Billie Tarascio: When Alienating Behavior Becomes Domestic Violence

An Arizona judge looked at three years of one parent blocking the other from their own child and named it two things at once: parental alienation, and domestic violence. The ruling is on appeal. If it holds, it becomes something other parents in the state can point to.

Our guest is Billie Tarascio, an Arizona family law attorney and the owner of Modern Law, a family law firm in the Phoenix metro area. She also runs Win Without Law School, a coaching program for people who represent themselves, covering trial skills, legal writing, and how to challenge a custody evaluation. She is deliberately careful with the phrase "parental alienation" in a courtroom, because the term has been used against domestic-violence survivors, so she builds her cases around specific behavior rather than the label.

In this conversation, Billie walks Lisa through the case: the DUI, the custody change, the vague order that set no actual parenting time for the mother, and the three years that followed. They get into the relief a targeted parent can actually ask for, why a parent should keep enforcing parenting time even when a child resists, and how to handle a co-parent who lets an arrangement slide unofficially and then claims alienation once the other parent tries to make it official.

They also spend time on the parents who are falsely accused of alienation, something Billie and Lisa agree is often predictable, and the personal work that keeps a hurt parent from putting their own feelings onto their children. And they explain why a domestic-violence finding carries so much weight: in Arizona it creates a legal presumption against joint legal decision-making, which removes one of the tools an abusive co-parent relies on. They close on building a parenting plan tight enough to keep you out of repeat litigation.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why attorneys and even judges often avoid the term "parental alienation," and what to describe instead
• How a documented pattern of behavior can meet a court's definition of domestic violence
• What actually proved this case: phone records, logged contact attempts, family testimony, and texts
• Why you keep enforcing your parenting time exactly when your child is resisting contact
• The trap of allowing an unofficial arrangement and then claiming alienation later
• How to proactively defend when you are the parent being falsely accused
• Why a domestic-violence finding can shift legal decision-making away from an abusive co-parent
• How a parenting plan with tiebreakers and procedural steps keeps you out of repeat court

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Meeting Billie, and the video that started it
3:00 Why she avoids saying "parental alienation" in court
5:00 A DUI, a custody flip, and a vague court order
7:00 Three years of blocked contact, and the judge who reversed custody
9:00 The child's wishes, documenting the pattern, and arguing best interest
13:00 The relief to ask for, and why you never stop enforcing parenting time
15:00 Allowing an unofficial arrangement, then claiming alienation
17:00 Extracurriculars, teenagers, and long-distance parenting
19:00 When you are the one accused, and doing your own trauma work
25:00 Why a domestic-violence finding matters, and airtight parenting plans

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Billie Tarascio at Modern Law: https://mymodernlaw.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.