In this article I provide an overview and summary of parental alienation to help separated and divorced parents, grandparents, and others affected by this problem to identify, prevent, and heal psychologically damaging fractured relationships.

You can read more about parental alienation by clicking on the links at the end of this article.

Summary: Parental alienation

This article covers the following issues.

A. What is parental alienation?
B. Parental alienation behaviors: Making children allies in a battle between parents
C. How to identify a child who suffers from parental alienation

• Child resists a relationship with the other parent
• Loss of a prior positive relationship with the rejected parent
• The absence of abuse, neglect, or seriously deficient parenting
• Behaviors by the alienating parent and allies
• Denigrating attitudes and behavior toward a parent

D. Prevention of parental alienation and early intervention
E. Ten common mistakes for targeted parents to avoid
F. How family courts can help with parental alienation
G.How to get more information about parental alienation

A. What is parental alienation?

A1. Definition of parental alienation

Parental alienation is a disturbance in which a child rejects a parent without good cause. The rejection can range from mild to severe. In mild alienation, a child may share a parent’s litany of complaints about the other parent but warms to that parent when they are together. In severe parental alienation, the child may refuse contact, express raw hatred of a formerly loved parent, and believe the parent is worthless.

A2. “Parental alienation syndrome” – Why the term is out of favor

As with other mental health problems, our understanding of the disturbance, and the terms used to describe it, have evolved over time. For instance, today what we call “post-traumatic stress disorder” was once known as “shell shock.” Because clinicians observed that unreasonably alienated children tend to share a cluster of attitudes and behaviors, such as expressing only negative thoughts and feelings about the alienated parent, in the past this mental health problem was known as parental alienation syndrome. The term syndrome was used because it refers to a cluster of mental health symptoms that consistently occur together.

“A child’s alienation from a parent, left uncorrected, can last a lifetime.”

Despite the commonly observed cluster of behaviors of children who are alienated, the term, parental alienation syndrome, fell out of favor, especially in family law litigation. Mental health professionals were concerned that when an alienated child showed these typical behaviors toward one parent, therapists and judges in a child custody case would leap to the conclusion that the other parent was to blame. Naturally, other factors can harm a child’s relationship with a parent, and thus it essential to keep an open mind when searching for the roots of a child rejecting one parent.

A3. Adult Children of Parental Alienation

A child’s alienation from a parent, left uncorrected, can last a lifetime. Many rejected parents report that their adult children remain aloof or completely out of touch. These parents lose out on important events, such as their child’s college graduation, wedding, and the birth of grandchildren. Alienated adult children may deprive their own children of a set of grandparents.

As adults, some formerly alienated children come to realize they were manipulated to reject a good parent. They eventually reconnect with the parent they rejected for so many years but are angry with the alienating parent who interfered with their ability to give and receive love from a rejected parent and caused them to miss out on many experiences with that parent.

B. Parental alienating behaviors: Making children allies in a battle between parents

Most separated and divorced parents understand the importance of shielding their children from the couple’s conflicts and do a fairly good job of honoring this responsibility.

Some parents, though, lose sight of their children’s need to love and be loved by both parents. Such a parent, sometimes called the alienating parent, enlists children as allies in a battle against the other parent, sometimes called the targeted parent or the alienated parent.

Through a variety of parental alienation strategies, alienating parents teach children that their other parent is a bad parent who does not really love them, may be dangerous, and does not deserve their trust, affection, or respect. Alienating parents encourage and support the children’s defiance and disrespect toward the other parent and reward the children for avoiding contact with the other parent. Some children feel burdened by a parent’s need for emotional support and become an emotional caretaker of the parent by complying with the parent’s wish to diminish the importance of the other parent.

Children who absorb the lessons of hate from an alienating parent pull away from a formerly loved mother or father, and often an entire extended family, leaving the rejected relatives puzzled over what they might have said or done to fracture the relationship.

In the most extreme cases, parents who alienate their children against the other parent conspire with the children to kill the target parent.

Photo: Anete Lusina. Pexels.

C. What does parental alienation look like?

A child’s negative behavior toward a parent is not sufficient to determine that the child is unreasonably alienated. To make a determination of parental alienation, mental health and legal professionals, and professionals involved in child custody evaluations, consider five factors.

C1. Child resists a relationship with the other parent

The hallmark of parental alienation is the child’s emotional and sometimes physical withdrawal from a parent. This can occur to various degrees. The child may spend time in the parent’s care but refuse to engage meaningfully with the parent—remaining withdrawn; rebuffing the parent’s attempts to communicate, interact, or share enjoyable activities (even meals); scorning expressions of affection; and treating the parent with contempt.

“Alienating parents teach children that their other parent is a bad parent who does not really love them, may be dangerous, and does not deserve their trust, affection, or respect.”

The child may spend time in the targeted parent’s home only to steal items and documents, sabotage electronic equipment, or gather evidence by “spying” on the parent. While in the home, the child may destroy cherished possessions, physically assault the parent, or attempt in other ways to provoke a dramatic scene that results in complaints of being mistreated.

Or the child may resist contact with the parent, refuse to comply with the court-ordered parenting time schedule, or run away from the rejected parent.

For a child’s negative behavior to be considered an expression of parental alienation, the negative behavior must be chronic, frequent, directed at only one parent, occur without displaying genuine love toward that parent, and be atypical for a child of that age. For instance, a child who feels closer to one parent or more comfortable in that parent’s home but continues to show love and interest in spending time with the other parent, is not alienated.

C2. Loss of a prior positive relationship with the targeted parent

In most cases, before the child began rejecting the targeted parent, they enjoyed a normal relationship. The child’s current alienation contrasts starkly with the past. The child used to show affection and comfort with the parent. Now the child claims to hate or fear the alienated parent.

But a prior good relationship does not automatically mean a child rejecting a parent is not justified. It is possible the rejected parent’s behavior deteriorated significantly after the breakup. For instance, children may feel anxious around or resent a parent who has begun to relentlessly bad-mouth the other parent. Instead of aligning with the alienating parent and rejecting the targeted parent, the children want to avoid the parent who makes them feel uncomfortable—what professionals call “blowback.”

If an alienating parent relentlessly bad-mouths the other parent, children may feel anxious and resentful, and they may want to avoid hearing bad things said about a parent they love.

Also, in some families, a child can be alienated even when a prior good relationship was never established. In these families, the child was deprived of sufficient opportunities to see the parent in a positive light, either being kept out of contact or being taught from an early age that the other parent was unworthy of respect.

C3. The absence of abuse, neglect, or seriously deficient parenting

When a child’s rejection is a justified reaction to being harshly mistreated by a parent or witnessing domestic violence, it is not a case of parental alienation.

Children who are chronically mistreated by a parent may welcome parental divorce or family separation as an opportunity to escape the mistreatment. When these children know they no longer must spend time with an abusive parent and don’t fear retaliation, they may resist or refuse contact. This is not parental alienation.

In some families a child rejecting a parent involves a mix of rational and irrational components. The rejected parent has acted in some manner that could reasonably disappoint or anger a child to the extent that the child’s initial reaction is understandable. But with time, sensitivity from the rejected parent, and proper support from others, the parent-child relationship would normally recover–unless someone, such as the other parent, fuels discord and encourages the child to view a single unfortunate episode as unforgivable and justification for a permanent rupture. In that case, the child’s hostility and scorn are unrelenting, clearly out of proportion to the parent’s misdeeds, and may risk ending the parent-child relationship.

All children find things to criticize about their parents. Normally this does not torpedo the relationship. Children who are alienated need help understanding that mistakes do not define a person and that people, including rejected parents, are more than their mistakes.

In some instances, what looks like behavior that would justify the child’s rejection is, instead, a parent’s ineffective response to the child’s alienation. It is not uncommon for a parent who does not understand the child’s confusing and hostile behavior to lose patience with the child.

Mental health and legal professionals distinguish cases of parental alienation primarily linked to one parent’s behavior from those linked to both parents by considering when the alienation began, the nature and context of each parent’s behaviors, the child’s attitudes, and whether the rejected parent can have good relationships with other children (such as stepchildren).

Photo: Ketut Subiyanto. Pexels.

C4. Behaviors by the alienating parent and allies

In most cases of parental alienation, the alienating parent engages in a pattern of behavior (not a few isolated instances of bad-mouthing) that clearly has the capacity to damage the child’s relationship with the other parent. In my book on parental alienation, Divorce Poison, I refer to a spectrum of alienating behavior ranging from bad-mouthing to bashing and brainwashing.

In these cases, the alienating parent and allies persistently bad-mouth the targeted parent, focus children’s attention on the targeted parent’s mistakes, and exaggerate the parent’s flaws. They hide from the children all evidence of the other parent’s love and support. Alienating parents interfere with parent–child contacts by scheduling conflicting activities, giving children the choice to opt out of court-ordered time with the other parent, or encroaching on this time with frequent calls and texts to reinforce the children’s negative attitudes while they are with their other parent.

By never speaking positively about the other parent and drum-beating negatives, an alienating parent manipulates the children to reject the other parent in the same way a politician paints an unfavorable picture to alienate voters from their opponent. In some cases, an alienating parent coaches a child to falsely accuse the other parent of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.

C5. Denigrating attitudes and behavior toward a parent

According to psychologists who work with parental alienation, children who are unreasonably alienated share certain attitudes and behaviors. Alienated children are preoccupied with denigrating the parent, recite a list of complaints, and treat the parent as if he or she has no value and never did. Many severely alienated children say they wish the parent would die or just disappear.

At the same time, the children express no guilt or remorse for their hateful behavior. In contrast, most physically abused children fear their abuser and act obsequious and compliant to avoid angering the parent. They do not openly defy or disrespect the abusive parent.

Unless they accuse a parent of abuse, children who are irrationally alienated generally cannot adequately explain why they reject the parent. They give trivial, sometimes absurd, reasons for wanting to sever ties. For instance, one child said he no longer wanted to see his mother because he did not like the meals she prepared.

Ordinarily, most children have mixed feelings about their parents. They like certain things and dislike others. Even children who have suffered a parent’s physical, sexual, or emotional abuse cling to memories of good times with that parent, want to see the abuser in a positive light, and often defend the parent to authorities.

In contrast, in the case of parental alienation, children who are irrationally alienated lack ambivalence toward their parents. They can think of nothing good to say about the alienated parent but withhold criticism of the preferred parent (also called the favored parent) with whom they are aligned. In parental disputes, the children automatically side with their preferred parent against the alienated parent and automatically accept as true the aligned parent’s allegations about the targeted parent.

“As their alienation becomes more entrenched, children reject not only a parent, but also the people, pets, and activities associated with the alienated parent.”

In fact, children who are alienated echo the aligned parent’s catalogue of complaints, often using similar language even when this includes words and phrases the child does not fully understand. At the same time, the children insist they are rejecting the parent on their own initiative and have not been influenced by the parent they prefer. This occurs even when observers point out the alienating parent’s obvious manipulations.

As their alienation becomes more entrenched, children reject not only a parent, but also the people, pets, and activities associated with the alienated parent. Professionals in mental health refer to this as hatred by association or the spread of animosity. Relatives who refuse to denounce the parent are condemned as unworthy of a relationship, as if the child believes “the friend of my enemy is my enemy.” Tragically, deeply loving relationships with grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins evaporate in an instant.

The spread of hatred may be the most obvious sign that the child’s attitudes are unreasonable, because often it occurs without any intervening interactions from the relatives. The last time the child was with Grandma, she loved spending time in her home. Now she wants nothing to do with her, and her attitude change could not possibly reflect her Grandma’s treatment of her because there was no contact or communication since the last visit. Loving one minute, hating the next.

D. Preventing parental alienation and early intervention

It is easier to alleviate parental alienation before it becomes severe and entrenched. Parents engaged in alienating behavior need to learn how they are harming their children and develop healthier ways to cope with their disappointment and anger toward their ex-partner. They need to know their children may resent their bad-mouthing of the targeted parent and want to avoid being around them—blowback. In some cases, severe alienating behavior can result in restricted, supervised, or temporary loss of contact with the children. Learning about such possible negative consequences can help motivate parents to inhibit toxic alienating behavior.

Parents whose children are becoming alienated should maintain contact with the children, except when this raises concerns about the safety of the parent or child. It may be necessary to seek legal remedies, such as asking the court to enforce parenting time orders and perhaps order the parents and children to attend divorce education programs or therapy.

E. Not sure how to fight parental alienation? Avoid these 10 common mistakes

Parents with children who are experiencing parental alienation need to learn ways to communicate with their children that do not intensify the problem. Divorce Poison teaches parents to how to respond to negative behavior of children who are alienated and how to avoid these 10 common mistakes that make things worse.

1. Don’t lose your temper, act too aggressive, or harshly criticize your children.
2. Don’t counter-reject your children by telling them that if they don’t want to see you, you don’t want to see them.
3. Don’t passively allow the children and your ex to dictate the terms of your contact with them. Don’t wait patiently until the children “cool off” or feel “the time is right” for them to see you. Alienated parents learn too late that the time is never right.
4. Don’t waste your time with the children trying to talk them out of their negative attitudes. Engage in conflict-free, pleasurable interactions instead.
5. Don’t dismiss the children’s feelings or tell them they’re not really angry or afraid of you. Although this may be true, the children may feel you don’t understand them.
6. Don’t accuse the children of merely repeating what the other parent has told them. Again, although this may be true, the children will vehemently deny it and feel attacked by you.
7. Don’t bad-mouth your ex.
8. Don’t demand apologies from your children for their past disrespectful behavior. Focus on your relationship in the present and the future.
9. Don’t insist on setting the record straight about past false allegations as a precondition for moving forward. It is not necessary for children to agree you were falsely maligned. This can make them unduly anxious around you and be counterproductive.
10. Don’t be reluctant to get legal help to enforce expectations for contact with your children and to rescue them from a toxic parenting environment.

Photo: cottonbro studio. Pexels.

F. How a family court can help with parental alienation

Parents involved in proceedings at a family court, including cases of high-conflict divorce and child custody litigation, sometimes learn about parental alienation in a brief educational program ordered by the court. It helps when the court makes and enforces detailed orders about parenting time and court-ordered treatment.

“Losing a parent is a tragedy in a child’s life. We should do everything we can to prevent the tragedy of parental alienation.”

Structured, time-limited parental counselling and psychoeducational programs for the entire family may help prevent parental alienation or decrease mild levels of alienating behaviors. Structured counselling teaches coping and conflict-reducing skills to parents and children.

The family court may appoint a parenting coordinator to help parents engaged in high-conflict co-parenting better manage disputes, understand their children’s needs, and protect healthy parent–child relationships.

The video, Welcome Back, Pluto: Understanding, Preventing, and Overcoming Parental Alienation, has helped many children resist becoming alienated while learning to stay out of their parents’ disputes. Some professionals who provide family therapy show children and parents a few sections at a time during family therapy sessions. In some child custody cases, the judge asks or orders parents to watch the video. A parenting coordinator may have the parents watch the video to improve their ability to keep their children out of parental disagreements.

Overcoming more severe alienation usually requires legal intervention. The family court may place children who are alienated in the custody of the rejected parent and authorize that parent to get specialized help for the children, such as attending a Family Bridges workshop. In some cases, the court temporarily suspends the children’s contact with an alienating parent, essentially quarantining the parent to protect the children from further exposure to negative influence that may thwart their progress in healing the relationship with their other parent. This is sometimes called a period of protective separation from the alienating parent and a period of restorative contact with the alienated parent.

An alienating parent and alienated children may oppose such efforts to overcome the problem and argue that removing children from the parent they prefer—even if the court finds that their preference resulted from psychologically abusive manipulation—will traumatize the children. No scientific basis exists for such a prediction, and most mental health professionals believe it is essential to rescue children from a toxic process that could cost them a loving relationship with a parent and the parent’s relatives and lead to lifelong sorrow. No study has found that children regret being reunited with a good and loving parent.

Losing a parent is a tragedy in a child’s life. We should do everything we can to prevent the tragedy of parental alienation and to help children recover from it and avoid lasting psychological harm. The family court can help.

G. Where to get more information about parental alienation

Material on this website

Child & Family Blog article: Parental alienation is child abuse, say researchers of child development.

More resources by the author

For more information, visit my official website.

This popular website offers many resources to help parents and mental health and legal professionals understand, cope with, and overcome parental alienation and deal with child custody issues. The website’s Divorce Poison Control Center describes remedies for alienated children; tips for working with attorneys, evaluators, and therapists; antidotes for divorce poison; and advice on how to initiate helpful conversations with reluctant children.

The website also includes a list of movies, TV shows, and books that teach children how to overcome unreasonable alienation from a parent. You will also find links to community and online support groups and other resources that offer help for alienated children and their parents.

Divorce Poison: How to Protect Your Family from Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing is the classic and best-selling guide to preventing and overcoming parental alienation.

Welcome Back, Pluto: Understanding, Preventing, and Overcoming Parental Alienation is a powerful video for families facing potential or current parental alienation. The video teaches children and teens how and why to avoid taking sides with one parent against the other, and motivates children and adults to restore positive relationships with parents and other relatives.

Warshak e-LIBE provides downloadable resources on parental alienation, child custody, and divorce issues, as well as tips about how to manage legal cases with accusations of parental alienation, and how to defend against false accusations of parental alienation.

My Facebook Page features extensive essays about correctly identifying, preventing, and overcoming parental alienation.

Plutoverse is my blog with numerous essays about how to understand and overcome parental alienation, cultural references to parental alienation, and child custody arrangements.

Other resources on parental alienation

Parental Alienation Database is an online database of scholarly work on parental alienation and parental alienation syndrome.

The post What is parental alienation: The psychology of fractured parent–child relationships appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Reduced parenting time with fathers after divorce damages emotional security in children. Increased time mitigates negative impacts of conflict.

Reduced parenting time with fathers after divorce undermines children’s emotional security, because they don’t have enough daily interactions to reassure them that they matter to their fathers, finds Professor William Fabricius of Arizona State University, USA, in a paper to be published next year. Conversely, more parenting time with fathers is linked to a better father-child relationship.

Most studies of shared time with parents after divorce use 65%/35% as the cutoff for considering the arrangement to be joint physical custody. But when researchers have looked at what happens when there is more sharing, ranging, for example, from 60%/40% and all the way to 50%/50%, they’ve found that higher levels of sharing are associated with fewer behavioural problems and better social skills in the child’s later life.

High conflict between parents further reduces emotional security for children, introducing a fear of abandonment. Recent evidence from larger samples shows this fear is worst when children spend 25%-35% of their time with their fathers. Fear of abandonment is not as bad when they spend less than 25% of their time with their fathers, and is considerably better when they spend more than 35% and closer to 50%. This finding challenges the idea that reducing time with a parent is a cure for high-conflict situations; more sharing will benefit most children.

Research on father-child relationships among college students

Fabricius examined the father-child relationship in college students from divorced families. The average quality of the child-father relationship increases with the proportion of time spent with the father during childhood, incrementally from 0% to 50%. The same relationship has been found for overnight stays with the father during the first two years of life: the more overnight stays, the stronger the relationship in young adulthood. These findings have been confirmed in other studies of families recruited from the community by Fabricius and other researchers, especially in Europe.

In neither case does mother-child relationship security decrease as childhood time with the father increases. Indeed, in the case of overnight stays, more overnight stays with the father during infancy were associated with a slight improvement in the relationship between the young adult and the mother.

The public health cost of low emotional security

Fabricius draws attention to the public health implications of these findings. An estimated 35% of children of divorce have poorer relationships with their fathers in adulthood than do children from intact families. These poorer relationships are associated with worse behavioral and emotional adjustment and lower school achievement. A poor relationship with parents is also implicated in mental health disorders, major chronic diseases and early mortality. A weakened relationship with a divorced father also means that the father invests less time and money on behalf of the child.

Fabricius’s own most recent research, with a non-college sample, shows that as a predictor of mental health years later, adolescents’ perceptions of how much they mattered to their fathers were more important than their perceptions of how much they mattered to their mothers.

Emotional Security Theory

Fabricius explains these findings through emotional security theory. The central tenet of this theory is that conflict between parents (whether separated or not) can threaten children’s sense that their parents will be able and willing to continue to take care of them, producing fear of abandonment.

Anxiety about abandonment can manifest itself in three ways: distress in response to episodes of conflict; attempts by children to control exposure  to the conflict through things intervening to try to stop the conflict or ingratiating themselves; and negative expectations that the conflict will cause their parents to walk away. A “Fear of Abandonment” scale assesses children responses in these situations, using measures like “I worry that my parents will want to live without me”, “it’s possible that my parents will never want to see me again”, “I worry that I will be left all alone” and “I think that one day I might have to live with a friend or relative”.

Very similar fears are still present in young adults as they look back on parental conflict during their childhood: memories of distress when experiencing parental conflict, feelings of self-blame, and negative expectations that conflict will undermine the parental support they receive during young adulthood.

Father time in high-conflict situations

Research on college students by Fabricius and his team found that more time spent with fathers during childhood mitigated the extent to which the conflict damaged emotional security and exacerbated mental health problems. There was no indication that more parenting time for fathers in high-conflict families resulted in poorer father-child relationships.

In other research with young adults, Fabricius and his team found that the strength of the father-child relationship increased in high-conflict situations as more time was spent with the father, but only up to 25% of the total parental time. After that, more time did not produce more improvement.

On the other hand, fear of abandonment is worst in high-conflict families when children spend between 25% and 35% of their time with their fathers. The same was found to be true for somatic symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, chest pains and nausea. If the child sees the father less than 25% of the time, the fear decreases; and if the child spends more than 35% of the time with the father, up to near 50%, the fear of abandonment decreases even more—all the way down to the level experienced in low-conflict situations.

Emotional security theory helps explains these findings. When time with the father is low, the child loses little if he withdraws completely. Between 25% and 35%, the extent of the potential loss is greater and the perceived risk that it will happen is higher. But with equal parenting, the perceived risk of abandonment is lower.

Another area of research that sheds light on this issue is the impact on child wellbeing of parental relocation after divorce. Relocation to a place more than an hour’s drive from the original family home is associated with long-term harm to children’s emotional security with the parents and a worse reaction to conflict between the parents. Relocation is also linked to more anxiety, depression, aggression, delinquency, involvement in the juvenile justice system, associations with delinquent peers and drug use. This findings hold true whether the child remains in the original family home or moves away from it, offering further evidence that separation from a parent is damaging to the child.

The post Divorce harms children’s emotional security, but this is mitigated by more shared parenting appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Child development research explains why the loss of a family relationship during divorce is so excruciatingly painful for a child.

The parent-child relationship, particularly with the father, is at risk during separation and divorce. Worse development outcomes in later life are among the effects of divorce on children who lose a parent-child relationship. That is not to say every individual child does worse, just that the risk of doing worse is significantly higher. By understanding effects of divorce on children, we can help families avoid damaging patterns of behaviour and work to improve child development outcomes.

Sometimes a solution designed to protect the child from parental conflict serves to suspend or attenuate one parent-child relationship. This approach is problematic: empirical research shows that continued family relationships can be a protective factor against the damaging effects of divorce on children when there is conflict. Limiting a parent-child relationship when there is conflict can make things worse for the child. This, of course, does not apply to a parent-child relationship that is itself dangerous and damaging to the child.

One expert on family law in Australia, Professor Patrick Parkinson, has proposed that family law professionals should be well briefed on the latest research on the effects of divorce on children and on child development. This article responds to that proposal by setting out the evidence to date.

All child development takes place within parent-child and other family relationships

In 1964, renowned paediatrician and child psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott went so far as to say “there is no such thing as a baby”. He meant that a baby’s development as a human being is so embedded in parent-child relationships that it is difficult to mark the dividing line between the individual and the family.

“Sometimes a solution proposed to conflict is to protect the child by suspending one parent-child connection. This approach is problematic.”

In the past 40 years, psychologists have studied and measured the role of parent-child relationships in child development and have confirmed Winnicott’s memorable insight. The pivotal importance of early childhood relationships has been a dominant theme in child development psychology for a long time. The United Nations, through its Nurturing Care for Early Childhood Development Framework, has just declared that family relationships, parent-child relationships in particular, in the early years are the most important thing for all children in the world.

A new book, The Development of Children’s Thinking: Its Social and Communicative Foundations, by three leading researchers, sets out the understandings to date. Social interaction, it says, is the “crucible in which children’s cognitive development takes place, charged with emotion”.

Photo: Shutterstock.

Neuroscience further demonstrates this process. It is possible to see brain circuits forming in synchrony in parents and children, which goes on to predict children’s later developmental outcomes. The brains of parent and child are interwoven. The parent-child relationship is wired in both their brains.

For example, brain scanning research in Israel has shown that when a father cares for his baby in the first months of its life, his brain changes – caring circuits are triggered and honed. The more child care he undertakes, the more brain circuits associated with understanding and ‘feeling’ the needs of the infant become active. Thus, the act of providing care to his baby strengthens the parent-child relationship and the father’s life-long capacity to respond sensitively to his child’s needs. The baby’s brain develops accordingly: the more the father’s brain changes in the first year, the more the child’s social skills are developed four years later. Those who love us in infancy become part of us.

This perspective goes some way to explain the excruciating pain when a parent-child relationship is severed. The end of a parent-child relationship is part of ourselves dying.

Children don’t just form one parent-child relationship

There was a time, albeit brief, when scientists believed children had one “primary” parent-child relationship or “attachment” that created the foundation for all others. They believed that, in all but very rare cases, the mother filled that role. The idea originated with the father of the attachment idea, John Bowlby, who, before he died, was reconsidering his position, accepting that many children have multiple attachments. Nevertheless, the “primary” idea has proved remarkably resistant to change over the decades, because it accords with social norms and interests.

Photo: Harsha K R. Creative Commons.

Following research going all the way back to the 1970s, the answer is now definitive: a baby forms multiple attachments, all starting at roughly the same time in the first year, and all different from each other – that is, one is not the template for another. Attachments need time to develop – no high-quality parent child relationship can be developed in a hurry. Child psychologists have also concluded that father-child attachments can be as strong as mother-child attachments and that men and women can be equally sensitive to their infants, provided they have had the amount of practice that women ordinarily get. Children with a strong parent-child relationship with their fathers do better on average in every domain of development — cognitive, social and emotional.

So family law should make it a priority to preserve not “at least one” relationship, but all parent-child relationships. That is a tough proposition when parents are falling out with each other.

Parent-child relationships after parents separate: the importance of time

William Fabricius at Arizona State University has studied the effects of divorce on children by looking at young adults whose parents have separated. He found that the average quality of the parent-child relationship between young adult and father was related to the time spent with the father during earlier childhood. The relationship was poorest where there was no care, and strongest when mothers and fathers were equally involved. The same pattern for the parent-child relationship held true for overnight stays with the father during the first two years of life: the more overnight stays, the stronger the relationship between father and young adult. At the same time, there was no deterioration in the parent-child relationship between the young adult and mother. Indeed, when children had spent more nights with the father before the age of three, the mother-young adult relationship was slightly stronger, on average.

In a comprehensive review of research covering 60 studies, Professor Linda Nielsen at Wake Forest University in North Carolina found that shared parenting and shared physical custody mitigate the negative effects of divorce on children: lower levels of depression, anxiety and dissatisfaction; lower aggression; less use of alcohol and drugs; less smoking; better school performance; better physical health; and better family relationships.

Photo: Shutterstock.

The consensus among psychologists who study child development is that overnight stays form an important part of the process of developing secure infant-parent attachments. Bedtime and night-time routines are crucial opportunities for social and nurturing activities. In 1997, 18 experts sponsored by the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHHD) concluded in a consensus statement that to “keep nonresidential parents playing psychologically important and central roles in the lives of their children,” distribution of custodial time should ensure “the involvement of both parents in important aspects of their children’s everyday lives and routines—including bedtime and waking rituals, transitions to and from school, extracurricular and recreational activities”.

“Conflict and its future trajectory are difficult to assess at the time of the separation.”

In 2014, a group of 111 experts from 15 countries published another consensus report reinforcing the earlier consensus on overnight stays and extended it to children of all ages, including very young children.

Psychologists offer several reasons that fathers’ involvement may improve outcomes for children, in addition to all the benefits associated with sustaining the relationship itself:

• Fathers are likely to invest more in the child and are less likely to drift away.
• The social capital available to the child through two parents is greater.
• When fathers are more involved, the children’s relationships with the paternal grandparents are more substantial. Research by Maaike Jappens in Belgium has found that grandchildren with good grandparent relationships are less likely to be depressed and have higher life satisfaction.
• With two parents, strong parenting by one can compensate for the weaker parenting of the other. This effect can vary over time, covering for periods of lower availability by one parent and adapting to the child’s changing needs as he or she grows up.

What happens when there is conflict?

The issue of conflict is what brings out the trench warfare, as Patrick Parkinson has described the debate about the 2006 and 2011 family law reforms in Australia.

Photo: Sander van der Wel. Creative Commons.

Empirical research leads to two conclusions.

1. All the benefits of joint physical custody that mitigate the negative effects of divorce on children also apply when the parents are in conflict.

Nielsen’s review of 60 studies looked at children who had experienced high-conflict situations. She found that limiting joint custody and one parent-child relationship is not correlated with fewer negative effects of divorce for children in high-conflict families. Joint physical custody is associated with improved outcomes in all areas—academic/cognitive, emotional, behavioural, social and physical—even when there is conflict.

However, joint physical custody is linked to worse outcomes for children exposed to conflict in some exceptional circumstances: adolescents in high-conflict families who have a poor parent-child relationship with one of the parents sharing custody; teenage girls (but not boys) whose parents have sustained high conflict for eight years or more; and adolescents who are highly conscientious or extremely extroverted. Again, all these are averages: young people in these groups are more likely to suffer harm but not certain to do so.

2. Having more than one parent-child relationship typically protects children from the harm associated with conflict.

William Fabricius found that one of the consequences of parental conflict for children is a fear of abandonment by one parent. This fear is lessened somewhat if the child does not see the parent very much anyway and lessened considerably if the child sees the parent 50% of the time. The strongest fear of abandonment occurs when the child sees the parent between 25% and 35% of the time, because the extent of the potential loss of the parent-child relationship and the perceived risk of its happening are both high.

Photo: Camera Eye Photography. Creative Commons.

How to deal with parental conflict in family law without risking parent-child relationships?

Child development researchers are the first to agree that some forms of conflict preclude any kind of sharing, which is why judges have so much discretion over each case. For example, systematic abuse and controlling behaviour by one parent, or manipulating the child to reject the other parent, renders shared custody unviable. Any parent-child relationship that endangers the child clearly needs to be changed or ended.

But conflict and its future trajectory are difficult to assess at the time of separation. Current conflict is an unreliable measure of what arrangements are appropriate, adding yet more complexity to the task of family law professionals to protect parent-child relationships.

• There are many kinds of conflict, and not all conflict is toxic.
• Some kinds of conflict can be mitigated without risking a child-parent relationship – for example, organising transfer of children at the school gate, rather than outside one home.
• Conflict can change over time. In particular, it can drop over time, more so if parents are supported effectively. In Australia, a survey of 10,000 mothers who reported domestic violence at the time of separation found only 18.5% were still fearful by the time the researchers interviewed them at various time after the separation.

Photo: Shutterstock.

A nuanced assessment of the nature of conflict is a crucial part of balancing the harm to the child done by exposure to conflict and the harm to the child done by breaking a parent-child relationship. The more we understand the child development implications of conflict and breaking relationships, the better we can support children through a terrible time, to limit long-term harm.

This article is based on a series of articles covering recent research on family separation reported on the Child and Family Blog.

Duncan Fisher, Child & Family Blog editor

Report on research by Sanford L. Braver and Michael E. Lamb, A panel of leading child development experts answer the burning questions about shared parenting after divorce

Report on research by William L. Fabricius, Divorce harms children’s emotional security, but this is mitigated by more shared parenting

William L. Fabricius, Teenagers who feel they matter to dad have better mental health

Maaike Jappens, Shared custody increases contact with grandparents, who may help children cope with divorce

Report on research by Edward Kruk, A presumption of shared parenting after divorce? 40 years of research and argument paving the way

Charlie Lewis and Jeremy Carpendale, Cognitive development theory: a relational approach

Report on research by Nicole E. Mahrer, Karey L. O’Hara, Irwin N. Sandler & Sharlene A. Wolchik, Family law should give higher priority to support for quality parenting

Report on research by Linda Nielsen, Effect of divorce on child development less with joint custody – even when there is parental conflict

Report on research by Linda Nielsen, Family courts should prioritise more the protection of child-parent relationships

Report on research by Patrick Parkinson, Teaching family law professionals about child development needs may be more influential than predictions about what the courts will do

Report on research by Jani Turunen, In Swedish study, children of separated parents who share physical custody are less likely to be stressed

Richard A. Warshak, After parents divorce, regular overnight stays with dad are best for most young children

Report on research by Richard A. Warshak, Early child development research demonstrates that overnight stays with fathers after a divorce are important for very young children

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The 2006 family law reforms in Australia heralded a shift towards more sharing of care after divorce.

Family law reforms that occurred in Australia in 2006 changed the way some families organise themselves after divorce, according to Professor Patrick Parkinson in Australia. Yet Parkinson cautions about exaggerating the impact of such reforms compared to the effects of other influences.

The Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act 2006 in Australia requires judges to consider two primary factors: (1) the “benefit to the child of having a meaningful relationship with both of the child’s parents” and (2) the “need to protect the child from physical or psychological harm from being subjected to, or exposed to, abuse, neglect or family violence”.

The 2006 family law reform provides not for a presumption of shared custody, but for a presumption of equal sharing of parental “responsibility”, though only in cases that do not involve violence or abuse. (In those cases, the law says, the presumption should be against shared arrangements.)

Under the 2006 reform, courts ordering equally shared parental responsibility are required to consider whether “equal” parenting time or “substantial and significant” time with both parents is in the best interests of the child. “Substantial and significant” time is defined as not limited to weekends and holidays, thus allowing both parents to be involved in the child’s daily routines. It also allows parents to participate in occasions and events that are of particular significance to the child or the parent. This somewhat convoluted definition could be translated into a simple message: parents should consider how the non-resident parent can be involved in the activities of the children during the school week.

The 2006 reforms heralded a shift away from the assumption that the most a non-resident parent could expect was to have time with the children on weekends and school holidays. Following the reforms, research by the Australian Institute of Family Studies found increased awareness and acceptance of shared care arrangements as a viable and “normal” option for parenting after separation. The same research found that lawyers were giving more advice about shared care norms to families than before the family law reforms.

Meanwhile, more parents have adopted equal-time arrangements since 2006, perhaps encouraged by statements from government ministers and media reports that this is a viable option.

Conflict over family law reform

The 2006 family law reform followed a parliamentary enquiry starting in 2003. There was an enormous battle over the reform between women’s and fathers’ advocates. Despite appearing at the start of the process to be inclined towards a presumption of equal parenting time, members of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs decided against it. Instead they recommended the equally shared “responsibility” formula, which is now law.

Following the 2006 family law reform, women’s groups continued a spirited campaign, claiming an increased risk of violence against women and children. The Australian Institute of Family Studies found no reliable evidence that this was the case. It found no evidence that courts were ordering shared time after a full trial in circumstances where there was a history of significant domestic violence.

The report also found that a history of family violence did not necessarily impede friendly or cooperative relationships between parents. Only 18.5% of a large sample of 10,000 mothers who reported domestic violence at the time of separation continued to be fearful at the time of the interview by researchers.

Despite the lack of evidence, the political pressure for amendments relating to family violence was strong, and the Government made further amendments in 2011 to give greater weight to protecting children from harm than to a meaningful relationship with both parents. But the empirical evidence does not indicate any substantial change in outcomes as a result of the 2011 family law reforms.

The influence of family law reform has limits: other things are important too

Parkinson makes the point that judges have a lot of discretion under current family law and can act only on the evidence provided. Violence, child abuse, drug or alcohol addiction and mental illness are, for the judge, the “four horsemen of the Apocalypse” in the lives of the children in the middle. Ultimately, the direct influence of policy that defines what courts must consider has an influence, but only to a limited extent.

He concludes with two non-legal recommendations that he argues would make a difference. The first is that family law professionals need education on the latest advances in understanding of child development. The second is that families need adequate financial resources so that, if there are real concerns about violence and abuse, the parent can afford to go to court and, therefore, credibly demonstrate to an abuser that access to the child is at stake.

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1. Support the quality of parenting of both parents

In high-conflict situations, the worst mental health outcomes for children appear if both parents show little warmth to the child. But if either parent – whether the father or the mother – shows warmth, the child has better mental health outcomes, on average.

High parenting quality depends on time with the child. One study showed that two or more overnight stays a week with a warm parent predicts better mental health outcomes.

2. Give parenting quality more weight than conflict

The evidence suggests, tentatively, that shared parenting in relation to persistent conflict over many years can lead to poor outcomes, though the studies yield inconsistent results – some find poorer outcomes, some do not; some show worse outcomes for boys, and some for girls; some studies look just at contact with the father, others look at joint physical custody (over 30% of the time with the second parent).

The problem for family law is that it is difficult to predict at the time of divorce whether high conflict will persist: high conflict is present in about 50% of cases around the time of separation, but falls to 25% in the following years.

The researchers recommend focusing on measures that might reduce children’s exposure to conflict, for example, during transitions between parents.

The researchers write: “Because is likely to diminish over time in most families, it seems that conflict should not be as heavily weighed as other factors (i.e., parenting quality) when determining parenting arrangements at the time of the divorce.”

Key research issues

In this research, high conflict does not include domestic violence, where emotional and physical abuse is used as a weapon. On the issue of parenting quality, a limitation in some research is a gender stereotypical difference in how it is measured: for mothers, the measure is usually warmth, communication and effective discipline; for fathers, the measure is often just time and involvement.

The debate revolves around two hypotheses, differentiated by two different assessments of fatherhood.

The conflict hypothesis posits that conflict and parenting time interact, such that greater amounts of father parenting time are beneficial when conflict is low, but harmful when conflict is high. The theory holds that in high-conflict families, more time with the father (but not the mother) creates more opportunities for children to be exposed to conflict, and this leads to poorer outcomes. In this hypothesis, care by mothers and fathers is different in nature.

The benefits hypothesis posits that in high-conflict as well as low-conflict divorces, more time with the father should predict better child adjustment because it increases the potential benefit of the support the father provides. A variant of the benefits hypothesis is that, to understand the relation between parenting time and child adjustment, the quality of parenting needs to be considered, such that children in high-conflict families benefit from shared parenting only when they receive high-quality parenting. In this hypothesis, care by mothers and fathers is equivalent.

The researchers agree that the evidence is inconclusive, but that with greater sharing of care now the norm, more evidence is likely to arise in the years ahead.

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In the 1970s, the “best interests of the child” standard in family law was established internationally as a gender-neutral criterion replacing maternal preference statutes after divorce. Since then, however, the impact of more equally shared parenting arrangements on child development has been intensely scrutinized, more so than sole custody arrangements.

Edward Kruk from the University of British Columbia in Canada has analysed three stages in the critique of shared parenting after divorce, moving from outright dismissal to cautious acceptance that the idea of shared parenting may have some merit. He believes that a tipping point has now been reached where science can, albeit still with some caution, confirm that the best interests of children are commensurate with a legal presumption of shared parenting responsibility.

First wave arguments: outright rejection of shared parenting after divorce

Second wave arguments: shared parenting after divorce only if there is no conflict

Third wave arguments: shared parenting after divorce can be OK, but not a presumption in law

The future

Has a tipping point been reached where we can conclude with confidence that the best interests of children are commensurate with a legal presumption of shared parenting responsibility after divorce or separation? (This would be rebuttable in cases of family violence, negligence, child abuse or other situations where the child is in danger.)

Edward Kruk quotes another researcher, Sanford Braver, who believes the answer is yes. “To my mind, we’re over the hump, Braver says. “We’ve reached the watershed. On the basis of this evidence, social scientists can now cautiously recommend presumptive shared parenting to policymakers … I think shared parenting now has enough evidence the burden of proof should now fall to those who oppose it rather than those who promote it.” (For a report on Sanford Braver piece on the Child and Family Blog, see A panel of leading child development experts answer the burning questions about shared parenting after divorce.

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Do children really benefit from shared parenting after divorce? The experts say yes: over 50 recent studies have demonstrated this.

In 2017, 12 global expert researchers and scholars of divorce and post-separation parenting shared a platform at a conference in the USA and answered big questions regarding shared parenting after divorce.

The names of the 12 are given at the end of this article.

1. Do children really benefit from shared parenting after divorce?

Yes. Over 50 studies have demonstrated this: lower levels of depression, anxiety and dissatisfaction; lower aggression; less use of alcohol and drugs; less smoking; better school performance and cognitive development; better physical health; and better family relationships. Some studies show no benefits of shared parenting on some measures, but none show deficits relative to children in the sole custody of one parent. Even when levels of parental conflict are factored in, children do better with shared parenting than with sole custody.

The experts agreed that this evidence is so strong it cannot be ignored.

A possible mechanism is that, in families where a parenting deficit exists, shared parenting enables “weak” parenting by one parent to be offset by “strong” parenting by the other. That is, shared parenting children have two chances of strong parenting, while sole custody children have only one. Child development research confirms that children form multiple attachments with parents from the outset, so the deficiencies in one relationship can be compensated by another. It should be noted that parenting quality can vary over time — shared parenting enables one parent to pick up the slack when the other is distracted.

Another possible mechanism is that two active parents offer more social capital than just one.

Shared parenting arrangements also offer more flexibility over time around the changing needs of a growing child.

Adequate time to build any relationship is key. One expert put it thus: “Would you want to build and enrich and nurture a relationship with a new spouse based on being together only alternating weekends?”

Other research has shown that children, on average, prefer substantial time with both parents. Better outcomes for children in shared arrangements may partly be accounted for simply because the children are happier.

2. How much time do children need to spend with each parent?

A consensus has appeared in the literature that around 35% of the child’s time is required to maintain a high-quality relationship with a parent. Overnight time is important because it makes possible both parents’ involvement in a variety of activities, such as bedtimes, mornings and homework.

But other research has shown that even when parents share joint legal custody without sharing parenting time, the outcomes are better for children. This indicates symbolic benefits to the child when a second parent is involved in important life decisions.

3. Are social expectations of shared parenting important?

The experts agreed that the answer is yes. If society and family law professionals communicate an expectation of sharing, parents’ negotiating strategies change. The growing understanding of fathers’ importance for children is strongly influencing the substantial societal shift towards an expectation of shared parenting.

This social expectation can also affect the children – they know that they matter to both of their parents. Recent research shows that feeling that they matter to their fathers after divorce has a greater impact on children’s adjustment than feeling that they matter to their mothers.

4. Should there be a legal presumption of shared parenting?

Most, but not all, of the panellists believed that the evidence supports making shared parenting a legal presumption, although all agreed that a one-size-fits-all standard was inappropriate. Presumptions are and must be rebuttable in certain circumstances—for example, if there is a risk of child abuse or neglect, too great a distance between the parents’ homes, threat of abduction by a parent, excessive gate-keeping, or a child with special needs requiring specialist care.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) comes in different forms, and the only form the experts agreed should preclude shared parenting is coercive, controlling violence, the stereotypical male battering pattern.

5. Should parental conflict or objections by one parent be grounds for an exception?

Most experts said no. Not all conflict is toxic to children, and certain arrangements that can mitigate exposure to conflict, such as dropping off and picking children up at school rather than at home. Parallel parenting can work where cooperative parenting does not.

In one third of cases of conflict, the conflict is one-sided, with only one parent fomenting hostility and the other trying to move on. Conflict can also change over time, usually growing less severe. In fact, it can sometimes be reduced simply by educating parents about the value of shared parenting. On the other hand, parents who believe that high levels of conflict will lead to sole custody may have an incentive for conflict.

Most panellists strongly disagreed with the idea that shared parenting does not work if one parent opposes it. The evidence does not support this idea. Also, such an arrangement gives a veto to the less cooperative parent.

6. How should we deal with parental alienation?

The experts agreed that shared parenting tends to prevent parental alienation because it ensures that the child can directly evaluate the behaviour of both parents, recognising the discrepancies between the parent’s actual characteristics and those described by the alienating parent.

7. What should happen when one parent wants to move far away?

The experts felt that each case needs to be considered individually. They said that attention should be paid to the moving parent’s reasons for wishing to move, the possibility that both parents might move, and the projected impact on the other parent-child relationship and on the child’s adjustment. The history of involvement of the non-moving parent should also be a significant consideration.

The shared parenting expert panel

The 12 experts presented their views at a two-day conference in May 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, hosted by the National Parents Organisation and the International Council of Shared Parenting (ICSP). The following is an extract from the original article introducing the 12 experts.

Dr Kari Adamsons is Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Connecticut and has published many peer-reviewed articles and chapters on fathering, shared parenting and divorce. She is particularly known for her work on nonresident father involvement and father identity and is considered one of the leaders of the next generation of fatherhood scholars. She is Associate Editor of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

Dr William Austin is a nationally recognized expert on child custody evaluations who has published numerous professional articles and book chapters on the topic of shared parenting after divorce. He co-chaired the task force that developed the Model Standards of Practice for Child Custody Evaluation for the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC).

Dr Malin Bergström of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has written several books about child development, attachment theory, and parenting. Dr Bergström’s research focuses on children’s health and welfare in shared parenting arrangements and she has led rigorous research projects evaluating the Swedish experience with shared parenting.

Dr Sanford L Braver is Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University, where he served in the Psychology Department for 41 years and was the recipient of 18 competitively reviewed, primarily federal research grants, totaling over $28 million. His work has been published in nearly 135 peer reviewed professional articles and chapters and he is author of three books including Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths.

Dr Jennifer Harman is Associate Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University. She specializes in the study of intimate partner relationships and has published many peer-reviewed articles and books on shared parenting after divorce. Her 2016 TEDx talk on parental alienation showcased several ideas from her most recent co-authored and well-received book, Parents Acting Badly.

Dr Michael E Lamb is Professor of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. He has focused his scholarship on father–child and mother–child relationships over the past 40 years, writing more than 500 professional articles and 50 books, including five editions of The Role of the Father in Child Development. He is currently President of the American Psychological Association’s Division of Developmental Psychology.

Dr Pamela Ludolph is a clinical and forensic psychologist in the Psychology Department at the University of Michigan and in the Child Advocacy Law Clinic at the university’s Law School. She is a published author who conducts complex child custody evaluations and frequently lectures to family court and mental health professionals in the United States and abroad.

Dr Linda Nielsen is Professor of Adolescent and Educational Psychology at Wake Forest University. She is an internationally recognized expert on shared physical custody research and father–daughter relationships. She has written three books on father–daughter relationships and three editions of the college textbook, Adolescence: A Contemporary View, as well as numerous articles on shared parenting.

Professor Patrick Parkinson is Professor of Law and Dean of the Beine Law School at the at the University of Queensland, Australia, and is a Past President of the International Society of Family Law. He played a major role in the development of legislation and practice in family law and child protection in Australia and helped in persuading the Australian government to invest in a national network of Family Relationship Centers, offering mediation and other services to parents going through separation. He has written six books and authored approximately 100 journal articles and book chapters on issues relating to shared parenting after divorce.

Dr. Irwin Sandler, Regents’ Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University, directed for more than 25 years a national research center on the development and evaluation of programs to improve outcomes for children following parental divorce by focusing on post-divorce shared parenting. He is the author of more than 200 scientific papers and has served on several scientific advisory boards and committees.

Prof. Dr. Jur. Hildegund Sünderhauf-Kravets has been a Professor of Family Law and Youth Welfare Law at the Lutheran University of Applied Sciences in Nuremberg, Germany, for 17 years. She initiated the Resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that calls on member states to provide for shared parenting following a separation, wrote the only monograph about SP in Germany, and cofounded the ICSP.

Dr Richard Warshak is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and is one of the world’s most respected authorities on divorce, child custody, shared parenting and parental alienation. He has written 14 books and more than 75 articles in 18 languages that have had a broad impact on family law. His book Divorce Poison: How to Protect Your Family from Bad-Mouthing and Brainwashing has been particularly influential.

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Early child development research shows importance of sustaining father-baby relationships after divorce and separation.

Professor Richard A. Warshak, Clinical Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, has marshalled a wide body of evidence to demonstrate the importance of developing and sustaining early father-baby relationships after divorce and separation. He argues that overnight stays with both parents, even for babies, are important to support early child development. He challenges widespread notions that there is something inherently risky about babies staying overnight with their fathers.

Warshak points out that sharing care of very young children is now the norm in society. It has long been established that good childcare provision does not damage early child development by separating the child from the mother. Mothers regularly work evening and night shifts. Children are often cared for by grandparents. Babies regularly sleep in different places. The general advice to parents of babies is that both parents need to spend adequate time with their children, establish routines, and show affection.

But when parents separate, Warshak argues, new questions emerge. Is the separation of a young child from the mother damaging after all? Is there something special about nighttime? Is an overnight sleep different from an afternoon nap? Is the first person a child sees in the morning significant for child development? Is the night a time of anxiety that only a “primary” parent can handle, and is this factor more important to the child than the psychological state of that parent at the time? Warshak quotes a recent researcher who argued: “Overnight stays away from the primary caregiver in early infancy are generally best avoided, unless of benefit to the primary caregiver”.

Warshak charts the changing story of custody arrangements over the past two centuries. Until well into the 19th century, fathers had absolute custody after divorce. The idea then emerged that children have one psychological primary parent, a mother, and from this came anxiety about any mother-infant separation. This also gave rise to the idea that a relationship with both parents is beneficial only if there is no conflict between the parents.

The importance of multiple attachments and shared parenting for early child development

Since the 1970s, research has increasingly challenged the notion of primary carers as a psychological reality. Modern attachment research shows that multiple attachments are important for early child development.

• Babies normally form multiple attachments that are different from one another, and security in one is not dependent on security in the other.
• These attachments start in the same period, in the middle of the first year.
• Whilst a single secure attachment is an absolute minimum for healthy child development, the odds of a child having at least one secure attachment to a parent double when the child regularly interacts with two parents.
• Mothers and fathers are, on average, equally sensitive to their infants when equally experienced and confident in their care.
• Secure attachment takes parent-child time to develop.
• Multiple attachment appears to be an evolutionary advantage in humans, allowing early child development to proceed even when one parent is absent through physical separation, incapacity or death.

Attachment theory is not the only source of evidence that children benefit from having multiple carers. Warshak also refers to “bioecological theory”. For example, when both parents care for a child, both are less tired when they do so, so they tend to do it better. Care from two parents affords the child a greater diversity of experience and more intellectual richness in the home. More varied conversation improves early child cognitive development. Having two parents also means greater access to grandparents.

Overnight stays with fathers support early child development

On the basis of this evidence, early child development researchers have specifically advocated measures that strengthen multiple relationships after divorce or separation. Moreover, they have argued that overnight stays are an important part of the process of developing secure infant-parent attachments; bedtime and nighttime routines are crucial opportunities for social and nurturing activities. This time together also allows parents to keep up with their children’s rapidly changing needs through infancy.

In 1997, 18 experts sponsored by the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHHD) issued a consensus statement concluding that to “keep nonresidential parents playing psychologically important and central roles in the lives of their children,” distribution of custodial time should ensure “the involvement of both parents in important aspects of their children’s everyday lives and routines—including bedtime and waking rituals, transitions to and from school, extracurricular and recreational activities”.

Because early attachments are so important for early child development, and because of the desirability of maintaining routines and avoiding sudden changes, Warshak argues that patterns of care should be established as early as possible.

Early child development researchers do not say that overnight stays with fathers are the right thing for every infant, however. Each case is different; overnight stays should not be mandatory.

The evidential case for early overnights with fathers

Warshak presents six categories of evidence from fatherhood research that, together, strongly support the idea that overnight stays with both parents from infancy are, in general, a good thing for early child development.

1. Strong evidence shows that, on average, fathers’ emotional investment in, attachment to, and positive parenting of their children predicts better psychological outcomes across a wide range of social, emotional, and cognitive development.

2. Compared with children whose parents are married, other children have a higher incidence of adjustment difficulties that extend into adolescence and early adulthood, including high school dropout and suspension, externalizing behavior problems such as aggression, substance abuse, and poor relationships with both parents.

3. In the US National Survey of Children’s longitudinal study of young adults 14 years after their parents’ divorce, the majority of children from divorced homes scored within normal limits in most developmental domains, with one exception: two out of three suffered chronically poor relationships with their fathers.

4. Children whose parents divorced when the child was younger than six years are more likely to suffer problems than children of later-divorcing parents. The father-child relationship (but not the mother-child relationship) is likely to be worse for these children. These data point to the need for particular support for the father-child relationship for younger children when parents separate.

6. When father–infant contacts include overnights after parents separate, we see a lower incidence of father absenteeism when compared to father–infant contacts that were restricted to the daytime. As the evidence above shows, father dropout is a significant early child development issue.
7. Divorced fathers who feel enfranchised rather than marginalized as parents maintain greater contact with their children and are more apt to pay child support. Depriving a father of the experience of having his child spend the night in his home is likely to diminish the father’s sense of being a fully enfranchised parent.

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A global review of 60 studies challenges the claim that joint physical custody reduces the effect of divorce on child development only in low-conflict situations.

When verbal conflict between separated parents is high, which type of custody is more likely to ameliorate the effect of divorce on child development: joint physical custody (JPC), meaning that the child lives with each parent at least 35% of the time, or single physical custody (SPC)? Is JPC beneficial only when the parents have a low-conflict, cooperative relationship?

Linda Nielsen, professor of educational and adolescent psychology at Wake Forest University in the USA, examined this key question. Her review of 60 studies challenges the widely circulated claim that JPC ameliorates the effect of divorce on child development only in low-conflict situations (e.g. Richard Emery’s book, Two homes: One Childhood-a parenting plan to last a lifetime in 2016). The 60 studies cover children of all ages, from infants to young adults, with sample sizes ranging from 21 to 51,802, in eight countries. Fifty-three of the research articles were published in peer-reviewed journals, and seven were published by the Australian government.

The studies looked at five child development outcomes:

• Academic/cognitive – e.g. grades, attentiveness in class, cognitive development
• Emotional/psychological – e.g. depression, anxiety, low-self-esteem
• Behavioral – e.g. hyperactivity, smoking, alcohol, drugs
• Physical – e.g. sleep, headaches, digestion
• Quality of parent-child relationships.

Nineteen of the 60 studies statistically analysed how parental conflict affects child development. Sixteen of those studies found that even when the analysis controls for conflict, children whose parents shared custody had the same or better outcomes on all measures. Put another way: if children in families with similar levels of conflict are compared, JPC children do as well as or better than SPC children. The other three studies found that JPC children had better or equal outcomes on all measures but one.

When parents had JPC even though one parent initially opposed it, the JPC children still had equal or better outcomes than SPC children.

Six of the 60 studies identified particular circumstances in which the effect of divorce on child development among JPC children is, on average, worse than for SPC children:

• Adolescents in high-conflict families who have a poor relationship with one of the parents
• Teenage girls whose parents had high conflict eight years after separating
• Adolescents who are highly conscientious or extremely extroverted.

High conflict in itself does in fact worsen the effect of divorce on child development. But these studies found that even when high conflict is high, JPC children have equal or better outcomes than SPC children.

Is the effect of divorce on child development less in JPC children because their parents are better at parenting?

Nine of the 60 studies looked at the quality of child-parent relationships, examining whether the divorce has a milder effect on child development in JPC families because the children and parents have better relationships and because the parents have better parenting skills? Five of the nine found that even when controlling for parent-child relationships, children did as well or better in JPC families on all measures. In two studies, children did worse on one measure and better/equally on all the others.

Is the effect of divorce on child development less in JPC children because their parents are wealthier?

Twenty-five other studies looked at family income to examine whether JPC children have better outcomes because their parents are better off. Again, the answer is no. Twenty-three studies found that when controlling for income, JPC children do as well or better on all measures; in two studies, JPC children did better or the same on all measures but one.

The importance of family relationships in mitigating the effect of divorce on child development

Overall, joint physical custody is linked to less harm to child development from divorce independently of parenting factors, family income and level of conflict between the parents.

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