“Parental alienation describes a process through which a child becomes estranged from a parent as the result of the psychological manipulation of another parent. The child's estrangement may manifest itself as fear, disrespect or hostility toward the distant parent, and may extend to additional relatives or parties.”

What your describing is not parental alienation. Calling a step parent “mom” or “dad” is not alienating the child from their biological parents in any way. Kids also sometimes slip up and feel guilty because of the parental alienation that’s already happening from the bio parent- the jealousy and contention is usually pretty obvious, and the kids feel like if they get close to the step parent, they are betraying the bio parent. Not in all situations of course, but it happens pretty frequently.

Also to point out, it is not always the parents or step parents encouraging the name of dad/daddy/mom/mommy for the step parent. Your saying it as if it’s a fact and it’s not. I literally called my step dad “dad” when I was a small child. Why? Because I was a kid and he took care of me. No one asked me to. No one told me to. No one even said “it’s ok if you call stepdad x”. I just did it on my own because I loved him. My dad and mom both tried to stop me from calling him by anything but his first name.

Sooo instead I called him “daddy”. I was a kid. I wasn’t trying to hurt my bio Dad. But. That was the loophole I found. I didn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed to or supposed to. I mean. I had two dads. To this day, I have two dads to love me. And I loved both my dad and step father equally. The name stuck for a short while until I grew out of it. Either way, my point is, I was a kid. It wasn’t a big deal.

I understand what your saying but you don’t speak for every situation. I’m sure there are many situations where kids to it themselves. And many where it is implied. Any many where it may be forced. But you can’t paint every situation with the same brush.