In this interview, California attorney‑mediator Scott Levin (Chief Peacekeeper) talks with licensed marriage and family therapist Kathy Himlin about parental alienation in high‑conflict custody and divorce cases. They outline how "out" parents—those with limited access to their children—can become alienated, and how therapists like Himlin work directly with the child (considered the client) and both parents to uncover why a child resists contact. The conversation covers the mix of court‑ordered and voluntary therapeutic interventions, the complex factors that drive child resistance (including abuse, justified safety concerns, primary‑caretaker grief, attachment to the family home, and a child’s tendency to choose the path of least resistance). They discuss a specific anxiety where one parent remains in the family home while the other moves to a new residence, noting that children may fear leaving a familiar space or, conversely, may want to escape bad memories. Both guests argue that the family‑law system needs a shift toward a child‑centered approach that tailors decisions to developmental and mental‑health needs, which could reduce litigation and alienation. Himlin promotes a free PDF (5reasonschild.com) that lists the top five reasons children resist contact, offering a practical resource for parents and professionals.
Chapters
Hi everyone, this is Scott Levin. I'm an attorney mediator in California known as Chief Peacekeeper. Uh, I'm here today with a great resource and a very interesting person named Kathy Himlen. Hi Kathy.
Hi Kathy.
I'll let her introduce herself, but the topic today is really a, a great, uh, a really interesting thing for us to talk about. It's, it's parental alienation. We're not going to define what that means exactly, but it involves one parent during or after divorce, you know, being in a— being the out parent, a parent that doesn't have a lot of access to their child for whatever reason that is. Kathy, can you talk— can you introduce yourself and let me know how you would introduce the topic maybe a little more eloquently?
Well, no, but my name is Kathy Himmler, of course, and I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and a licensed professional clinical counselor. And right now I specialize in high-conflict custody and dispute and divorce cases with parents who have children who are resisting contact. So how I see parental alienation, it's— there's so many definitions out there, but In a lot of my cases, that word gets used a lot.
So obviously a high-conflict custody case, that's where someone like you or you are being brought in to, I assume, to oftentimes not as a neutral third party, but to, to as a, as an analyzing the situation on behalf of one, one of the parents. Is that correct? Yeah.
To help to restore the relationship with that parent and child, figure out why is that child not wanting to see that parent.
And to do that, you have access to the child in, in some way?
Yeah, the child is considered my client in that situation. And then I work with a child and actually both parents separately to try to get at the bottom of things and how we can formulate a plan to help restore the relationship or reconnect them together.
Is that typically like pursuant to like a court order, like where the judge is saying, I want you to do this, or is the Is the primary parent going along with that voluntarily?
I have a mix. I have a lot of court-ordered ones, but there's some that are trying to do preventative or trying to do it prior to court so they can get things resolved prior to court. So on occasion, we have cooperative primary parents.
You know, it's interesting, in my work as a mediation attorney— I don't litigate anymore, I haven't for over a decade— You know, I often will, will have parents that are trying to come to custody agreements talk about, you know, one child. They, they're concerned about whether the child will, will go along with the parenting plan that we're, we're kind of putting into place. And, you know, that's a little bit beyond my scope. You know, my goal in, in my work is to come to a parenting custody agreement, and then if it needs to change in the future based on what's happening, let's do that. But it is a huge concern. Do parents play a role in that at times, creating that alienation where the child doesn't want to or is not seeing one of the parents? Is the other contributing to that or sometimes not?
I think there's a mix. I think, again, as I've talked about before, that it's not really black and white, that there's A lot of different variables contributing. So, you know, we have to look at things like, was there abuse in this case? Is there some sort of justified reason why a child doesn't want to see another parent, the out parent, as you talked about, or I call them the peripheral parents? Is there something going on with that primary caretaker in a situation where maybe we have one parent who stayed in the house longer while the other parent was full-time out of the house? Is there something going on where that parent is expressing grief and loss and not wanting to let go of that child because they're used to having them like maybe 80 or 90% of the time? And it's just really hard to like give up that child, the time with that child that they've been used to, the child's life, the entire life. So there's things like that happening. And then there's the child in themselves will sometimes pick the path of least resistance as well.
In terms of one thing that has come up recently in my practice, that's kind of interesting. Multiple clients have referenced this, is that one parent's going to stay in the house and buy the other out, and that they'll stay in there with the children. That's what one parent wants. The other is resisting, not financially, but because they feel a fear of the children wanting to be in their, you know, the space that they know, their house. And that, you know, they, they won't want to come to the new, you know, kind of condo or apartment-style residence that the other parent's going to be set up in. Is that a— is that something that's, uh, that you see or hear about? Is that a genuine issue?
Absolutely. I've seen that. I don't see it in all my cases, but there is times when whatever the parent— whoever the parent is that stays in the family home, um, the other parent is afraid that the children won't leave. And in fact, in some of my cases, that is the fact they don't want to be in 2 homes. They want to stay in the home they've grown up in. And then there's some of the kids that don't want to be in the family home because they have bad memories and they want to be in a new place. So it's such a mixed bag of different reactions for kids, but I do see that as well.
You know, all of this— there's so much more we could talk about. We're going— we're not gonna— we're not gonna give you all the info now. Um, I encourage you to, to reach out to Kathy if this is something that you're experiencing or more interested in. But, you know, the bottom line is We want to protect children. We want to protect our children, society's children. We need to reduce conflict. We need to reduce tension. And, and, you know, that's, that's the first step, I think, in, in protecting children during and after, you know, a divorce transition is to get things stable and give them a shot to breathe. Let them, let them have a chance. And the conflict perpetuated, in my opinion, through the court system is something that you want to try to avoid if you can. And Kathy is a resource that is in private practice that offers and has the experience on the court, on the, you know, on the, on this topic and child-related topics that you can gain incredible insight from. And Kathy, is there anything that you would, you would say about conflict and tension and how does how to go through this in a way where the kids are, you know, kids are put as the priority and their well-being is put at the forefront.
Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. I think that we need to somehow change the family law system to make it more child-centered. I think that if we were to focus on what the children were needing according to their developmental age and just mental well-being, that we wouldn't have as many litigious cases. We wouldn't have all this litigation that if we focused on their needs. Um, and there would be less parental alienation or RESIST cases because the focus would be on the child's needs and not on fighting over the percent of how much you're going to see your child or the money. Um, it sort of would fall in line, I believe, the most. So I really think there needs to be a change. So—
Yeah, and I would love to talk to you in the, in the near future and record about, you know, children. You know, there's such standard plans, like if a child is under this age, then maybe you do it this way. If a child is A teenager, then. But like you know, it's really the children are all different. They're all snowflakes. You know, they all come out different. They're impacted by society in different ways. They have their own personalities, and you really have to take into consideration that child and that child. The court system doesn't know that child. You know, and it's hard for for the courts to to make orders that affect them when when they really can't. which really struggles to try to identify with the child. So thank you so much for being here. Parental alienation, child-related issues during and after divorce. Think of Kathy. I'm going to put her— Kathy, how do people reach you?
Well, one of the ways is I've got a free PDF out there that's called 5reasonschild.com, and I go through the 5 top reasons why children resist contact with their parents.
Awesome. I will put a link to that as well, and we'll see you soon. Thank you.
