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Counselor tells task force parental-alienation claims cause lasting harm, urges education and faster remedies
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Summary
Dr. John Perez, a licensed clinical counselor, recounted his own custody case and clinical experience with parental alienation, cited significant legal costs, and recommended better education for judges and parents and expedited procedures to prevent long-term damage to families.
Bismarck — Dr. John Perez, a licensed professional clinical counselor who practices in North Dakota and Minnesota, told the Child Custody Review Task Force on Feb. 26 that parental alienation — when one parent deliberately harms a child's relationship with the other parent — exacts heavy emotional and financial tolls and demands better tools from courts and practitioners.
Relating his personal experience, Perez said his initial custody outcome followed a standard schedule he described as a "cookie cutter custody arrangement," and that he believes a presumption of equal parenting time might have spared his family years of distress. "I was awarded the cookie cutter custody arrangement ... It seems to me that the presumption of equal parenting time would have saved me and my ex wife, but most importantly, our sons a decade plus of heartache and pain," he said.
Perez described tactics he says were used against him and other clients—disparaging the targeted parent, gatekeeping school and medical information, encouraging children to lie to law enforcement, and restricting contact—and warned that those behaviors can be difficult to detect and to remedy once embedded. He cited personal and client examples that included legal costs: he said one pattern of repeated litigation cost his family about $50,000 and described another client who spent roughly $80,000 in fees.
At the same time Perez acknowledged the controversy around labeling: "The difficulty with this topic is that it is still being debated in the field on how to define this," he said, and cautioned against labeling every conflict as alienation. Perez urged the task force to emphasize practitioner education and to consider processes that shorten delays in adjudicating parenting-time disputes, so relationships and children's welfare are protected earlier in the litigation cycle.
Committee members asked Perez whether his case originated under Minnesota law (he said it did) and whether mandatory education or a specialized family court could have helped; Perez said better-trained judges and faster access to hearings likely would have improved outcomes in his case. Perez also recommended more training for mental-health professionals and attorneys so that the system can distinguish legitimate safety concerns from manipulative conduct.
The task force did not vote on proposals based on Perez’s testimony, but members cited his remarks while debating education mandates and expedited-hearing timelines. Perez’s testimony was one of several personal and professional perspectives that the committee said it would weigh as it designs bill drafts and pilot proposals.
