Does your abuser attempt to alienate your children from you? Does he/she emotionally harm, manipulate, or physically abuse them to hurt you? Children can be the objects of abuse for many reasons. In some cases they are emotionally and physically harmed by abusers with the specific intent of causing paint to the abuser's adult partner. Their abuse may be physical, or it may be playing favourites among children, neglecting, or emotionally battering them. Abusers may threaten their partners with physical and legal harm if they report child abuse.

Some abusers use children to gain emotional advantage in relationships.

They bribe them or manipulate them and attempt to alienate them from each other and from their parents. They injure children by excessive punishment or by harming pets, knowing the children's pain will cause a parent to suffer.

Using children to abuse adults can happen between married partners, unmarried partners, and ex-partners. Children are often used by divorcing couples to inflict pain on each other, and as "prizes'' in divorce wars. Using custodial fights, visitation times, and everyday occasions, they make children the victims on the battlefield of divorce abuse.

Children can also be used to manipulate adults in non-marital relationships.

They may be courted and then discarded once the relationship is established.

They may be yelled at, put down, ignored, or treated unfairly in many of the ways abusers batter adults to punish, harm, threaten, or otherwise control an adult partner. Are your children in danger of emotional or physical abuse? Does your partner treat them in manipulative or dangerous ways? Examples of Using Children to Abuse Adults Michael and Lionel cry each time they visit their mother. She hits them and mocks them. She does what she can to alienate them from their older brother and their father, who has not been able to stop her actions despite pleadings and legal efforts.

Shelly takes her children aside and tells them lies about their father, Rudy.

She bribes them with gifts, and she promises them grand adventures if they live with her. She is preparing for a custody fight designed to hurt Rudy.

Ever since his ex-wife left him, Walter takes their sixteen-year-old daughter on "dates''. He buys her flowers, takes her to movies, and goes clothes shopping with her, choosing all her clothes. He subtly puts down his ex-wife in many comments, and plays on the disagreements that naturally arise in the mother/daughter relationship.

Remember, a healthy person celebrates, loves, and nurtures children, and treats them with respect, care, and dignity. There is no excuse for child abuse! The Physical Abuse Centre is a part of The Family Resource network which consists of The Coalition for The Protection of Children, The Institute of Child & Family Health, P.A.R.E.N.T.S. and The Father's Resource Centre. The agencies joined in 1998 to better serve Bermuda's families with a shared vision.

NINA JONES is a PAC Counsellor