Parental Alienation Syndrome

For Christmas, Beth got me the book "A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce", by Alec Baldwin.  While I am sure that he has presented his perspective and certainly shares the blame for the failure of the marriage, and must own his subsequent actions, I was amazed at the whole concept of Parental Alienation as described in this book.  While not accepted as a medical diagnosis, the harm that occurs to the child in the short term and long term, cannot be denied.

Psychiatrist Richard Gardner described PAS as a preoccupation by the child with criticism and deprecation of a parent. Gardner stated that PAS occurs when, in the context of child custody disputes, one parent deliberately or unconsciously attempts to alienate a child from the other parent. According to Gardner, PAS is characterized by a cluster of eight symptoms that appear in the child. These include a campaign of denigration and hatred against the targeted parent; weak, absurd, or frivolous rationalizations for this deprecation and hatred; lack of the usual ambivalence about the targeted parent; strong assertions that the decision to reject the parent is theirs alone (the "independent-thinker phenomenon"); reflexive support of the favored parent in the conflict; lack of guilt over the treatment of the alienated parent; use of borrowed scenarios and phrases from the alienating parent; and the denigration not just of the targeted parent but also to that parent's extended family and friends. 

In my case, the alienation did not occur at the start of the divorce, but eight years later, when my children were teenagers.  In 2007, Beth and I took them on a 2-week vacation, one week at our Florida timeshare, and one week on a Western Caribbean cruise.  We had a great time, but after that trip, the bottom fell out of my relationship with my children.  All eight of the symptoms described above were experienced by us, and some of the quotes from Alec Baldwin's book were verbatim statements that we heard.  The net result is that I have had virtually no contact with my kids in the last four years.  Sigh...

Not a day goes by that I do not think of my children, how sad I am that things turned out the way they did, and that they truly have been poisoned against me, my wife, and our loving families.  As this was occurring, we strove to take the high road, to recognize that they were teenagers and had their own lives; but if we would have known how things would end up, we would absolutely have fought in the courts to maintain contact and be a part of their lives.  

I love and miss you both!

Sunday Silliness - Get To Work :o)

Sunday Silliness - Economics :o)

Sunday Silliness - Distinction :o)

Sunday Silliness - Demotivation :o)

Goodbye, for now, Bucko's World...

After spending multiple hours today posting future blog entries from reviewing RSS feeds, I decided that the effort is futile.  All this work for few comments, and it is so much easier to click "Like" on my feeds and share with more people via Facebook.

Sometimes you need to check and adjust, and priorities change.  I need to focus on my new job as we just reorganized and I have more responsibilities.  In addition, I need to ensure the local project management chapter is ready for the next phase as my tenure as president comes to an end this year.

For those that have followed my travels, thank you.  

If you are not friends with me on Facebook, but would still like to get my various project management and technology posts, then please become my friend there.

http://www.facebook.com/ken.riches.1

I am not going to delete the blog at this time, but entries will be far and few between.

Sunday Silliness - Consistency :o)

Can-Can???

"When you believe you can-you can!"  

- Maxwell Maltz 

Don't Be Rude!

Over 60% blame their bad behavior on being overloaded at work. 

Stress isn't the only reason people are uncivil at work.   How about a “rude” boss?

What can companies do to counteract “rude” behaviors? Let's start with four suggestions, two for the organization, two for the individual employee.

Organizations can:

Make civility a priority and set guidelines.
Provide training

Individuals can:

Walk away (Refuse to be offended!)

Learn from it. 

Source

Bond and Science - Enough Time Has Passed to avoid spoilers...

In the new James Bond movie Skyfall, the Aston Martin DB5--a rare but staple race car in the spy fiction series since 1964--explodes into smithereens. We'll spare you the cinematic details, but take heart, auto aficionados. The real DB5 is safe.

A Bavarian 3-D printing company called voxeljet made three meticulously accurate 1:3 scale models of the classic vehicle, layer-by-layer. Each fake car (below) is made of 18 transparent plastic parts printed out of PMMA by voxeljet’s high-end VX4000 printer, a machine that can make objects as large as 13 feet by 6.5 feet by 3 feet.

From there a British prop-making company called Propshop Modelmakers assembled the models and applied realistic finishing like paint, chrome polish, and even bullet holes to match different car chase scenes in Skyfall.

Only 1,021 real Aston Martin DB5s were manufactured between 1963 and 1965, and the cameo car in the James Bond movie Goldfinger was recently valued at $2.6 million.

The models themselves aren’t cheap, either. Although one of the models met a fiery end, another sold for $99,041 at a Christie’s auction.

Source