Just Like His Father? Is nearly four years old now and my own son is nearly eight. At the time the book was released, scientists were still engaged in the genetics versus environment debate regarding the development of antisocial behavior. That debate is now over and every authority accepts that antisocial behavior and antisocial personality traits develop due to a gene-environment interaction. I am working on revising the book because now some specific genes have been identified.
Thankfully, I have not had to cope with the toxic environment a sociopath/psychopath creates for their offspring. Just Like His Father? doesn’t really grapple with that issue other than to encourage people to consider that the child may be better off with only one parent. At time the book was written, my thinking was based on two false premises. The first falsehood, I was taught in residency, “antisocial individuals abandon their young” has turned out to be perhaps the biggest problem at-risk children face. Antisocial individuals do not necessarily abandon their young, but they do abuse them and use them as pawns to damage other people and they also use them in their cons.
Four years ago, I naively believed that the family courts would naturally dictate that sociopaths/ psychopaths should be kept from harming their children. This second premise has also turned out to be false and is the basis for the nightmare many people I now count as friends are living.
It follows that in addition to teaching the material in the book and workbook, to save at-risk children we also have to take on the system-hopefully by working together. The system is composed of mental health professionals who really do not understand antisocial personality disorder let alone the meaning of psychopathic personality traits to parenting. It is also composed of Judges who want to make the tough decisions easy by giving themselves judicial sound bites to go by. Here is the official mantra of the state of New York Family Court:
“Visitation by a noncustodial parent is presumed to be in the child’s best interest and should be denied only in exceptional situations, such as where substantial evidence reveals that visitation would be detrimental to the welfare of the child.”
The important words there are “substantial evidence.” Just what constitutes substantial evidence? I am working on researching the answer to that question and have access to an extensive online law library through the university where I teach.
I am preparing a generic document that people can use as a resource regarding the harmful effects of parenting by antisocial individuals and emotional and verbal abuse on children. Some recent research shows that the developmental damage done by emotional and verbal abuse is as severe as that due to physical and sexual abuse.
But we really have to change the legal mantra. Given what we know of genetic risk, we have to not only protect at-risk children from abuse, we have to provide them with an enriching, nurturing environment to prevent the intergenerational spread of disorder. The new mantra should be:
“In cases where one parent has antisocial personality disorder (psychopathy) the child deserves the best upbringing the least disordered parent can provide.”
AND
“The least disordered parent has a right to live life free of the sociopath/psychopath they were conned by.”
Setting the least disordered parent free facilitates his/her mental health and contributes to the well-being of the child.
Here is what you can do to join this effort:
- If you went through a custody/visitation battle and your children are old enough for you to comment on how the battle and the sociopath affected them please write me. I am especially interested in talking with offspring over 18 about their perspectives.
- If you have an ongoing situation you are willing to share please write. Recently, people from Alabama and New York asked me for help so I compiled the case law for those states. The goal is to compile the case law for every state then make the info available on the web.
- If you want to volunteer to read the case law and help me organize it, I’ll put you to work right away.
- If you are an attorney or legal assistant who wants to help please let me know.
- If you have political connections, we need you.
I am looking to form a committee of workers committed to this cause.
Last but not least, I regret the title of my book because it suggests gender. The title merely reflects my own personal experience. This is NOT about gender or fatherhood versus motherhood. Normal men love and nurture their children and I do not dispute that children need that love and nurturing. This is about a psychiatric disorder for which there is no proven treatment, antisocial personality disorder/ psychopathy.
We are working to save the most vulnerable of all children from abuse, neglect and disorder. We are advocating for those children who carry genetic risk for antisocial personality disorder and who have a mother or father who is not capable of loving and nurturing them.
Contact Dr. Liane Leedom at drleedom@lovefraud.com.
I’m headed to see my mom this week. I just don’t want to be stuck with her for the next three weeks while visiting my mom. I just don’t want to deal with her immaturity. I’m tired of her getting all upset when she doesn’t get her way. I’m tired of her trying to bring me down and talk about me behind my back.
Hurt:
Stand tall and take the high road…..we have the power to ignore and walk around with a smile.
HurtNoMore, I have a middle sister that’s always had an attitude towards me. Ever since I was born. She’s almost a year older than I. As soon as I was a toddler, her anger set in. My parents tried everything through their entire lives to get her to comprehend reason. No matter what age she entered, her attitude problem still existed.
Some siblings just can’t stand that they don’t get all the attention from the parental figures focused on them. They end up being competitive with other siblings in the family … never realizing or admitting when told of this fact the need they crave from the parents. Not only does my sister dislike me, she absolutely hated my mother. My mom has been gone since 1999. Not once does my sister ever state that she misses my mom, forgives my mom for giving birth to me. I thought when my sister raised her son that she’d see similarities regarding a mother raising her child and figuring out my mom had four children to care for. Even when my nephew went through similar situations as we did as kids … I’d mention to my sister “oh, now you realize what mom had to deal with” … or other such statements. No! My sister would never recognize my mom in any such situations.
Bottom line. I believe they are just stuck in M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E mode for whatever their negative mindset is … and being family, they think it gives them free reign to lash out at anyone they choose within the immediate family unit.
As Oxy always says … you need to pick your boundaries with certain TOXIC people … and keep them fenced out of your life.
Peace.
HurtNoMore, your sister is using everything in her venomous arsenal to get to you so you will do her bidding. She’s in bully mode every time you are within the same circle as her. She knows how to push your buttons and you fall right into her pre-meditated plans to destroy your enjoyment with your mom. She’s jealous about your relationship with your mom. She has no clue that she’s jealous … because jealousy (ENVY) is a sin. All sins blind the person who is engulfed by this sin.
She needs professional help but, you can never get her there because she will not admit it. Therefore, unless a person acknowledges a problem, the problem will never be resolved. Admittance of a problem is half the battle.
What works (most of the time) for me … is knowing she will do battle with you as soon as you arrive within the space she is protecting (aka your mom). She wants all your mother’s attention. Know this. Arm yourself by preparing to know that her nasty attitude will come out full force when you arrive. Stand your ground. Try to ignore any thing she says or does to get you to engage in an argument with her. The more you ignore her, the more anger will surface. Try to ignore her … stand your ground and focus on enjoying your mother’s company. Practice this. It isn’t easy. The more you practice to ignore her, the easier it becomes.
Good luck. If you find out you just want to verbally lash out at her … bite your tongue and walk out of the house for about 20 minutes to regroup.
Peace.
OxDrover,
Thank you for your words. No, he doesn’t pay child support, hasn’t ever (he tends to not work and live off other people’s pity). He is already over a year behind and has lost his driver’s license. If he were to work, he has garnishments on his wages (not only for my daughter, but for his first son as well). I am hoping that this will be one more piece of leverage that i can use to get him to release his parental rights. BUT the only way my state allows that is if there’s someone else to take them over =/ and i’m certainly not even close to being ready to trust someone enough to get into a relationship, much less get married and trust them with legal rights to my daughter. =/
so at this point i am intent on working towards getting visitations completely and officially terminated, because i don’t think he’d ever bother with taking me to court to regain them. (i’m so thankful that the Spath i have to deal with happens to be SO lazy!!)
Liane – I’m taking the same approach as you – NO child should not be forced to have contact with extremely disordered parent. The abuse inflicted by psychopaths on their targets (partners and anyone else who is vulnerable) is considerable and can be much much worse than physical abuse or overt abuse.
The difficulty with gathering evidence is of course that psychological and emotional abuse very often leaves no witnesses in its wake – it’s a clean violence with no trace to prove what happened behind closed doors. With regard to this factor, courts will need to be more open to allowing and admitting evidence gathered by covert means ie secret videotaping and sound recording.
In most countries the family court system is based upon the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, America is not currently a signatory to this convention as it would obligate the Government to take major steps in reducing child poverty and achievement disparities between classes and communities.
This site provides a useful summary of the rights contained in the Convention:
http://www.unicef.org/crc/files/Rights_overview.pdf
In joint parenting with a psychopath, Article 36 is definitely violated as children are exploited for the psychopath’s own ends in a cruel game with the ex partner …
“Article 36 (Other forms of exploitation): Children should be protected from any activity that takes advantage of them or could harm their welfare and development.”
There is also a Code of Women’s Rights – CEDAW (which was ratified in 1979). Here is the English text of the document:
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/text/econvention.htm#article16
This site has a breakdown of trends in violence against women and laws pertaining to each country belonging to United Nations – it provides a useful overview of what is happening around the world.
http://webapps01.un.org/vawdatabase/country.action#N
Polly, thanks for those links….I wish even 1/100th of them were ENFORCED….
Hello,
I’ve spent quite a while reading through your messages, and it’s been very informative.
I am a single father with custodial responsibility for my 12 year old son. His mother lives in another state, and I believe, after reading this blog, that she displays quite a few sociopathic tendencies. She had custody until a year ago, when she lost it due to her total disrespect for my position as our son’s father, and her lack of co-parenting skills.
When my son left in June to spend the summer with her, everything was fine. In late June, I received a received a request for change in custody, based on several untrue allegations, easily refuted, such as his grades being worse (all As and one B), deteriorating physical condition (I have photos of him pitching for his softball team) and other silly lies.
I had plans with my son for a week in July, but “amazingly” a football camp came to my notice (the day before he was to return) that my son wanted to attend, so I allowed him to stay with his mother. The end result being that he has been under her influence for 8 weeks now, and he just informed me today that he “found” some documents that prove I’m a liar, and that he wants to stay with his mother and not return.
I am devastated. He is obviously being brainwashed by his mother and she has manipulated him to turn against me.
The documents he “found” had to do with an emergency order I filed when he was 5 years old, and living with his mother in another state. When he would visit me, he told me outlandish stories about being left with his older brother for 24 hours at a time, being around his brother and his friends drinking and smoking, etc. He had no business seeing these documents, and of course his mother denied everything.
Now, he thinks I made all these things up, when really they were based on what he himself told me. I even hired a detective to confirm what he told me.
His mother has very deviously created a situation where she knows she must return him to me, and she had made sure he hates me. My work is cut out for me in repairing our relationship, but I will do whatever it takes to earn my son’s trust back.
Anyway, I just wanted to share and say thank you for this forum and your posts, and for sharing your information with others.
Dear John, I’m so sorry you are having this problem with your x and your son. Of course she is a psychopath because a normal caring parent would not do this to their child.
I’m sorry you qualify for our ‘club” but since you do I am glad that you found your way here. There are all kinds of resources here. I also suggest that you go to Dr. Leedom’s blog “raising the at risk child” and you will get some good support frlom that source too.
I wish I could tell you what to do and how to go about it, 1-2-3 but I have NO idea what direction you should take on this one. The only thing I can say is that I will keep you in my prayers. There’ s a pretty good “prayer chain” on this group too, and also some folks with some darned good ideas that have been in your shoes! God bless and keep on reading and learning. KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.
ERIN-B—-EMERGENCY!!! DEAR JOHN NEEDS SOME ADVICE! I know it is saturday and I know you do NOT have a date, so get in here and help this guy! I think you probably can come up with some good ideas for him! Hee hee