The child is waiting by the window. Dad promised to come, but Mom said, "He won't come." Or Dad is calling, and Mom picks up the phone and says, "She doesn't want to talk to you." Behind this wall of silence is the fate of a little person whose childhood was stolen. Not toys, not candy — they stole his right to love and be loved by both parents. This is about a situation where the mother (or other relatives) consciously blocks the child's communication with the father living separately. This is not just an argument between adults — it is a lifelong trauma. What does "stolen childhood" mean Childhood is the time when a child builds his picture of the world, which includes Mom and Dad. Even if the parents do not live together, the father remains a part of this picture. When Mom forbids meetings, does not answer calls, turns the child against the father ("he abandoned you", "he doesn't care about you"), she tears a whole piece out of the child's soul. The child stops understanding who he is. He starts blaming himself. He loses his support. This theft does not constitute theft under the Criminal Code, but the consequences are worse than any loss of things. The child may grow up with the belief that men are not needed, that love is unreliable, that any close person can disappear. Stolen childhood is not a metaphor. It is a diagnosis that psychotherapists give to adults whose parents divorced and one of them disappeared from their lives at the will of the other. How a mother alienates a child from the father There are direct and hidden methods. Direct: not letting him in, not giving him to the father for weekends, not answering the father's calls, not passing on gifts. Hidden: saying bad things about the father in front of the child, making fun of his appearance, income, new companions, forcing the child to choose between parents ("if you go to him, I will cry"). Over time, the child develops what is called "parental alienation syndrome" — he starts to hate the f ... Read more