The Pinocchio Effect - False Allegations and The Alienated Child

I presume you are all familiar with the story of Pinocchio - the wooden puppet whose nose grew longer every time he lied. Eventually, with the help of his conscience, Jiminy Cricket, Pinocchio learns to be a good boy and tell the truth, finally achieving his goal of becoming a real boy.

Unfortunately, in the case of boys and girls who are being alienated from their fathers by the Evil Queens, this happy ending isn't always these case. These children are often forced to lie so often that eventually the line between lies and reality becomes blurred - they end up believing that what they are being told to say is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. This is highly concerning as childhood is the time when we learn our morals and values, how to follow the rules of society and, most importantly how to treat other human beings.

We have all told lies at some points in our life whether as children ("No, I didn't eat that last piece of cake in the fridge...I have no idea where the frosting around my mouth came from!"), as employees ("I'm really sorry but I can't come in today as I have the flu...and I really need a duvet day!") and particularly as parents (The Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus spring to mind!)

My sister is currently perpetuating the lie to her son that the Ice Cream Man only plays his music when he has run out of ice-cream, whilst I have been guilty of writing an apology note from The Tooth Fairy when The Wicked Step-Mother consumed one too many glasses of wine (after a hard day of teaching, I might add in my defence!) and forgot to exchange the tooth for a shiny pound coin! My own parents were also guilty of various offences, in particular the lie that green sweets weren't suitable for children and could only be eaten by adults - I have never eaten a full packet of Starburst as a result of this in my life!

However, as a result of Parental Alienation, these little white lies are nothing in comparison to the damage that can be done by a lying child.

Our experiences of the Step-Munchkins turning in Pinocchios began about three months into the separation of Prince Charming and the Evil Queen. At this point, the Evil Queen was still denying any direct contact but was allowing phone calls. To start with, the phone calls had been fine with the Step-Munchkins eager to tell their father what they had been doing, were doing and were going to do...but then this changed. The conversations became somewhat scripted.

Suddenly they had been nowhere, were nowhere and were going nowhere. The then four-year old boy Step-Munchkin apparently spent every night doing jigsaws, and school consisted of "English, Maths and Science" or "Making Bricks". This continued for months...and if the "Making Bricks" was to be believed, he would have managed to construct a full size replica of The Great Wall of China by now (or been of great assistance to Donald Trump with his Mexican border wall!). However, we ignored this for the sake of maintaining any sort of contact with the Munchkins.

Things came to a head, however, once Prince Charming had been awarded direct and staying contact by the Family Court, after one particular visit. After a three hour visit, the Munchkins were returned home and we waited for the now-predictable and critical barrage of emails that usually followed every visit. However, this one was certainly not what we expected. The email received stated that she would not tolerate Prince Charming threatening their son, and was calling the Police and Children's Services. This left us completely bemused as to what this supposed "threatening" entailed.

Now,(digressing a little, as usual!) I don't know about you but if  had the Police has been called every time I had threatened my kids, and I had been charged, tried and convicted, I would probably be currently serving more time than Charles Manson - or awaiting my fate on Death Row!

I am certainly not advocating threatening your children but we've all done it - from the "If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about!" to "Don't make me come up there!" - or my personal favourite "Wait until your father comes home!" - but that certainly doesn't make us criminals! It makes us normal parents.

So we waited..and waited...and waited to find out what exactly Prince Charming was meant to have threatened his son about. In the meantime, ALL contact was denied - direct or otherwise.

And we waited...and waited...and waited...until over two weeks later when Prince Charming received a phone call from the Police inviting him to a "voluntary" interview "under caution". For those of you who are unfamiliar with these terms, it basically means that, if you don't agree to go and be interviewed, they will come and arrest you in order to interview you!

Fast forward to the day of the "voluntary" interview...I will spare you the hours of stress that could (and nearly did!) have driven us apart. We arrived at the Police Station where our baby daughter and myself were forced to wait in a room which was clearly set up to put the REAL victims of child abuse at ease, and Prince Charming was taken into the Interview Room by two female Police Officers.

In the Interview Room he was completely stunned to hear the allegations against himself. He learned that he had taken his son to MacDonald's, on the evening in question, where he had threatened to "punch him in the head" and had accidentally caught him in the face (splitting his lip) whilst waving his hand around in a "threatening manner".

Firstly, they had NOT gone to MacDonald's on the evening in question (and had the Police been bothered to ask for the CCTV from the restaurant in question on that night, this would have been proven in less than the month it took to close the investigation). Secondly, there was no evidence of any physical injury to his son and, thirdly, he has NEVER threatened his son!

However, it was then revealed that the boy Step-Munchkin had also then changed his story and that they hadn't visited MacDonald's and the incident had actually taken place in our home where I was not present due to the fact that the Court Order in place forbade me from being there.

Let me explain....when the Court Order was put in place (by 'consent' in the loosest sense of the word!), the Evil Queen dictated that myself and our daughter were to vacate our home on Friday evenings for three hours in order to allow Prince Charming to spend "quality time" with his other children. Please bear in mind that our daughter, at the time of this "incident" was only nine months old, and had been suffering that day with a viral infection. So, I broke the Court Order! I refused to leave OUR home with OUR ILL daughter that evening, so I was present for the whole time. Unfortunately, the Evil Queen's Magic Mirror was obviously not working that evening!

Despite the fact that there was no evidence of them being in MacDonald's, no evidence of physical injury, the Step-Boy Munchkin changing his story, myself being present as a witness, it still took over a month for the Police investigation to be closed. Unfortunately, the closure of the investigation did not mean that Social Services were prepared to drop their vendetta against Prince Charming - but that is for a separate post!

Have the lies stopped? No, no and no! But can we blame the Munchkins? No. They have been the victims of the Evil Queen's lies and indoctrination for three years now, but it isn't their fault; they are just children. We are both living in fear of the next allegation.

Parental Alienation is still not recognised in many countries outside of the US, and in the UK, the father is still considered to be the antagonistic evil villain. And children lying is just the start of it. Without proper recognition, these children and their relationships with their fathers become damaged, as do their future relationships with others.

So my message to all of those Evil Queen's out there...By all means, hate the man that left you because he didn't love you. But, remember, that he didn't leave his children because he hates them. Let them love their father, without your alienating them against him. They are children - Let them be children!

And on a light-hearted note to finish, a recent study has shown that you can prove if someone is lying by the fact that their nose actually does get warmer when they lie. So, get your thermal imaging cameras, or your thermometer out! However, the study also showed that your buttocks get colder if you participate in Flamenco dancing...so you can judge the reliability for yourself!

Please feel free to post your comments below or follow me on Facebook and leave your comments there x