Divorce Poison Control Center™

Reuniting with Estranged Children Who Attend College Away from Home

Many children fail to overcome their alienation or estrangement from a parent by the time they reach college age. Research on college-age estranged children confirms how often alienation persists into young adulthood.

If your alienated teen attends college away from home, the freshman year may present a unique opportunity for you to reconnect. College can help renew parent–child ties and overcome parental alienation because:

• Students are physically away from the favored parent’s daily orbit.
• They develop more psychological independence and critical thinking.
• A new environment allows them to re-evaluate old narratives about each parent.

During this time, gentle contact—short messages of support, small practical help, and low-pressure invitations—can remind your child that your door is open and your love has not changed.

Welcome Back, Pluto is a DVD resource that, in terms of scope and potential to prevent and alleviate irrational alienation, goes far beyond a single “Antidote of the Month.”

Apart from the revised edition of Divorce Poison, this DVD was Dr. Warshak’s major assignment for two years. He describes it as the most powerful resource he can recommend for:

• Children who reject a parent.
• Children who are being influenced to do so.
• Families and professionals who need a clear, child-friendly explanation of alienation.

It helps children and adults understand how alienation develops, how it harms everyone involved, and what can be done to begin healing damaged relationships.

Alienation Busters

Movies, TV shows, and books can help children learn important lessons to prevent and overcome parental alienation. These “alienation busters”:

• Show characters caught between parents or loyalty conflicts, in a safe, fictional context.
• Demonstrate how one-sided narratives and bad-mouthing can distort a child’s view of a parent.
• Create low-anxiety opportunities for children to talk about unfairness, divided loyalties, and their own feelings.

Watching and discussing selected media with your children can gently introduce themes relevant to their own experience of parental conflict.

Hope for Future Reconciliation

Despite their overt attitudes, many children who reject a parent secretly long for an excuse to reestablish contact. In addition to maturity, physically leaving the orbit of the favored parent, and becoming more psychologically independent, two situations often form unexpected bridges to reconciliation:

• Growing conflict with the favored parent.
• Financial dependence on the rejected parent (for example, help with college).

In some families, children encounter economic difficulty—such as needing funds for university—and this becomes the rationale for contacting the rejected parent.

This section of the Divorce Poison Control Center collects accounts of successfully restored parent–child relationships, often:

• After years of no contact at all.
• Appearing “out of the blue,” just as a parent was losing hope.

These stories counteract the discouragement and hopelessness that darken the outlook of many alienated parents and include:

• Advice from a formerly alienated mother.
• Remarks from a formerly alienated mother.
• Remarks from a mother who reunited with one child but not yet with her other children.
• Letter from a formerly alienated father.
• Letter from a formerly alienated son.
• Interview with a formerly alienated daughter who is now a mother herself.

Coping Strategies and Hope for Reuniting

The following powerful letter is from a mother who was able to help her son overcome his alienation from her.

Dear Dr. Warshak,

I first want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the great work you do which has directly helped me and my family. My family (I would say my son and I but it affects the entire family) is in the process of healing the wounds of PA. My son returned to a relationship with me a little over a year ago, and although the scars are obvious, he is doing better and better with time. I am overjoyed to have him back. After being where I was a few years ago not knowing if I would ever have him back in my life, I feel incredibly blessed and complete again. Nothing seems to bring me down anymore—it all pales in comparison. I wanted to share my story and lessons I learned in case it may help others who find themselves where I’ve been, so here it is:

I hurt for everyone who is caught up in parental alienation. I’ve been there… it was heart-wrenching. I felt lost, in disbelief, and alone at the time. After the divorce my teenaged son with whom I always had a healthy, happy and supportive relationship, would not see me for over 2 years, and seemed as if under a spell, believing awful things about me. I believe PA is insidious psychological abuse of a child by a mentally unwell parent who is triggered and unhinged. The children are victims and should never be blamed, no matter what behavior they show. We need to find a way to recognize and stop PA through the courts and the therapeutic community, both of which are generally impotent with regard to this pervasive abuse. The adversarial legal system is partly to blame as it inflames conflict, triggering mental health weaknesses in all involved.

When I was going through it I looked everywhere for help to bring my son back. There were very few Internet postings of parents who were able to reunite, or who could suggest how. So I would like to post my experience to give hope for reuniting, and say what helped me. I urge you not to give up, because you are, always have been, and will be, their parent as long as you commit to it—whether or not right now you are blessed with your child’s physical presence in your life. Your child loves and needs you to be strong and actively creating an environment that inspires reuniting. Thank goodness and with great gratitude to guides like Dr. Warshak, and all the family and friends who helped when asked, my son returned a year ago, and we are healing wounds.

I think the greatest lesson I learned from your book was to actively endeavor to reunite, and not to be passive despite all the heart-wrenching rejection. It inspired me to keep going, to make a plan, and to ask for help.

Some of the lessons I learned:

• Never give up.
• Never blame the child.
• Reduce tension with your ex—be respectful, civil, show you can speak together in front of your children. That parent is a part of them, so rejecting that parent is felt as a rejection of them.
• I did not use family court; my experience led me to believe it would backfire, cause more resentment, and use funds I needed for college tuition.
• I fought hate with unconditional love—patient, continuous, unflinching. I behaved based on my own code, not in reaction to others’ behavior.
• I believe PA causes self-loathing and great anxiety in a child. The way to heal this is to show you believe in them and love them no matter what, so they can love themselves again.
• I took time to heal myself, to soul-search, read and learn, and plan a strategy to bring him back to me and his whole family.
• I researched PA extensively and most benefitted from Richard Warshak’s Divorce Poison.
• I continued living my life as fully as possible—focused on gratitude, worked to be financially independent, found a new loving partner, spent time with friends and in nature.
• I committed to writing my son brief loving cards, including photos, every 1–2 weeks. No negativity, expectations, or guilt—just love and occasional suggestions of future fun together when he felt ready.
• I tried not to be pushy, and to relax in the knowledge that someday he would return on his own timetable of healing.
• I stated my boundaries, with kindness.
• I asked for support from friends, his therapist, my family, and my ex’s family to speak positively of me and encourage reuniting. This was key.
• I looked for opportunities to be briefly in his presence, but let him control any contact.
• I kept believing in the good outcome—envisioning, asking, and showing gratitude for any little thing.

I hope my thoughts help. Please keep your hope alive and actively work step by step, undaunted, to heal yourself, your child, and your family.

Thank you again Dr. Warshak.

Moratorium on Discussing the Past

Family Bridges: A Workshop for Troubled and Alienated Parent-Child Relationships often uses a mutual agreement to avoid discussing the painful past when children and rejected parents first reunite.

A formerly alienated mother describes how this helped her relationship with her daughter:

“I am happy to report that after 4.5 years of complete/total rejection of me by my daughter (I did not see her or even speak with her during those years) – she did make contact with me when she turned 18 and left her Dad’s house. That was 2 years ago – and we are now very close again and have rebuilt our relationship. I can smile again.

Thank you so much for your book – it helped me identify what it was that was happening to my daughter during those dark heart-breaking years. Also – I wanted to mention one other thing – when my daughter came back – she and I made an agreement to not ever talk about the details of ‘those years.’ I think it’s too painful for either of us. All she said was ‘Mommy – I see the truth now.’ And that was good enough for me! We have taken it a step further – ‘agreeing to totally avoid’! Maybe someday we can talk about those years, but I think she is at a loss for words to even try to explain how she could have treated me that way.”

An alienated mother describes severe manipulation, total rejection by three teenage sons, and being blocked from visiting her child in hospital. After reading Divorce Poison, she wrote an email that opened the door to reconciliation with one son.

“When one of my sons sent me an email after several months of silence, asking me why I was constantly bringing up stories from the past and what kind of frame of mind was I trying to get him into, I thought it was the perfect lead-in to educate him. I wrote the following to him:

‘I guess the state of mind I would like you to be in could be defined as “reality.” You did have a good childhood. You do have a Mom that looked after you and did everything for you… a Mom that loves you. Now, you refuse to see me and treat me with any kind of respect. I do not deserve that.

There’s a book I could lend you, or you could ask for it at the library. It’s called “Divorce Poison.” … It’s to help you understand what happened and why you feel the way you now do.

I will always welcome you back in my life with no questions… The reality is I’m your Mom and I want to be involved in your life… Face reality. See through the nonsense and the lies. Accept the truth and most importantly, forgive. It’s freeing.

Your Mom’

Your book gave me the courage to write that email… When we met, I didn’t bring up anything negative. I acted like the past two years hadn’t happened. And so did he… It was such a relief to have my son talking enthusiastically to me, to be part of his life again… Trying to regain my relationship with my sons has been the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, but to give up on them would be even harder.”

Managing a Child’s Return

A father, rejected for more than seven years, describes how both children eventually reached out again—linked, in part, to changes in the favored parent’s finances and the end of support payments.

“After consistently reaching out to my son and my daughter over more than seven years of not hearing one thing from them (despite the fact that they lived close by) I have been able to commence a reconnection with them…

My daughter did move in, about two months ago and it has been going fine. I feel like the number one focus I have is to gently ease back into a relationship with her… It just feels weird to me because when I last had any relationship with her she was seven years younger.”

His choice to keep his heart and home open, and not demand apologies, illustrates how children can return after long absences when they know they will be welcomed without recriminations.

Critical Thinking Leads to Reconciliation

A man in his mid-50s describes how he and his siblings were subjected to long-term alienation from their father, and how he finally corrected his distorted perceptions:

“My brother, sister and myself were all subjects of Parental Alienation Disorder… I listened to a constant stream about how horrible he was and the terrible things he did from my mother.

I finally got to really meet my father when I was in my mid-20s… I asked very pointed questions regarding the stories that had been drilled into my head.

I discovered that my father was very honest and not at all as my mother had painted him… Parental alienation has lifelong effects. It tore my family apart and caused irreparable damage to the children involved.”

An interview with “Sarah,” a formerly alienated daughter (originally published in McKenzie Magazine, issue #87, 2009, UK), offers direct advice to rejected parents and shows how much is lost when a child succumbs to divorce poison.

Sarah’s reflections emphasize patience, avoiding pressure, and understanding that children may need time, maturity, and distance from the alienating parent before they can reconnect on their own terms.

A Wake-up Call for Alienating Parents

A man describes how his father died before he could see through his mother’s manipulation and how grief turned into resentment towards the alienating parent:

“My father passed away when I was about 21 years of age… I was overcome by an overwhelming sense of guilt and shame for not ever having spoken with my father before he died… The sense of sadness and grief… transformed automatically into resentment of my mother who’d manipulated me the whole time seeking only to hurt her ex-husband and having no regard for my well-being.”

The letter illustrates the long-term consequences for children who are pressured to reject a loving parent and why courts and professionals must not simply “respect the child’s wishes” when those wishes have been shaped by manipulation and fear.

Agree to Disagree

One of the biggest impediments to reconciliation occurs when a child is convinced that a parent is guilty of a major transgression and the parent adamantly denies guilt. Both expect the other’s agreement before there can be a relationship.

Drawing on negotiation principles, Dr. Warshak recommends tabling these explosive disputes at the beginning:

• Avoid arguments over whether you did or did not do the alleged horrible acts, especially early in contact.
• Do not insist on apologies or full agreement as a precondition for seeing each other.
• Focus first on rebuilding some positive connection; only later, ideally with a therapist, decide if and when to revisit the past.

Premature attempts to resolve these issues can “blow up in your face” and make reconciliation even more remote.

Everybody Loves Raymond

An episode titled “Whose Side Are You On” shows how one parent’s negative comments about the other can shape a child’s view, even in an intact marriage. A reader suggested using such episodes to gently open discussions about loyalty conflicts and unfair criticism.

Boston Public Episode Recommended by Alienated Mother

A dramatic episode of Boston Public portrays a high school daughter sharing with her divorced parents her pain at not being part of a “complete family.” The recommending mother notes how much worse it is for children enmeshed in a bitter, vindictive battle.

The Ungame: A Board Game for Open Conversation

“When we began the game the first time, all of the kids, ages 11–17, protested. But after we got started we played for over two hours… The atmosphere became comfortable and safe for thoughts and feelings to flow. The rules require people to listen, a hard task for many of us… I hope The Ungame can help point other parents in the right direction for undoing a lot of damage.”

Article by Dr. Joyce Brothers

A reader recommended an article by Dr. Joyce Brothers that may move young adults who have been alienated from a parent. Parents are encouraged to email such articles (with a gentle note) or ask a trusted relative or friend to share them as a potential catalyst for contact.

Teaching About Different Perspectives

A mother describes reading The True Story of the Three Little Pigs with her daughter and later hearing her say, about a character in another book: “Well maybe not, are you trying to say it could be like ‘The True Story of the Three Little Pigs’ and different perspectives?”

For the mother, this was evidence that seeds of critical thinking had taken root, even during the worst times of parental alienation.

Essay: How Custody Battles Resemble Political Campaigns

“Each parent is on a campaign to prove they are the best candidate for the office of ‘custodial parent’… They may feel compelled to smear the other parent and get all the ‘voters’—including the children—on their side…

It’s time for this parent to publicly announce I am the victim of a smear campaign… These children need both their parents. No one wins this campaign if the children lose a parent in the process.”

Valuable Advice From a Mother

A mother who successfully fought parental alienation within the legal system shares key strategies:

• Hire the best attorney you can possibly afford.
• Work closely with all therapists; remain calm, candid, and child-focused even when your ex excludes you.
• Don’t obsess over whether professionals use the term “parental alienation”; what matters is whether they recognize the dynamics and act in the child’s best interest.
• Be proactive, not reactive, with the other parent.
• Take breathers, pace yourself, and lean on friends and loved ones.
• Maintain some thread of contact with your child whenever possible.

Mars Lander Analogy

One mother suggests treating your efforts to connect with an alienated child like a long-running Mars lander project: stay committed but somewhat detached, sending careful “signals” (letters, messages) over time and watching for any response.

Send Divorce Poison to Adult Children

For adults who remain out of contact, some parents have found that mailing a copy of Divorce Poison with a heartfelt note can, in some cases, be the catalyst for a reconsideration of the past.

Teach Children to Solve, Not Avoid, Relationship Difficulties

When children say contact is “too stressful,” it can be helpful to gently point out that avoiding problems rather than solving them is a poor strategy that may harm future relationships as well.

Use Good-mouthing to Reduce Bad-mouthing

Consistently acknowledge specific good things your ex does for the children and express appreciation. It is harder to relentlessly bad-mouth someone who speaks well of you in front of the children.

Persistence Pays Off

A father who once thought of giving up continued to send loving messages despite no response: “If some father who is where I was a few years ago sought my advice, I know I would say to him, “Don’t give up; always let your kids know you love them unconditionally… both my children now call me Dad or Daddy and always sign their emails, Love [child’s name] and I can’t express in words what that means to me.”

Letter That Kindled a Mother–Daughter Reconciliation

“Dear Jane,

I love when you used to draw angels. Remember when we said thunder was Grandmother bowling up in heaven and when it was lightning she got a strike?

Remember how proud you were when you got so fast on your crutches after your broken ankle? Remember how we spent the night when you were in the hospital with mono? We talked all night about everything.

Jane, I love you unconditionally. I will always pray and hope for you to want to see me. But if you don’t, I won’t pressure you anymore to visit, call, etc. Maybe some day we can have a relationship again.

I am very proud of you… Know that I love you always, and think about you all the time!

Love, Mom

Intended as a “letting go” letter, it instead touched the daughter’s heart and became the first step in rebuilding their relationship.