicide does not accept money, grants or raise funds through merchandise. They run on love and fight for the truth. Paul is also lobbying for a Minister for Men.
Amanda is one of Australia’s most renowned research advocates in the Parental Alienation space. Her foundation, Eeny Meeny Miney Mo, is a support group for parents and children who are experiencing alienation. She knows about this because she has lived experience. This experience and her research puts Amanda in a powerful position to unpack parental alienation and how it is harmful for both parents and children. Amanda is dedication to have parental alienation recognised as a form of child abuse across the Family Court and Domestic and Family Violence legislation.
Transcript
Speaker 1:
You’re with Senator Malcolm Roberts on today’s news talk radio, TNT.
Malcolm:
This is today’s news talk radio, tntradio.live. And I’m Senator Malcolm Roberts. And I’m very, very proud to be a host on TNT radio because we’re putting out both sides of the news. I want to move now to a man I met a couple of years ago in Maryborough, which is on the Queensland coast and his name is Paul Vittles. And he struck me as being very knowledgeable, very dedicated, and very caring man, who has a passion for helping people. Very, very caring. He was passionate, he was very active, energetic, but he was not overbearing. He just knew his stuff and he wanted to share it and he wants a voice. We’re going to give it to him now. Paul Vittles is the founder of Zero Suicide, a not for profit organisation that advocates to make bulk change on the issues in society that cause people to have suicide attempts or thoughts at an institutional and government level. Zero Suicide does not accept money, grants or raised funds through merchandise. They run on love and fight for the truth. Paul is lobbying for minister for men. Welcome Paul.
Paul:
Thank you, Malcolm. Thanks for the opportunity.
Malcolm:
Tell me something you appreciate, anything at all?
Paul:
Being in a position to be able to help other people and getting opportunities to make a difference in the community.
Malcolm:
Well we hear, Paul, a lot about the plight of women during family breakdowns, but how badly are men suffering?
Paul:
It’s not just the suffering, it’s the lack of support, the reason why they’re suffering. There’s no housing directly for men that are going through anything. They can’t get funding for free legal. When they’re in family court, there’s people that are making false accusations and restraining orders, and there’s no services for these men to turn to, to get assistance. So in turn, it makes them lonely and causes them issues.
Malcolm:
I mean, our previous guests today have said pretty much the same thing. Is there something unique about men compared with women? Women, when they get under pressure, they tend to run off to other women and they seek each other. And then the other women actually like that. If you know what I mean? Because they’re given the opportunity to care and humans love to care. Men and women love to care. So when we ask for things, we’re giving the other person who we’re looking for care from a real opportunity to express themselves, men don’t seem to think that way.
Paul:
No, they don’t. It’s not that they don’t think that way, I don’t believe. I believe it’s because they don’t have the opportunity to reach out that way. So men feel that if they’re going through something, they can talk to their mates about it. But if it’s something like you’ve lost your children, they’re worried that they’re going to be branded more so through relationship breakdown, if they’re having problems in their relationship, a domestic dispute with their partner or just niggles in the relationship. They don’t want to tell other people that, because it can in turn cause them more problems. People ask questions and if they put it out on social media, in turn, other people will attack them. And for that reason, it makes them stay silent, it’s because of the way society is.
Malcolm:
And that’s the very worst thing that someone can do rather than share it. And when we share we give someone the opportunity to care, even if sometimes they might reject us because they’ve got issues themselves, but it gives them the opportunity to care.
Paul:
Yeah. But men are scared. That’s the thing, men are scared now because society’s changed to the place where men are put in a corner and they’ve got to fight their way out of that corner. And whether there’s no services and we reach out to politicians and other services, there’s just simply nothing there to actually deal with the three issues that men deal with the most. And that’s like you say, one of the top things, relationship breakdown’s the main reason for men’s suicide.
Malcolm:
What are the other two?
Paul:
First one’s relationship breakdown and divorce, the second one’s loss of children or access to children and the last one’s financial or court. And to actually add to that with the mental health banner that everyone talks about when they link suicide and mental health together, men’s suicide’s just under 50% mental health related.
Malcolm:
And all three of the top causes for suicide are involved in the family law court system, all three.
Paul:
100% spot on. And when these men go to family court, there’s no one in court to actually talk to the people or assess the nature of how they’re dealing with the process. And especially men, they’re losing their children. The people that they’ve loved and cared for, and they’ve built their whole life around. Even their partner, even if the family’s broken down they’re losing that partner as well, even if they’ve had the fight and things are bad, but there’s nothing for them. So in turn, these men that have fought their whole life to become a father and to have a happy, healthy relationship when that breaks they’re broken. And there’s nothing there, the family court for these men to turn to, there’s more to it, but that’s the basis of what happens.
Malcolm:
So, let’s explore that a bit more by looking at what men do differently, compared with women during times of family distress, what do men do that women don’t do? And what do women do that men don’t do?
Paul:
Well, men will isolate they’ll… I suppose both genders would drink. But men will isolate because they have to isolate because there’s nowhere for them to go. They can’t reach out to a solicitor and get help. While they’re going through family court, for instance, 40% of men that go through your family court it costs them a minimum of $11,000. Some men don’t have that and it’s really hard to get legal aid in a small community town because there’s a conflict of interest there. So for that reason, they may-
Malcolm:
What the conflict of interest?
Paul:
Conflict of interest is when you have one solicitor that’s being used, say the local legal aid solicitor, and another solicitor comes in. I mean, someone wants to use the solicitor, but there’s none in the town. They actually physically cannot get a solicitor.
Malcolm:
So, if the spouse’s signed up with that solicitor tough luck, you can’t sign up with that solicitor?
Paul:
Yep. And that solicitor might be the local legal aid solicitor, and they’re being funded because men can’t get free legal when it comes to family court. Whereas women, with no disrespect, if they make a claim of domestic violence or anything like that, they can get free legal for those reasons. And during that process, they’re being funded as well with housing, with food, food parcels, food vouchers, and many other things. But men can’t get that assistance. So when they’re going through the process, they feel even further isolated pushed back further into the corner.
Malcolm:
So they see the system is different for them, and they’re probably wondering why. And they may not even know that women get all these things, but they just know that they’re isolated and alone, and they’re very vulnerable. And they just dig deeper into themselves, whereas they should be reaching out.
Paul:
They should be reaching out. But where do you reach out to, Malcolm, when there are no services that are individual for men? I challenge anyone in Australia, look through and find a domestic violence service for men, look through, find… even trying to get just normal alcohol or drug counselling. They’re there but the waiting list is three to six months. So if someone in family court, a male turns to alcohol or starts drinking heavily, or starts using drugs more, or for whatever reason during that process, there’s no service for them to get help, to deal with that issue, which causes further depression.
Malcolm:
I’ve got some other questions prepared, but I want to, before we get onto those other questions, you’ve compiled a report on men’s suicides based on government statistics. And the final copy of that is being released next week. Is that true?
Paul:
Yes, it is.
Malcolm:
And it’s titled… I have it here with me, I haven’t read it because it is long and it’s detailed, Zero Suicide Report on Men’s Suicide in Australia. And I think there’s a Facebook page?
Paul:
Yeah.
Malcolm:
What is that?
Paul:
Our Facebook page is… Good question, Malcolm. It’s ZeroSuicide Community Awareness Programme and Walks To Prevent Mens Suicide.
Malcolm:
So we’ll do that again. ZeroSuicide Community Awareness Programme And Walks To Prevent Mens Suicide. What do you mean by walks to prevent men’s suicide?
Paul:
We launched a proposal in state minister for men on the basis of suicide two years ago. When we did that, we did that around three states and it was walks. So we walked from one place to the parliament house to announce the proposal. And basically it was a protest.
Malcolm:
What sort of distance?
Paul:
2 and 3K. Not far walks, but it was more about the… We were hurt, we wanted to get our message out. So as we were walking along the streets, we were handing out flyers about the proposal, we were trying to engage with people and show them what was going on. When we got to parliament house, it was a really good feeling just to be proud that we’d had the proposal and from there we got other people were coming up to us. Even after that walk, our leadership team of 12 in Victoria, we all walked separate ways and walked through the whole city, handing out all the leftover flyers of 150.
Malcolm:
Hang on. You just told me a leadership team in Victoria. Is this a national crusade?
Paul:
No. So we launched it in Victoria two years ago, we had a lady, Kathy Cooper that was passionate about our work and she’s from New South Wales. So we ended up forming a Zero Suicide in New South Wales.
Malcolm:
So you’re from Queensland.
Paul:
I’m from Victoria.
Malcolm:
Oh, you’re from Victoria. That’s right.
Paul:
Yep.
Malcolm:
That’s right. You’re you’re in the show society.
Paul:
Yep, so [inaudible 00:10:01]-
Malcolm:
That’s right.
Paul:
That’s why I became the leader, so to speak-
Malcolm:
[inaudible 00:10:04] as Queenslander.
Paul:
Because being a travelling show person, I’ve got the capacity to get to the government offices in all the different states to get to all these different places. And that’s what made Kathy from Zero Suicide join the team because she knew I had the capacity, she’d seen what I was doing. She’s like, “I need to help you, I’m in New South Wales. What can I do?” And here she is out there flown up today and she’s outside in our Zero Suicide tent today leading the way. We’ve got walk to… We’ll talk about that later, we’ve got event coming up at parliament house in Canberra that she’s instigated.
Malcolm:
Do you want to talk about that now or deliberately leave it till later? Whatever.
Paul:
I’ll leave it till later.
Malcolm:
Okay. When’s when’s later?
Paul:
When we’re about to wrap it up.
Malcolm:
Okay. Okay. Now we’ve talked about dads and moms who really in a lot of trouble and hurting, but children are missing out on their dads during family breakdowns. What do you see happening in this space?
Paul:
Suicide. Oh my God.
Malcolm:
Of children?
Paul:
Oh, you wouldn’t believe it. There was a 10 year old last week committed suicide.
Malcolm:
10?
Paul:
10. Yep, in Wollongong. 10 years old, that’s how bad this is getting. Now, we can’t honestly say we know exactly what his cause was because I didn’t deal with that child. But there’s 10 year olds, there’s 14 year olds. And you’ll see in this report that I’ve given you that some of the statistics it’s horrible. But what happens, it’s not just suicide. These children get bullied at school, we know bullying at school causes suicidal thoughts in children. This is when the children realise that, “Hang on, my dad will think that my mom or dad doesn’t love me.” So they have that opportunity to have their first try of drugs or go to that party. That’s when that starts. That’s when they think, “Well, they don’t care about me. I might as well do it.”
Paul:
So that starts the whole cycle. And in turn, once you live at home is what you see. And if you’re not getting the love, or even if you are getting the love, if you alienated against or any of that, it all starts at home or with your peers that you work around. And that’s why children are killing themselves. And not just killing themselves, starting that process of having an unhealthy life as a teen. Because when teenagers go through that, they don’t understand. And they might say they do, they don’t understand. And because they say they understand they don’t get the assistance that they need from the people that need to help them.
Malcolm:
So you won’t hear this in the Mockingbird media, the legacy media, the tainted media, the mainstream media, you will hear it on tntradio.live because the only mandate at tntradio.live is to tell the bloody truth. And that’s why we want to give a voice to people like Paul right now. So Paul, one of your pet strategies is to get a minister for men. How will such a thing make a difference for our society?
Paul:
There’s literally hundreds of ways. Firstly, having a minister for men instated, we can start dealing with the issues that are facing men in society that make them want to take their own life.
Malcolm:
So in some ways it’s a bit of a flag, but men have arrived. The issue is real.
Paul:
Yes.
Malcolm:
So it’s symbolic. It’s a flag.
Paul:
Yep.
Malcolm:
Okay.
Paul:
We have ministers for women, at the state and federal level all over our country. We don’t have ministers for men. Isn’t that the most inner quality you could talk about when it comes to our parliament? I mean, at the end of the day, let’s can even make the minister for men, a woman. It doesn’t matter so long as they’re trying to deal with the issues before the thought takes place. So we need to instigate, we need to get some simple answers. They could have the men’s sheds. They could be government funded, we can use the youth programme. So with the correctional facilities, we have these children that go out and do… Young boys that are going out, cleaning graffiti off with other criminals.
Paul:
Instead, we could put these into the men’s shed where they’ve got old heads working together to learn from each other. If that was funded, we could make change. There’s lots of different things. We have people screaming that men are the instigators to domestic violence. Okay. Don’t blame, let’s instate the minister for men, let’s research the reasons why. From that, we can instil the things that need to change in men. In turn, we drop the suicide rate. We can deal with the domestic violence issues. You know that you can’t take a child to a refuge in Australia if you’re a man?
Malcolm:
Well, what do you mean?
Paul:
You can’t. There’s no one refuge in Australia that a man can leave domestic violence with their child and go into. None.
Malcolm:
So if a man is suffering from domestic violence, then he can’t take his child with him?
Paul:
And in turn that causes domestic violence. It forces these men to stay in the home. Quite and often men are threatened, “If you do this, you’re going to lose your kid.” We’ve all heard this before, we’ve all heard the sentence. That forces men to stay in toxic environments, and some of these men are not violent. Of course they are but if they stay in that environment, the children see it. Like I said, it goes through that, that causes children to feel bad. It educates them that’s the wrong relationship.
Malcolm:
We need to go to an outbreak. And so this will be the last question for you, Paul. But while I understand now, the minister for men is a flag to say, “Hey, men have problems too.” And I, and I get that. And that’s a positive reason for doing it. I think that it’s a need to get back to basics for both men and women in our country. Need to get back to basics for Aboriginals in our country. And need to get back to basics for so many groups of people in our country.
Malcolm:
And so I would put it to you that while the minister for men might be a nice flag, until we fix family law, until we fix the tax system, until we fix the energy system that man has caused, government has created. Until we fix cost of living, until we fix overregulation, we will be continuing this spiral of misery because government seems to think that they have to be the solution when they’ve caused the bloody problem in the first place. Government’s duty is to create the environment in which people can operate sociably and effectively. They don’t have to be the environment, they have to create the environment. And if we got back to basics we’d have one spouse at home because the taxation system would be reasonable and we’d have so much nurturing, so much of a better environment for a decent family.
Paul:
You’re right. But at the end of the day, because they haven’t done that suicide and all suicide is now nearly 80% men. And that’s because that hasn’t happened, Malcolm. That’s why we need to instate the minister for men. In talking 80% of all suicides of men, clearly there’s something wrong with our society. That’s why I fight for the minister for men, the segregation, just because you’re Aboriginal, you look through those stats. Most of those people will be men and all the same problems, family relationship breakdown, loss of children. And it’s all the same thing. The LGBTQI community, same thing. You’ll find it’s mostly the trans or the gay men. And that’s why we need this minister for men because it’s 40 years now, this is [inaudible 00:17:24]. 40 years, men’s suicide has been 70% of all suicides.
Malcolm:
Wow. We need to do something about this so well, we can see that the need for minister for men to draw attention to it. We need to get back to basics in this country and fix the governance. So thank you so much, Paul, for coming in. We’ll now go to an ad break.
Paul:
Thank you for your time, Malcolm. And I appreciate it.
Malcolm:
This is Senator Malcolm Roberts again, back with a new guest on parental alienation behaviours. We’re going to move from the term parental alienation to parental alienation behaviours. So my guest is Amanda Sillars and she’s with Eeny Meeny Miney Mo Foundation, and we’re going to talk more about that later. Amanda is one of Australia’s most renowned research advocates in the parental alienation behaviours space. Her foundation, Eeny Meeny Miney Mo is a support group for parents and children who are experiencing alienation. She knows about this because she has lived experience, this experience as both a child and as a parent later. And her research puts Amanda in a powerful position to unpack parental alienation and how it’s harmful for both parents and children. Amanda is dedicated to have parental determined and dedicated to having parental alienation recognised as a form of child abuse across the family court and domestic and family violence legislation.
Malcolm:
And I must give her an apology because she contacted me some time ago and I put a note in my calendar, “Call Amanda Sillars.” But I kept trying to find her number. So anyway, here we are face-to-face and what a beautiful smile she’s got. Anyway, welcome Amanda.
Amanda:
Hi, it’s great to be here.
Malcolm:
First thing, tell me something you appreciate can be about anything?
Amanda:
I guess, despite the things that I’ve been through in life, I’ve had a lot of trauma and things like that as a child and as a parent as well. I’m grateful that I’ve got that experience, that I can better understand others who go through these type of things. It’s a strange thing to be grateful for, but I’ve learned so much from it and I’ve become a better person and less judgemental and more understanding.
Malcolm:
Thank you. I appreciate your smile, very much. Childhood Amanda is such an impressionable time and a child’s adoration for their parents, makes them especially vulnerable. How easily can children be manipulated by one parent?
Amanda:
Oh, extremely easy. From the day that we’re born, we look to our parents for the facial expressions of what’s happy, what’s sad, what’s surprising and the angry face and all that sort of stuff. So, starting off with some of the naive alienating behaviours is the nonverbal communications. So, if a parent’s showing that they’re bitter towards another parent, or they’re angry or they’re horrified, things like that is that children will look at their parent for these cues and they’ll respond to these cues. So if you’ve got a caretaker that’s showing that they’re really angry at the other parent, and the child starts to associate that when the moms or dad’s angry with the other parent, “But this parent’s making them upset.” And so, they can start withdrawing from the other parent as a result of simply the non-verbal communications.
Malcolm:
Well, I imagine it actually probably goes even deeper and you correct me if I’m wrong, because you’ve been through it and you’ve done the research. But if a child loves both parents and they’ve got good reason to, and one parent suddenly starts trashing the other parent, then the child is going to be, “Hang on, well I don’t see that.” So that child is going to be very confused, they’re very much doubting what they are seeing and they’re going to doubt themselves and reduce their self-confidence. Because they’re saying, “Mum is saying this, but dad is not that way. There must be something wrong with me, the child.” Is that valid?
Amanda:
I guess, when you’re criticising the other parent, you’re criticising the child as well, because the parent’s part of them. I’ve got a huge list of all the-
Malcolm:
This lady is prepared.
Amanda:
I know. I’ve got a… so we’ve got things like, obviously we talk about the denigrating, the parent to the child. Maybe we’ve got the vilification of the targeted parent without any adequate supportive evidence. And unreasonably interfering with communications, and the time the child spends with the targeted parent. Eradicating the targeted parent from the child’s life, purposely withholding information about the child from the targeted parent. So these are all alienating behaviours. Interrogating the child for information about the targeted parent and the time spent with them. This is the really serious one, because parents can start questioning the child. Like, “What did you do with the other parent? Who did you see? What did you get fed?”
Amanda:
And the child will respond, and sometimes they’ll start responding in a way that they’re trying to please that parent, because they see that parent’s fishing for information. So what will happen is sometimes we have a situation like the parent might have got upset with them over something. And the child learns to catastrophize things because they’re with the parent that has these cognitive distortions, where they catastrophize, they’ve got this black and white thinking, like they’re all good. The other parents all bad. And so this is quite distressing for a child to start learning these kind of behaviours. And it does affect them. So kids will start reporting back things that didn’t happen. Because I thought it was all about just a parent, not just, but a parent denigrating the other parent. But it’s not, it’s actually the children can start confessing to things that didn’t happen.
Amanda:
And there’s a study that’s called The Mousetrap Study and they asked a series of questions over a number of weeks. And there was one question that remained the same. And that is, have you ever had your finger caught in a mouse trap? In the first week none of the children… These were school-aged children, none of the children had had their finger caught in the mouse trap. By the second and third week the children started reporting back, “Oh yeah, my little sister, she got it caught in, I got my finger caught in. It was in the attic.” And they started elaborating on it. So it just shows you that you ask a child the same question again and again, eventually they’ll tell that child what they think that their parent’s fishing for, and naturally children want to be helpful and they want to please their parent.
Amanda:
So you can imagine that I’ll give you our worst case scenario. So, we’ve had cases where the father might have been bathing the child in the bath. And then the mother who’s now separated from him and is like, “Well, what was he doing? Did he touch you down there? Did you touch your private areas?” And the child’s like… Oh, maybe the first time they’re saying, “No, it didn’t. I just washed myself.” And then the child will come back the second time, if they’re washing… The father might not even wash the child anywhere in their private areas.
Malcolm:
So, the child is sensing that he or she would please the mother if he or she said these certain things?
Amanda:
Yeah, absolutely. And so we see a lot of cases where, and it’s not just fathers that are being accused, we’ve got moms that have been accused of things like that as well. So this is not gendered, this comes back to those problematic personality traits, which we do highlight on our website of all the different… Sorry, I just go through my… I’ve got so many pages that are printed out here today.
Malcolm:
I don’t know that you need those pages because you seem to know it pretty well.
Amanda:
Yeah, well… Yeah, sorry.
Malcolm:
But she’s thorough, she’s thorough.
Amanda:
I just want to make sure, because my… Here we go. So what we’re looking at, the characteristics of alienating parents are the problematic personality traits, which are under the narcissistic personality, borderline personality, paranoid personality, and the histrionic personality traits. And then we’ve got the cognitive distortions, which I said before is those really unhelpful thinking traps, like they’re never wrong. They catastrophize, they overgeneralize, all those sort of behaviours. And then we’ve got externalising unwanted emotions and responsibilities, and unable to accept their own problems. And they tend to blame other people that projection and abnormal grieving responses, when people are in an intact relationship, everything’s okay. But then once they break up, some people can’t transition into that co-parenting, that separated environment.
Amanda:
And they have to reformulate things to make them hate that person, because they’re not able to manage with that separation. So they can basically start saying that whole relationship was abusive or it was really bad, that whole entire time just to get them to hate this person, because they’re not able to transition into that separated environment type of thing.
Malcolm:
So aren’t these… Well, in my ignorance and my lack of experience, they seem to be symptoms of underlying mental health problems in the parent that is trying to alienate another person.
Amanda:
Absolutely.
Malcolm:
So sometimes done deliberately for ulterior motives, sometimes just done almost habitually without even knowing.
Amanda:
Yeah. Naively, they can be naively done. When someone’s got residual, there’s a little bit of alienation in most separations. But if you’ve got somebody who’s got a mental illness or a mental disorder, it’s going to be worse.
Malcolm:
Mm-hmm.
Amanda:
Yeah.
Malcolm:
What’s the experience and impact for the parent who’s being alienated from their child or children?
Amanda:
Oh, it’s such a helpless-
Malcolm:
Because you had that experience?
Amanda:
Yeah. I’ve actually been through that. And the thing is it’s being judged, when you’re being vilified.
Malcolm:
Judged by the child?
Amanda:
When you’re being judged by the family court system, or if people have had child protection involved or police involved and things like that. You’re guilty until you prove your innocence. And so you’ll spend all your time trying to explain yourself, and sometimes you’ll give that much detail in a sentence. It’s like that of an affidavit because you’re feeling like you have to prove yourself all the time.
Malcolm:
Justify.
Amanda:
And sometimes because you’re not getting support, there’s not enough support for these people in these situations that you can become quite unhinged. So can you imagine if you’re going for a single expert report and you’ve been vilified, you’re not seeing your children, you’re now being financially abused with the incentives of child support to the abuser. People become, as I said, unhinged. And so you’ve got one hour appointment with a single expert and you’ve got that period of time to tell what’s going on in your life. And when you’ve got one hour and they haven’t looked at the timeline, when they haven’t interviewed other people in the family or in your community and stuff like that.
Amanda:
And you’ve only got that one hour to tell your story. That one hour you could come across as a absolute… really unwell and unregulated, you can sound dysfunctional. So, a lot of people aren’t trauma-informed, so they don’t understand this.
Malcolm:
So there’s another symptom of the system that’s failing, the system that’s diseased, the family law system. It has to be canned and you can’t understand someone in an hour.
Amanda:
No, definitely not. No, you really need longitudinal interview process and more people in the community that’s associated to the children and the parents to be interviewed. You can’t base it on one hour with the children, one hour with each parent. That’s just not enough.
Malcolm:
And can there be… We’ve been talking all day, all this show about parents who separate, who divorced, who are going through those proceedings, can this happen in a marriage, one parent be alienated?
Amanda:
Oh absolutely. You can have one parent that’s undermining the other parent’s rules in the house. You can have one keeping secrets from the other parent or trying to find out information on what they’re doing and stuff like that. Or, it’s very much like the alienating tactics that are after the separation. Let’s say it’s someone’s birthday, but then minimising things that are important about that person and making them less important.
Malcolm:
Or even downright putting the other person down.
Amanda:
Yeah.
Malcolm:
Either in front of her or behind his back or wherever.
Amanda:
Yeah. Talking down about the other parent. Absolutely. Yeah. Like, if they’re making the child a meal and it’s not what the other parent thinks is appropriate, they might just, “Oh, you’re always make him unhealthy food.” And you just even add the little simple things that the child starts to get this perspective of this parent. So you can imagine once you’ve got the separation, how that can just magnify.
Malcolm:
So a lot of the parental alienation seems to be about control, to try and hurt the other parent, not recognising that they’re hurting the child in the process. So what are some of the things… What’s the experience and impact for the child that’s being subjected to this manipulative behaviour?
Amanda:
Okay.
Malcolm:
Can it stay with them for a lifetime?
Amanda:
Absolutely, it can. I’ve got… Okay. It’s traumatic. We did a study recently and there was people that came forward to participate in the research that just are not in the frame of mind to be able to participate, that’s how damaged they are as the result of from-
Malcolm:
From being children-
Amanda:
… from being alienated. So they’re now adults.
Malcolm:
Yeah.
Amanda:
But they are so harmed that we could not have them participate in the study.
Malcolm:
In what way?
Amanda:
Suicidal dysregulated, you just can’t have people participate in research, because what it is it’s-
Malcolm:
So their wounds are that deep.
Amanda:
Yeah. Well their interview, so you ask a series of questions, you’re not just ticking a survey. Yeah.
Malcolm:
And that interview would break down because the adult who was once a child victim of parental alienation behaviours just couldn’t cope?
Amanda:
No, they can’t cope through it. Yeah. It’s just unethical. It’s unethical to interview somebody who’s that traumatised.
Malcolm:
So how will that make them as parents?
Amanda:
Yeah. Well, I can’t really cover this.
Malcolm:
Wow.
Amanda:
Yeah. History will probably repeat itself. Either they might become an alienating parent or they might become alienated because that’s the cycle. But what we’re seeing in the impact is that we’re seeing disrupted social and emotional development. We’re seeing insecure attachment styles. So what you see in the prisons, a lot of people that are in prison have the antisocial attachment style. Is interpersonal problems, the relationships they choose and how they manage those relationships. Paranoid thinking, obsessive compulsive tendencies, low self-esteem that’s without a doubt, we see so much low self-esteem. Resentment, grief, anger, depression, anxiety, somatic symptoms, physical symptoms, substance related problems and suicide. And then family violence and abuse they can end up into in relationships with family violence.
Malcolm:
So, because they went through that, they could become violent or they could become attracted to someone who is going to become violent later.
Amanda:
Yeah. Yeah. Because some people-
Malcolm:
We seem to have these contracts, the way I listen to people sometimes it’s almost like they’re contracted to marry someone who will teach them that lesson by the experience.
Amanda:
Yeah. Well, sometimes it’s what’s familiar. I know with my own situation, I had a father that was really good at telling people what they want to hear and very manipulative, but behind closed doors, he would grind you down, belittle you and things like that. And so that was a familiar thing for me. And so that’s what I chose in my partner. I chose very similar behaviours, even down to their birthdays, being a couple of days apart and looks were very similar as well. Big white teeth, broad shoulders, tall, everything was just so much alike, because it was familiar. And I was used to being treated that way. As a problem, because my dad used to always say things about my mom. Like, “Oh, you just…” He’d make negative comments about my mom. So I learn that was a bad thing, but that was okay to be spoken to that way. So, that’s what happens with this. It’s what’s familiar to you and you compromise yourself for other people and your own thoughts and feelings are minimised. You don’t matter.
Malcolm:
Well, thank you very much Amanda, for sharing that insight into your personal behaviour. It’s a strong woman who can do that, a strong person who can do that. We’re going to take an ad break and then we’re going to come back again with Amanda Sillars, and talk more about parental alienation behaviours.
Speaker 1:
[inaudible 00:36:53] weaponizing weather with reality and perspective.
Malcolm:
Al Gore effect warning. This is a warning, is in effect because of the media misinformation media. They’re not telling you about how much rain the Colorado river basin has had this monsoonal season and how much more is coming. It may be the wettest four month period on record in the so-called desert Southwest, which looks more like the swampy Southwest. But wait, there’s more. Texas has been in a hot dry summer, there is a drought in Texas right now. Not as bad as the 1950s and for the United States, not as bad as the 1930s, but a monster reversal is coming. In fact, what we’re telling our clients is Texas is going to go from dust to mud and floods, especially up across the Northern part of the state.
Malcolm:
Do you think you’d hear any of that from the media misinformation media? Of course not. This is weatherbell.com meteorologist Joe Bastardi for TNT radio, reminding you to enjoy the weather, it’s the only weather you got.
Malcolm:
And this is Senator Malcolm Roberts back again with Amanda Sillars. Now Amanda is not one to mark around. So she’s told me what she would like to talk about next. So guests usually have charge in my interview because they know the topic, I don’t. So, okay, Amanda, over to you, tell us what the topic is and what you’d like me to ask, or just go into it. Don’t worry about me, just go into it.
Amanda:
Good eye, science of social influences that support parental alienation theory. So what we do know from the research is that false memories can be implanted.
Malcolm:
We know that from parliament?
Amanda:
Suggestion and questions can lead to the corruption of memory and perception, and the cues of others shape our own perception. And this is true in influence children, teens then even adults. The mechanism of influence includes social pressure, visualisation, suggestive questioning, repetition, compliance, patternicity and confirmation bias. So that’s when someone who searches for information that supports their beliefs or values.
Amanda:
And going back to the interviewing is that interviewing, questioning and counselling techniques used with children can be so suggestive that they have the capacity to substantially alter the child’s recollections of events and thus compromise the reliability of the child’s personal knowledge. So you’re talking about in court situations where children are interviewed by somebody who’s not trained in how to interview children appropriately, they can start off with suggestive questions like, “Oh, does daddy hurt you?” Or, “Does mommy slap you?” They start with those leading questions kind of thing.
Amanda:
And this is quite common. We hear it a lot in child protection, we hear it with some police will be like that, suggestive with their questioning. Even though you’ve got people in units that are highly trained in the area, if they’re on site and you’ve got somebody who’s questioning a child and the child’s already had those questions asked by a parent and they’ve sort of giving into that parent, the child will start elaborating. The story will get bigger and better over time. So you can imagine when you get more and more people involved, how a case that could be so innocent with somebody telling the child often. Then now the parents abusing them and now they’ve been abusing them their whole life, and they’ve always done it and they’ve even done it to the other people. And, this is the hour of suggestibility.
Malcolm:
And children are very vulnerable, especially young children because they want to please.
Amanda:
Yeah.
Malcolm:
It’s important for their survival. So just building on that, I’ve prepared a question here. I understand that false allegations of abuse account for nearly 80% of cases during family court proceedings and this alienation is a way of permanently severing the parent child relationship. That’s a very high percentage for such destructive behaviour. Why do people make false allegations in custody disputes?
Amanda:
Well, I’ve written an article about this and again, instead of articles, I have list supports.
Malcolm:
Okay. Go through your list.
Amanda:
Yeah. So, buy some time to manipulate, brainwash and coach the children, gain an advantage in divorce, quickly put a parent out of the house without eviction or a court mentioned hearing to get vengeance, to control or manipulate a parent or get leverage in some way. Sometimes to put a parent in jail, they can set them up and bait the other parent. To emotionally and psychologically damage the other parent, they can get financial support and compensation from social services or victims compensation groups. I’ve seen that happen a lot of times. And when you question the victims of compensation, they don’t investigate. So you can go basically with nil evidence and just make claims that a parent has physically or sexually abused a child and a parent can get a compensation that will help them move into state, that will get them a new phone account and things like that. And then the child will be compensated a substantial amount of money when they turn 18.
Amanda:
So the child will hit 18 and they get a compensation to say that they’ve been sexually abused. When they in alienation cases, they haven’t been sexually abused and might have been, it would be exonerated by the police. It’ll be exonerated by the courts and everything like that. But this parent will still go and make these claims. I’m not saying in any way that the children aren’t genuinely… this doesn’t happen, but this gets misused, so you can see how it can get misused and easily get misused. So you can misrepresent a parent as being dangerous to officials or the children. And they can take that to schools and say, “Here’s my restraining order. Or…” And they might not have had the time to appeal that restraining order yet. But the parent will go and use that as evidence to vilify that parent even further.
Malcolm:
It’s a tactic.
Amanda:
As a tactic.
Malcolm:
As Rick said, it’s weaponized.
Amanda:
Yeah, absolutely.
Malcolm:
Becomes a weapon.
Amanda:
Yeah. And so it can socially isolate someone. It can gain 100% custody for child support purposes. So not just in my… Because that happened, my kids were abducted on a Saturday and on the Monday morning at 9:05 in the morning, there was a 100% child support claim put in against me by their father. So this is the stuff that goes on. I mean, my story is just one of like literally millions of people this is happening to.
Malcolm:
Men and women.
Amanda:
Men and women.
Malcolm:
It’s not just men, men and women.
Amanda:
Yeah. Well, our support group’s made up of 60% women now in our groups, since I’ve been advocating, we’ve had women coming out of the woodwork. And what happens is you get a lot of people that might get the term incorrect. They’ll say, “Oh, I’m alienated.” But their children aren’t actually rejecting them. They’ll come running to them, they see them every other weekend, but they claim that they’re alienated. And they might get contact denial, contact denial is an alienating tactical behaviour, but it’s not parental alienation in its entirety. Because the children aren’t being condition, or brainwashed, or punished and reward systems and stuff like that. So it’s important for people to understand that even though you are being denied contact, it’s not parental alienation in it’s entirety.
Malcolm:
Okay.
Amanda:
Yeah. Because the children are [inaudible 00:45:55].
Malcolm:
Have you finished your list on that one?
Amanda:
No, I haven’t.
Malcolm:
Keep going, I love those lists.
Amanda:
Give them a reason to tell the children that the other parent is so dangerous that they had to get a restraining order to protect themselves, give the applicant justification to badmouth the other parent all over town to make them look like the child protector and saviour, and the best parent which supports the image of parent of the year.
Malcolm:
Yeah.
Amanda:
And to keep everything in the house once the other parent is removed, to allow the complainant to get a new boyfriend or girlfriend of the picture and the other parent out. It’s just these tactics that people use by making false allegations.
Malcolm:
So, let’s just check my understanding. Sometimes the parent who’s doing the alienating of the other parent can be harsh and direct with the child to alienate the other parent. Sometimes the parent who’s doing the alienating can be subtle and implicit, and sometimes they can be doing unintentionally because they just want to get some form of control. Actually, all of these are forms of control. Control of the child, control of the other parent, control of the situation. Always beneath control, in my experience, there is fear. So the person doing the alienating is actually afraid and using it as a means of [inaudible 00:47:16] their own inadequacies.
Amanda:
Well, I guess what we’ve got to look at is coercive controllers at the heart of parental alienation. And so, the coercive controlling behaviour, looking at it, would pressure the child to feel allegiance or loyalty to them. Pressure or reward the child to reject the targeted parent, make the child afraid of the target parent in the absence of a real threat. And coerce the child to be defiant towards target parent. So they will teach them to undermine their rule, things like that. “Oh, you don’t have to do that.” Or they’ll teach the child that that parent all they’re there for is money. So the child will demand things from that parent, but yet the parent might want to see them, spend time with them, but they will reject that and they just want, “Oh, well I need a new pair of shoes.” Or, “I want the latest iPhone,” and things like that.
Malcolm:
So, kids can play the game?
Amanda:
Absolutely. But it’s because they’re being coerced to do it and it’s not even their fault. They’re being manipulated to do it. Yeah.
Malcolm:
Your foundation is calling, Amanda for legislative change to acknowledge parental alienating behaviours. How do you see that working?
Amanda:
Well, I guess we need to recognise parental alienating behaviours as child abuse and family violence. And it needs to be clearly defined what those behaviours are. And then we need a legislation that basically… Yeah.
Malcolm:
So you want to basically identify the parental alienation behaviours, because that’s been your term. You’re not talking about parental alienation, you’re talking about parental alienating behaviour.
Amanda:
Alienating behaviours. Yeah.
Malcolm:
So you identify them and get them ingrained as symptomatic of child abuse?
Amanda:
There’s certain tactics that are used like I guess it’s, yeah, not really… Yeah, what they are is they’re parental alienating behaviours. And we’ve got a huge list of on our website of all these behaviours. We just want to get them recognised as child abuse because the research that we’re doing is showing the outcomes of the impact of what these [inaudible 00:49:32] talking about… Its been a long day, I’m getting my moods fixed.
Malcolm:
You’re doing fine. So where can people find that website? Can you tell us?
Amanda:
Yeah, well, we’ve got EMMM, which is emmm.org.au. That’s M for Mary.
Malcolm:
So that’s Eeny Meeny Miney Mo, E-M-M-M.
Amanda:
.Org.au. And we’ve also got a Facebook page because we are a advancing education and health services charity. We’re not funded. And we also have a Facebook page that we have a support group that’s associated to that [inaudible 00:50:10].
Malcolm:
How would they find that? Eeny Meeny Miney Mo?
Amanda:
From EMMM Foundation on Facebook, type in @, and then EMMM Foundation. I actually manage the intake of that group because I screen the people that come into the group, and I managed all that myself to make it a safer space for people to be able to talk about the situation.
Malcolm:
Because you want people to be open and honest about their circumstances.
Amanda:
I’ll be able to reach out for support.
Malcolm:
Yes.
Amanda:
And talk about how they’re feeling and things that they’re going through, and get support from others who are going through. We have grandparents in the group as well. And we have some stepparents in the group who are supporting the alienated parent. We also run workshops with the University of Tasmania that are psychoeducational. So it teaches parents about what parental alienation is and what it isn’t and how to manage the situation better.
Malcolm:
We’re getting close to the end of the show. So there are a couple of things I want to get through. I want to make sure that people are introduced to your Eeny Meeny Miney Mo Foundation petition that’s running. You’ve already got 20,000 signatures and now aiming for your next target of 25,000. Where can people find the petition and where to from there?
Amanda:
Okay. Well, on our website, on the homepage, we’ve actually got the petition on there. So if you follow the links, sometimes ask you to donate to Change. Just ignore that little prompt.
Malcolm:
Thank you for that. I almost did, because I think your cause is well worth donating to, and I almost donated to change.org. No, no.
Amanda:
No, no. Don’t do that. Just sign the petition and if you’re able to share, it would be greatly appreciated because-
Malcolm:
Oh, so when you showed me on the phone, that was your website.
Amanda:
Yeah.
Malcolm:
Oh.
Amanda:
Oh no. No, that was a Change website.
Malcolm:
Yeah.
Amanda:
Okay. Yeah. So, but after you sign the petition, it sometimes wants to push you to sign other petitions or to donate to them.
Malcolm:
Yeah. So be careful if you’re wanting to sign the petition that you don’t end up donating to change.org, is it?
Amanda:
Yeah. Yeah.
Malcolm:
Okay. All right.
Amanda:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Malcolm:
One final thing for a couple of minutes. Could you tell us about the research you’re doing in the area of parental alienation behaviours with the University of Tasmania?
Amanda:
Yeah, absolutely. The first studies that we did was the targeted parent perspective that has gathered so much. Oh, sorry. [inaudible 00:52:33].
Malcolm:
No, no, you’re right. I’m just getting a warning that we’ve got two minutes left. That’s all.
Amanda:
All. Okay. We’ve done the targeted parent perspective, we’ve done the alienated child perspective, and recently we’ve done the grandparent perspective. And it definitely fits the definition of child abuse and family violence. And with the grandparent, it fits the definition of elder abuse. If they’re on the receiving end of parental alienating behaviours. And we have continuing… We’ve got more studies that are coming out. And I’m hoping to do a study with veterans who are experiencing parental alienation. Because not only are they experiencing things like PTSD and physical injuries and stuff, then they’re cut off from the children as well, which compounds their mental health. And so I think it’s critical that we get some research happening in that area.
Malcolm:
Well, I know we are right near the end. So as a child, you were hijacked to America.
Amanda:
Abducted.
Malcolm:
Abducted. Yeah, that’s the word. You abducted to America and you suffered from parental alienation.
Amanda:
Yeah.
Malcolm:
Then as a married mother, you were alienated from your child. So the other person that’s not involved. Sorry, that is involved and hurts is the grandparents. So we got 30 seconds. That seems to be someone who always left out the grandparents.
Amanda:
Oh, absolutely, grandparents. So I have a lot of people who follow my page now who always say, “What about us grandparents?” And so I’ve started our grandparent page on our website now, so we can actually share our research and provide some videos on there as well.
Malcolm:
I want to thank you so much, Amanda Sillars for doing what you’re doing. Eeny Meeny Miney Mo. Fabulous lady. Get behind it.
Amanda:
Thank you.
