Don’t write amends letters to your alienated child... Using the right action at the right time protocol

The topic for this listening and learning circle will be:

Don’t write amends letters to your alienated child... Using the right action at the right time protocol.
With Karen Woodall

Wednesday 19 August 2026
This seminar will be delivered on Zoom between 17:00 and 19:00 UK Time.

To check your local start time, please click the link below, ensure ‘Date’ is selected, and enter 17:00 - 2026-08-19 - London in the right-hand boxes, here: https://dateful.com/time-zone-converter *

A Zoom link for this event will be included in your order confirmation (if you do not receive this, please check your spam folder).

Cost £40.00 (including tax)

T&Cs: Please read our terms and conditions here

* we are unable to offer refunds for missed events.

About this listening and learning circle

Parents living with attachment disruption are frequently advised to apologise, accommodate, explain themselves repeatedly, or write “amends letters” to children who are rejecting them. Whilst often well intentioned, these approaches can unintentionally reinforce distorted narratives, deepen role confusion, and place parents and children into psychologically unsafe positions within the family system. 

At the Family Separation Clinic, we understand that timing, emotional regulation and relational positioning are critical when working with children living in states of coerced alignment and attachment fear. Interventions which are offered at the wrong time, or from a place of panic, guilt or emotional collapse, can intensify rather than reduce pressure upon the child. 

In this Listening Circle, Karen Woodall will explore the Right Action at the Right Time Protocol, a relational framework for understanding when to step forward, when to step back, and how to maintain therapeutic leadership without becoming drawn into cycles of over explanation, self erasure, or emotional appeasement. 

Together we will think about: 

• Why “amends letters” can often reinforce distorted dynamics
• The difference between healthy accountability and coerced self abandonment
• Guilt, panic and the parent’s urge to repair immediately
• Why timing matters in attachment disrupted relationships
• Understanding pressure, resistance and the child’s survival adaptations
• The importance of emotional regulation in therapeutic parenting
• How to respond without collapsing into self defence or appeasement
• The principles of the Right Action at the Right Time Protocol
• Maintaining parental authority, dignity and psychological integrity during periods of rejection 

This is not a legal advice session. It is a psychologically informed reflective space designed to help parents think more deeply about the relational dynamics affecting their child and family system. 

This Listening Circle offers a professionally facilitated reflective space in which parents can develop greater understanding of the unconscious processes shaping family relationships, whilst remaining emotionally supported and clinically informed.. 

Please read our terms and conditions here

About Karen Woodall
This series is delivered by Karen Woodall and is based on her successful work with alienated children over fifteen years. Drawing upon her psychotherapeutic experience as well as her research and direct work with alienated children in recovery, Karen offers you a unique insight into the world that the alienated child inhabits whilst helping you to understand how to build a path for the child to walk upon to return to you. Beyond that, Karen will assist you to understand the alienated child in recovery and their unique needs for longer term therapeutic parenting which helps them to integrate all of the lost parts of self. The wealth of knowledge and experience of direct work with families to help them to integrate and recover from this serious trauma that Karen offers, makes this series an experiential, warm and effective opportunity to create your own positive outcomes for your alienated child(ren). Karen's new parenting handbook, The Journey of the Alienated Children, will be published by Routledge later in 2026.