A Child Says, “I’m Scared of My Dad”: Ask What Happened Before Asking Who Influenced Them

JSH LAW · EVIDENCE, SAFEGUARDING & PRACTICAL SUPPORT
By Jessica Susan Hill · Reviewed 26 October 2026 · England and Wales unless stated otherwise

A recent post by family barrister Dr Charlotte Proudman captured a recurring and deeply troubling reversal in private children proceedings. A child says, “I’m scared of my dad.” Instead of beginning with the child’s experience, the inquiry can shift almost immediately to the mother: Did she cause this? Did she coach the child? Is she “alienating” them?

That reversal matters. Once a mother’s protective response is reframed as obstruction, almost anything may be made to fit the new story. The child’s distress becomes evidence of coaching. The mother’s anxiety becomes hostility. Her attempt to limit unsafe contact becomes gatekeeping. The more firmly the child refuses, the more firmly it may be said that somebody else must be controlling them.

The child disappears inside an adult contest: he says alienation; she says abuse. Yet those are not mirror-image allegations and they must not be treated as if they cancel one another out.

Before asking what the mother has done, ask what happened to the child.

This article is not an argument that every allegation must be accepted without scrutiny. Family courts must test disputed evidence fairly. Nor is it a denial that psychologically manipulating a child against a safe and loving parent can cause profound harm. It can. The point is that “parental alienation” cannot lawfully or safely be used as a shortcut—a label that replaces evidence, reverses the burden of proof or silences a frightened child.

“Believe children” does not mean “stop investigating”

There is an important distinction between taking a child seriously and treating every word as a concluded finding of fact. A child may be frightened, conflicted, loyal, angry, influenced, mistaken or unable to explain what has happened. They may love a parent and fear that same parent. Their account may develop as they find language for an experience. None of that makes their voice disposable.

Properly understood, “believe children” means beginning from respectful attention rather than institutional suspicion. It means:

• hearing the child without hostility or disbelief;
• recording their own words accurately and in context;
• avoiding leading questions and repeated interviews;
• considering what the child has seen, heard and experienced;
• gathering relevant independent evidence;
• assessing present and future risk; and
• explaining, in an age-appropriate way, how their views affected the decision.

The child should not carry the burden of proving an adult’s legal case. But their fear must be treated as potentially important safeguarding information. The correct response is neither automatic belief nor automatic disbelief. It is a safe, competent and open-minded investigation.

The law already places the child—not parental entitlement—at the centre

Under section 1 of the Children Act 1989, the child’s welfare is the court’s paramount consideration. The welfare checklist requires the court to consider the child’s ascertainable wishes and feelings in light of their age and understanding, alongside their needs, the likely effect of change, relevant characteristics, harm suffered or risked, and each parent’s ability to meet their needs.

The child does not have to be the direct target of physical violence to be a victim. Section 3 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 recognises a child as a victim of domestic abuse in their own right where they see or hear, or experience the effects of, abuse between people to whom they are related.

Practice Direction 12J requires the Family Court to identify and address domestic abuse where it is alleged, admitted or otherwise suspected. It requires early consideration of safeguarding information, risk, the need for a fact-finding hearing and whether an interim arrangement could expose the child or the other parent to an unmanageable risk of harm.

Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child also recognises the child’s right to express views in matters affecting them and for those views to be given due weight according to age and maturity.

What the Family Justice Council guidance now makes clear

The Family Justice Council’s December 2024 guidance on a child’s reluctance, resistance or refusal and allegations of alienating behaviour is essential reading. Its central message is that courts must examine specific behaviour, evidence, causation and impact—not diagnose a child or parent through a contested label.

The guidance says that “parental alienation syndrome” has no evidential basis and is harmful pseudo-science. It does not deny that a parent may psychologically manipulate a child. Instead, it requires the person making that allegation to prove what actually happened.

Before a court can find alienating behaviour, three necessary elements must be established:

1. The child is reluctant, resistant or refusing to engage in a relationship with a parent or carer.
2. That response is not an understandable consequence of the rejected parent’s behaviour towards the child or the other parent, and is not explained by another factor such as attachment, affinity or alignment.
3. The other parent engaged in behaviour which directly or indirectly affected the child and caused the child’s reluctance, resistance or refusal.

All three matter. A child’s refusal is not, by itself, proof of manipulation. A lack of another obvious explanation is not proof either. The alleging parent bears the burden of establishing both the harmful behaviour and the causal link to the child’s unjustified rejection.

The guidance also distinguishes alienating behaviour from protective behaviour. A parent who limits contact to protect a child from abuse or further harm is doing something fundamentally different from psychologically manipulating the child to reject a safe parent. A parent’s or child’s traumatic response to abuse—including litigation abuse—does not become alienating behaviour simply because it makes contact more difficult.

The sequence of questions is critical

Where domestic abuse and alienating behaviour are both alleged, the court should not simply place the allegations on opposite sides of a scale. The Family Justice Council says there is no equivalence between them. Domestic abuse is a crime; a parent and child may both be victims in their own right. Findings of alienating behaviour are expected to be relatively rare and require proof of defined conduct and causation.

The court’s reasoning should therefore proceed in a disciplined order:

1. Identify the alleged domestic abuse and child harm. Consider incidents, patterns, coercive control and the post-separation context.
2. Determine what must be decided. Specify the factual issues and decide whether a fact-finding hearing or other investigation is necessary and proportionate.
3. Assess the child’s experience and risk. What has the child seen, heard or experienced? What explains the fear? What might happen if contact is ordered?
4. Consider justified rejection, protection and trauma. Is the child’s response understandable in light of harmful parenting or abuse? Is the other parent attempting to keep the child safe?
5. Only then examine alleged manipulation. What precise behaviour is relied upon? Is it proved? Did it actually cause an otherwise unjustified rejection?
6. Make a welfare decision. Consider all realistic options, their risks and their short-, medium- and long-term effects on this particular child.

If domestic abuse is found and it explains the child’s rejection, the alienation allegation fails. Equally important, an allegation of abuse which is not proved does not automatically become a deliberately false allegation, still less proof that the child was manipulated. “Not proved” and “did not happen” are not interchangeable conclusions.

How a safeguarding concern becomes an accusation against the protective parent

The danger described in Dr Proudman’s post is not merely theoretical. It can arise through a series of apparently small shifts:

• a broad label such as “alienation” is accepted before the alleged conduct is particularised;
• the child’s words are treated as suspicious because they sound “too adult”;
• the absence of a police charge or medical record is treated as evidence that abuse did not occur;
• individual incidents are separated from the wider pattern of coercive or controlling behaviour;
• a parent’s failure to prove an allegation on the balance of probabilities is reframed as dishonesty;
• protective action is described as hostility to contact; and
• restoring contact becomes the objective while safety is treated as an obstacle.

That is how the question “What happened to this child?” can be displaced by “What is wrong with this mother?” It is also how the child’s behaviour becomes evidence against the very adult who may be trying to protect them.

Courts must remain alert to the opposite risk too: genuine manipulation can occur, can be perpetrated by either parent and can cause serious emotional harm. But recognising that risk does not justify using a diagnostic shortcut. It reinforces the need for specific findings and careful causal analysis.

The gap between rules and lived experience remains real

The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s Everyday Business report, published in October 2025, identified continuing barriers including pro-contact assumptions, adversarial practice, resource limitations and silo working. It raises serious questions about whether children’s accounts and domestic abuse concerns are properly heard. A pilot sample is not a finding about every family or every court.

Those figures come from a defined pilot sample and should not be presented as national prevalence estimates. They nevertheless provide direct, official evidence of the continuing implementation gap.

The direction of reform is important. The Government has proposed repealing the statutory presumption of parental involvement, and the Courts and Tribunals Bill is before Parliament at the time of writing. Until any repeal comes into force, the existing statutory provision remains law. In every case, however, the welfare of the individual child remains paramount; no parent has an automatic entitlement to a particular form or amount of contact.

Cafcass’s current domestic abuse practice policy is also explicit: practitioners must listen to children and adults who may have experienced domestic abuse, assess current and future harm, record what they were told in their own words and acknowledge the efforts of safe parents to protect children. The task now is consistent implementation.

If a child tells you they are frightened

A parent naturally wants to obtain every detail. That can inadvertently place pressure on the child and may later create an allegation of coaching. A calm safeguarding response is usually more helpful:

1. Listen calmly. Thank the child for telling you. Tell them it is not their fault. Do not react in a way that makes them responsible for your distress.
2. Do not interrogate. Use only minimal, open prompts if necessary, such as “Tell me what happened.” Avoid suggesting names, events or answers.
3. Make a contemporaneous note. Record the date, time, circumstances, the child’s exact words and your response. Separate fact from interpretation.
4. Assess immediate safety. If anybody is in immediate danger, call 999. Otherwise seek appropriate safeguarding advice from the police, children’s services, a GP, school safeguarding lead or a specialist domestic abuse service according to the circumstances.
5. Preserve existing evidence. Keep relevant messages, records, photographs and communications. Do not manufacture evidence or encourage the child to repeat an account for a recording.
6. Raise the issue promptly and specifically. In proceedings, identify the conduct, context, pattern, impact and present risk. Ask the court to address Practice Direction 12J rather than relying only on a label.
7. Keep the child out of the adult litigation. Do not show them pleadings, ask them to choose sides or make them responsible for the outcome.

If you are accused of “parental alienation”

Do not fight a vague label with another vague label. Bring the case back to facts, evidence and causation. Depending on the circumstances, important questions may include:

• What exact acts are alleged to amount to psychological manipulation?
• When did they occur, what evidence supports them and what is the alleged impact?
• How is it said that those acts caused the child’s reluctance or refusal?
• Has the possibility of abuse, harmful parenting, justified rejection, attachment, alignment, neurodivergence or trauma been safely considered?
• Is the court being invited to infer alienation merely because abuse was not proved?
• Have the child’s own words been accurately recorded and considered?
• Does any proposed expert have the necessary regulated qualifications and expertise, and is expert evidence actually necessary?

An existing order remains binding unless the court changes or stays it. If new safeguarding concerns make compliance unsafe or impossible, seek urgent legal advice and appropriate court directions; do not assume that a concern automatically suspends the order. In an emergency, prioritise immediate protection and contact the relevant emergency service. Keep communications brief, factual and child-focused.

What genuine child-centred justice requires

Good guidance is necessary, but it cannot protect children if it remains on paper. A genuinely child-centred system needs:

• mandatory, specialist and regularly updated domestic abuse and trauma training;
• early, safe and developmentally appropriate engagement with the child;
• continuity of professionals and decision-makers wherever possible;
• clear judicial control of vague or tactical cross-allegations;
• proper analysis of patterns of coercive control rather than isolated incidents alone;
• strict application of the rules governing experts and pseudo-scientific evidence;
• transparent reasoning showing how the child’s wishes, experiences and safety were assessed; and
• national monitoring capable of identifying unsafe patterns and regional inconsistency.

The Family Court does not protect children by accepting every allegation. It protects them by asking the right questions in the right order, testing evidence fairly and refusing to let a contested adult label erase a child’s lived experience.

Sometimes a child is frightened because somebody made them afraid of a safe parent. That possibility must be examined where there is evidence for it.

And sometimes a child is frightened because something frightened them.

The Family Court must remain capable of telling the difference.

General information and commentary, not advice on an individual case. JSH Law provides non-reserved litigation support, document-preparation assistance and McKenzie Friend support, subject to the court’s permission where required. It is not an SRA-authorised solicitors’ firm and does not conduct litigation or exercise reserved rights of audience on a client’s behalf. Obtain appropriately regulated legal advice where needed. Comparative foreign law is not binding in England and Wales.