Whatever the reason for removing minor children- has there been a similar contemptpt threat to the mother? If not, wh not? The judge certainly could do that.
The court likely couldn’t determine that the mother was the source of their refusal just like the court couldn’t establish that Manson ordered the Tate murders.
A 5-year regime of disaffection and alienation will ensure the children exhibit the mother’s wishes without prompting.
The mother is mentally ill. She may have been able to control it while working but went full-on crazy during her divorce. Divorce placed her in a zero-sum, Marxist dialectic with the father which only fed her “it’s everyone’s fault but mine” which schizophrenics and bi-polars exhibit. My guess is she’s unemployed as well since she appears to have no sense of accountability to societal norms and requirements.