I do my best to explain that while it's ok to love me and feel safe with me, that I can never be her mom, she will only have one mom, and that her mom is just feeling some mixed up stuff that we are trying to get her help for, and that it will pass.
This is pretty much the approach I took with SD10-15.
If you watch the videos you will decide for yourself, however, I see how what I did may have unintentionally assisted with the alienation process at times.
For example:
If child is sad and looks stressed that she is breaking her bond with mom by bonding with me.
Before watching video, I say: I will never replace your mom, your mom is the most important and I acknowledge that she is very special to you and nothing will change that. (This really is what I would say, thinking the child would feel less stress with me and me being a good SM would eventually win over her mom's approach, by not stressing her)
Looking back, after watching the video: I now think that I was allowing the child to reinforce her need to uphold the alienation with those words. Because it focuses on the child's fear. And actually accidentally validates the child's need to uphold the disordered parents bond as primary and more important, which may lend to accidentally feeding the alienation.
(Now in all honesty, the videos don't explicitly give you detailed responses like this, so understand, this is coming from me and my interpretation.)
My New response after videos: I honestly don't know, I haven't gotten to practice as the r/s ended. However, I know the new message I would want to communicate would be:
1. Mom is safe and capable of caring for herself when you are not there, and will be the same mom when you return, she will not fall apart, she will be ok, and when we see her at drop off, look, she is still the same, always there for you no matter what (even if you bonded with us) (my thought with this is it puts the child back into the child role vs mom's caretaker. Idk if it works... .but it is what I came up with)
2. You are safe and ok to love us. I will always be loving and allow you to approach us for bonding and be open to it. All children want to bond to both of their parents, that is just what all kids do and feel, that is ok to feel. That is how I feel about my parents, and how bobby is etc.
I think the idea of the child being afraid that SM is replacing mom, is more a fear of the typical experience of a child not in BPD dynamic. I think when a child is having this experience where they have communicated to the child that the child should hate us... .that we are addressing the wrong primary issue for the child and incorrectly treating this issue as if "it is normal" and actually unintentionally "minimizing and invalidating." But that is my current opinion after only recently watching the videos and adding my own understanding to it all. I'm just throwing my thoughts out there in case you watch the videos and leave with different thoughts about it all... .and to openly dialogue both for and against an approach, as I never had the opportunity to get that far and would like to have my thoughts clearer around this.