How do we talk about the terrible things that happen to children after divorces? Calling things by the right names can matter a lot. Get the name right, and we can move forward. Get it wrong, and we’re stuck.
Often the first name is not the best.
Parental alienation syndrome was the first name applied to a certain situation we know about. It’s an abstract medical term. It’s not a bad term. But most peopleâ€â€Âand crucially most votersâ€â€Âfind it awfully vague. How many people reading this can clearly define what an alienation syndrome is? Raise your hands. I thought so.
Maybe it’s now time to move to a more exact phrase: “hostile aggressive parenting.”
This phrase sheds far more light on the reality we are trying to discuss. It focuses on the behavior that produces, eventually, the alienation between child and parent. It names that behavior clearly: hostile and aggressive parenting. It’s sex-neutral. It’s imaginable. And it focuses on responsibility and behavior. Judges, legislators and voters can see something when they read the phrase “hostile aggressive parenting” that they cannot see when we talk about syndromes
It’s probably well-known to others, but I’ve just discovered a great website, well-written and clear, devoted to the concept, here.  It talks honestly about how severe this problem is for children, and how the custody and divorce system perpetuates it.
We’ve made little headway with the phrase PAS. So let’s change course and use HAP. “Hostile aggressive parenting” names something the everyday compassionate American citizen can be, and wants to be, against.
