Parental alienation causes severe trauma and devastation to an estimated 22 million parents in the U.S., and it affects millions more worldwide. Despite the sheer number of families and communities affected by this problem, many people either do not know what it is, deny its existence, or act as bystanders to alienators’ campaigns of chaos. In Parents Acting Badly, Drs. Jennifer Jill Harman and Zeynep Biringen provide a thorough analysis of how parental alienators accomplish their aims and impact on others, and highlight how parenting stereotypes, gender inequality, and social institutions such as family courts all contribute to the problem. Parents Acting Badly represents a paradigm shift in thinking about parental alienation—from a private issue to a public concern. The authors suggest new approaches to addressing this controversial problem that encompass individual change, as well as social and institutional reforms.

This book comes out of work conducted by Drs. Jennifer Jill Harman & Zeynep Biringen, both professors at Colorado State University, and Founders of the the Colorado Parental Alienation Project, LLC.

Estimating the prevalence of parental alienation is challenging because not all children who are exposed to parental alienating behaviors become alienated. The purpose of the current study was to determine the proportion of adults who indicate being alienated from a child using three national online panels that are representative of adults from the United States (two polls) and Canada (one poll) and to determine the mental health impact of parental alienating behaviors.

According to the United Nations Higher Commission for Refugees the world is facing the biggest refugee crisis since WWII, having surpassed 50 million people..