LORETTA MAASE, LPC ~ PARENT ALIENATION EXPERT

Why Healing Lost Hearts®

After nearly three decades working with families in conflict — in high-conflict co-parenting cases, foster care, protective services, elite private schools, church ministries, and family law — I have landed, again and again, on one truth: the battle is ultimately won on the battlefield of the child’s heart.

Regardless of court decisions, an alienating parent’s behavior, or the missteps of untrained professionals, a child’s heart can still be touched. Not through argument or evidence — but one moment of peace at a time. One soft word. One gentle touch. One look that says I see you.

My work is, at its core, about prevention — even though most of it plays out in the court system. What a child loses, in these situations, is the safety of knowing they are not a soldier in a war between their parents. That the parent they’ve been pulled away from can still be trusted simply to be there — with recognition, with love, with joy at the sight of them.

That child just wants to be a child again — carefree, loved, held — even while screaming I hate you. I never want to see you again. And in the secret places of their heart, this is not what they want. They still want to be your child, no matter their age.

That love doesn’t require contact to be real. It can be a card, a note, a single small gesture that says nothing more than: I’m still here. That alone may be all a child needs — a seed planted, waiting for the season it can finally grow.

A lost heart can be healed if a parent will focus on the love, and not the loss — even from a distance, even in the middle of rejection. This is what Healing Lost Hearts® is about: one brief expression of love that touches a child and lasts, even after they are pulled back into the war.

Note: This message is intended for situations in which no positive finding of child abuse has been made against the rejected parent.