Background: In my blog post Is Charlie Sheen the Victim of Parental Alienation?, I discussed the Charlie Sheen/Denise Richards divorce and apparent attempts by Richards to minimize and control Sheen’s relationship with his children. Richards claims that the children–ages two and three–don’t want to be with their father, and often return from his house “sad and upset.” I doubt the kids have any problem with their father outside of what Richards manufactures and tries to make them think or feel.

Richards has made many claims against Sheen which Sheen has denied, and for which there is apparently no independent authentication. As I explained in the previous post, neither Sheen nor Richards have clean histories.

Tara Fields, Ph.D., a licensed marriage and family therapist, has some interesting comments in the article Inside the Charlie & Denise Custody Battle (OK! Magazine, 9/21/07) that suggest that Richards has a credibility problem, and that she is trying to manufacture a conflict between Sheen and their children in order to limit his time with them. According to the article:

“Already questionable is Denise’s assertion that Sam and Lola were upset to learn of their father’s engagement through a celebrity news show, which raised eyebrows as many feel 2- and 3-year-olds are not old enough to understand the story and the meaning of an engagement through a TV program.

“Tara Fields, Ph.D., licensed marriage and family therapist, also of  Decision House, tells OK! that the cognitive development of toddlers isn’t advanced enough to comprehend such an abstract concept. At that age, the most that could upset them is seeing their dad with another woman, but it is common knowledge that the girls have met and spent time with Brooke.

“‘Someone would have to explain it to them, what that means is they don’t have the cognitive ability at these young ages unless someone has explained what that means either before, during or after seeing the segment,’ Dr. Fields says. ‘Living in L.A., they could be that sophisticated since they might be around others whose parents may be in the same situation. However, somebody, whether in the past or now, would have to explain what that means.'”

I agree with Fields. My daughter is the smartest little girl in the world, but there is no way at age three that she would have been able to have noted and understood this kind of complicated, adult issue, much less to have been upset about it and explained it to a two-year-old. It’s nonsense, it didn’t happen, and it’s one more indication that Richards is trying to alienate the children from Sheen. One common alienator behavior is called the “Independent Thinker,” wherein the alienating parent tries to convince everybody that it is the children, not her, who have an aversion to the other parent, and that they (sigh) are forced to do what they must in order to protect their children from the other parent.

www.GlennSacks.com, Glenn Sacks

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