Based on years of research, the framework – called the Intergenerational and Cumulative Adverse and Resilient Experiences (ICARE) model – identifies 10 types of ACEs, as well as 10 protective and compensatory experiences (PACEs) that build resilience.

The ICARE model also recommends a wide set of interventions that address the many ways ACEs can harm children’s development. At the heart of the approach is supporting the protective factors that are already in place in families and helping families become stronger.

The ICARE model shows the pathway by which ACEs can disadvantage children’s future and harm the next generation.

Neurobiological and epigenetic impacts of ACEs

Prolonged activation of stress responses that are typically used in brief crisis-response situations results in biological and neurobiological changes that can become embedded in a child. The body’s immune system can be harmed, as well as the development of brain structures and functions. Epigenetic changes to DNA as a result of adversity – the methylation of certain genes that change how they function – embed the impact of ACEs, influencing how the child responds to stress later in life. Epigenetic changes are heritable, passed from mothers and fathers to their biological children.

The ICARE model shows the pathway by which ACEs can disadvantage children’s future and harm the next generation.

Developmental impacts of ACEs

The most significant developmental system in early childhood is attachment. Secure attachment evolves when an infant’s needs are consistently met, creating a safe and predictable place where caregivers can be trusted. Attachment also has a biological/neurobiological dimension, for example, with the action of the hormones dopamine and oxytocin. ACEs can disrupt attachment, which is associated with a wide range of behavioral, social, and emotional problems later in life.

ACEs can also damage cognitive development. Skills associated with executive function, such as working memory, inhibitory control, and focused attention, can be harmed in children who have experienced adversity. This can lead to problems with learning during education and training.

Intergenerational transmission

ACEs can disadvantage the next generation in two ways: Parents who have been adversely affected by ACEs in their own lives are more likely to struggle with parenting. And parents may pass to their children epigenetic changes that affect the child’s biological response to stress.

Strategies to mitigate the negative impacts of ACEs

The foundation of the strategic approach proposed by the ICARE model starts with assessing and mobilizing protective factors that already exist or could exist around the child. Researchers point to successful support programs in five categories:

1. Supporting parents and caregivers with their own psychological and emotional well-being
2. Supporting parents and caregivers with attachment and parenting skills
3. Supporting children directly, for example, by encouraging their participation in sports, hobbies, and friendships
4. Psychological therapies for children that address the past traumas
5. Play-based therapeutic activities for children and parents together

The authors of the framework explain that the ICARE model “suggests new opportunities to design and implement multilevel prevention and intervention programs across the various pathways by which adverse and protective experiences influence outcomes.”

The post How to protect children from the negative impacts of adverse childhood experiences – a comprehensive approach appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Adverse childhood experiences include growing up in poverty; absence or death of a parent; violence; caregivers’ drug or alcohol addiction; physical or emotional neglect; peer victimization; or physical, psychological, and sexual abuse.

Based on the study, the researchers concluded that fathers should be involved in programs that support children with problems such as anxiety, anger, inattention, and sleep disturbance. Other studies have shown that parents with a reported history of prior maltreatment have the capacity for improving their parenting practices. Fathers should also receive direct support to address depression and negative parenting practices.

The study featured 118 fathers of 6- to 17-year-olds. All fathers were in stable, committed relationships with the mother of their children. Fathers completed a series of psychological questionnaires and evaluations of their own children. They were asked about their own childhood experiences, their assessment of their children’s mental health (inattention, sleep disturbance, depression, anger, anxiety), their own parenting practices, and their relationship with their children’s mother.

The correlations in this research do not imply causation, but they do correspond with earlier research, particularly on mothers. Mothers’ depression and negative parenting has been shown to explain the link between their own adverse childhood experiences and their children’s development – including communication, problem solving, motor skills at age 2, health, and hyperactivity. Many studies have confirmed that individuals who were maltreated in childhood are at risk of repeating these negative behaviors toward their own children.

Fathers’ symptoms of depression have also been linked to their children’s anxiety, depression, substance addiction (for up to 20 years), psychiatric disorders, lower academic performance, hyperactivity, social problems, and emotional difficulties. The global socioeconomic changes that have been occurring for the last 40 years suggest that the traditional mother-focused models of developmental influence are old fashioned. The presence and involvement of fathers in their children’s lives is strongly associated with their offspring’s social well-being, academic achievement, and behavioral adjustment. Moreover, longitudinal studies have confirmed that, in child development, fathers matter in ways similar to mothers.

The post Fathers’ adverse childhood experiences are linked to their children’s development appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Disentangling the neurological impacts of different adversities, such as child neglect and child abuse, shows biological pathways that underpin child development challenges.

Picture children who are having a hard time paying attention and are disrupting a classroom. What’s the best way to address their behavior and help them to concentrate? Is it mindfulness training, to help them calm them down and react less to everything going on around them? Or is it cognitive training to improve their capacity to problem solve, making it easier for them to stick with the learning process, rather than giving up and disrupting their peers? The choice may depend on whether they’ve experienced child neglect or abuse and the impact on their brain development.

Victims of child neglect, or children with few invested caregivers who talk to them and engage them in learning-oriented play, may have a brain that is underdeveloped in areas that support complex thinking. On the other hand, a child who has experienced abuse or violence could have very different biological issues. He or she has a brain that’s been shaped by threat—its biology has been primed to be hypervigilant and overreactive.

These very different biological histories may manifest as what can seem to be the identical problem—disruptive behavior. But if we understand the very different neurological pathways forged variously by child neglect or abuse, we can explain why the same behaviors need different approaches that are tailored to each child’s experiences and neurobiology.

Different treatments for abuse and child neglect

Mindfulness and emotional regulation training could help abused children reduce their emotional reactivity and function better. In contrast, for neglected or deprived children, the answer might be developmentally appropriate, scaffolded learning experiences designed to challenge them. This could even involve, for example, computerised training of their attention skills. Exercises could gradually provide more complex tasks and develop their capacity to think in increasingly difficult ways.

Understanding the neurological impacts of child neglect and abuse 

These scenarios show how neuroscience is providing vital insights into the biological mechanisms, shaped by early experiences, that set in place the pathways to psychological and processing problems. Research is demonstrating how different types of adversity impact brain development in distinct ways. We need to understand these neural mechanisms to develop better targeted, more discriminating and more successful interventions, each designed to address particular brain impacts caused by different kinds of early adversity.

“At least two types of childhood adversity – deprivation (child neglect) and child abuse (threat) – are distinctive in terms of their biological impacts on the human brain.”

Identifying these mechanisms can be challenging, because some children have experienced multiple adversities. However, it is important to disentangle discreet impacts on brain development so that we can design appropriate ways to address them.

Research is making clear that there are at least two types of childhood adversity – child neglect (deprivation) and child abuse (threat) – which have distinctive impacts on the human brain.

Evidence about brain impact of child neglect and deprivation

Deprivation involves an absence of expected inputs from a child’s environment, such as cognitive and social stimulation. It’s a core feature of child neglect and institutionalisation. It can also be found in children with constrained learning opportunities, such as those reared by parents with few opportunities to invest in their children’s development.

We know that animals raised with a lack of environmental stimulation typically experience dramatic increases in synaptic pruning, resulting in reduced cortical volume and thickness in their brains. These changes are accompanied by deficits in learning and memory. The same picture can be found when cognitive enrichment and social stimulation is low during early human development.

Photo: David Goehring. Creative Commons.

For example, our studies of children raised in Romanian orphanages, an extreme example of child neglect with severe deprivation of caregiver contact, found that they often had reduced volume and thickness throughout the brain’s cortex. In these orphanages, children were deprived of stimulation, and their young brains developed to become as efficient as possible for the environment they faced. Their brains were learning that they would not need rich synaptic connections for sensory experiences. Our hypothesis is that these synapses would have been “over-pruned”. In brain development, this is a tragic example of the “use it or lose it” principle.

Recent evidence has found similar patterns of brain development, albeit more circumscribed, in children raised in poor households. In such cases, because of a limited social safety net, parents may be working multiple jobs, so they can’t be present with their children and can’t afford high quality care. Thus, their children may also experience some form of child neglect. Other research has identified increased cortical thinning in children from poorer families.

These disruptions to healthy brain development, caused by a lack of cognitive stimulation, underpin reduced capacities to think and learn in such children.

Understanding impact of abuse, living under threat

In contrast, abuse encompasses experiences involving harm or threat of harm. Living with threat is a core feature of sexual abuse, physical abuse and exposure to community violence or war. The biological impact of being raised amid chronic threat is increasingly being documented. It biases the development of cortical and subcortical circuits towards early detection of other threats, and it can create hypervigilance. These biological changes alter emotional development in ways that facilitate the rapid identification of potential threats to the environment, a heightened emotional response to those threats, and a reduced ability to control this response.

“A focus on ‘cumulative risk’ from multiple adversities can fail to distinguish the type, timing or severity of different experiences.”

As a result, children who have experienced physical or sexual abuse are more alert to threatening stimuli. They are more likely to perceive neutral facial expressions as threatening. They also find it difficult to discriminate between threat and safety cues in learning situations. These differences in emotional reactivity and regulation lead to psychological problems such as depression, anxiety and anger-related disorders.

Danger of focus on ‘cumulative’ adversity 

These distinctions between child neglect/deprivation and child abuse/threat have been ignored in recent research focused on “cumulative risk”. Cumulative risk focuses on children experiencing multiple adversities. This approach rightly recognises a key reality—children exposed, for example, to poverty, deprivation and child neglect are also more likely to experience violence and abuse. The multiplicity of adversity is, in itself, dangerous to children. However, this cumulative approach, which is dominant in the field, can fail to distinguish the type, timing or severity of different experiences. It also throws little light on the different mechanisms by which children’s psychopathology is impacted and makes it harder to design interventions to address the psychological problems which result from adversity exposure.

Neglect in Romanian orphanages

Our research into the children raised in Romanian orphanages is pertinent. They suffered severe child neglect, deprived of both attachment and stimulation. We were able to show that exposure to institutionalization early in life caused clear reductions in IQ and cognitive function, and changed their neural structure.

Our work – comparing the brains of infants rescued early with those who remained institutionalised for longer – has also helped us understand how these losses may be recoverable. Children who moved into families before they were two years old were able to recover in some ways with regards to their stress responses and IQ. This was less true for their executive functioning and attention – recovering this capacity seems to require even earlier intervention. Some research suggests that children who were rescued before they were six months old were doing a lot better in terms of executive function.

Adolescence is an important intervention opportunity

Neuroscience is helping practitioners understand when—and in response to which experiences—the brain is more plastic, making it responsive to certain interventions. We know that the brain remains plastic throughout life, but much less so after infancy, and plasticity apparently declines with age. But current research suggests that there may be another opportunity for plasticity during adolescence.

Linda Wilbrecht at the University of California, Berkeley has shown that hormonal changes at this age increase brain plasticity. This finding offers the intriguing and hopeful possibility that interventions around adolescence – ensuring that children experience positive relationships with trusted caregivers – may offer a second major opportunity, beyond infancy, to recover from child neglect or abuse, making a great difference in children’s brain development and their lifetime prospects.

The post Practice should recognise that child neglect and abuse alter children’s brains differently appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

The best way to prevent chronic physical aggression in boys is intensive and long-term interventions initiated early in life targeting disadvantaged mothers.

Following research into aggression in children dating back to the 1980s, two leading researchers from Canada, Richard E Tremblay and Sylvana M Côté, have presented a wide range of factors that predict aggression and antisocial behavior in children, boys in particular. These include both genetic and social influences. Male aggression exceeds female aggression by a large margin and has done so for a long time. The ratio of female to male homicides in France 200 years ago was almost exactly the same as in the USA in 2014: 11.7:100 and 11.6:100 respectively.

The intergenerational nature of male aggression leads the authors to recommend that the best way to prevent chronic physical aggression and other antisocial behavior problems is intensive and long-term intervention initiated early in life and targeting disadvantaged mothers. This breaks the intergenerational transmission of violent behaviors.

Genetic influence on aggression

Large studies of twins have revealed the extent of genetic influence on physical aggression. Genetic factors explain 50% to 63% of the variance in frequency of physical aggression in children at 20 months. The link between genetics and physical aggression is stronger than the link between genetics and language development. However, this influence substantially diminishes as time goes on, while new influences come into play.

Parents’ life experience

When mothers report antisocial behavior during their own adolescence, their children are considerably more likely to display chronic physical aggression between the ages of 17 and 42 months. Chronic physical aggression in children is more frequent if the mother is young, poor, separated from the father, has not completed high school, has smoked during pregnancy, or suffers from depression.

This intergenerational phenomenon is exacerbated by assortative mating: mothers with poor childhood experiences are more likely to partner and have children with fathers who have had similar experiences.

A key mechanism of the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage is epigenetic change. The DNA methylation profiles of boys displaying chronic physical aggression are different from those of other boys (in 448 places on the genome in one study). Children whose mothers show more mental illness, more criminal behavior or more substance abuse have higher methylation of the oxytocin receptor gene at birth and later show higher callous-unemotional traits at 13 years of age. Similarly, boys displaying higher aggression have lower serotonin synthesis in the brain. This is linked to higher methylation of genes in the serotonin pathway.

Aggression begins early

In the 1990s, Tremblay found that physical aggression often starts in the second part of the first year after birth, substantially increasing in frequency up to the third year, then declining slowly. Aggression emerges between six and 42 months of age, after which a child would normally learn to control it. There is a substantial difference between boys and girls: 5% of boys between 17 and 29 months use physical aggression frequently, whereas only 1% of girls do.

Aggression in kindergarten and elementary school predicts aggression in adolescence

Other research by Tremblay in the 1990s in Canada showed that greater physical aggression among kindergarten boys predicts chronic physical aggression in adolescence. Another study in Canada, New Zealand and the USA found that boys showing high chronic physical aggression in elementary school were more likely to show the same in adolescence. This link was not seen for girls.

The authors note that the danger posed by aggression in childhood increases as children grow larger from 6 to 12 years of age.

In a randomized controlled trial in the early 1980s, Tremblay and colleagues found that a programme to address aggression and hyperactivity in kindergarten boys from low socioeconomic areas had positive outcomes for the children later in life: less aggression at the ages of 7 to 9, less physical aggressions and thefts at the ages of 11 to 17, increased rate of high-school completion and fewer criminal offenses in early adulthood. The programme consisted of both home-based parent training and school-based help for social and cognitive skills.

The evidence thus points to the importance of early intervention, starting at home before kindergarten.

The post How chronic physical aggression in boys passes down the generations appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

A family systems approach to parental alienation is recommended, involving victims and perpetrator.

In short, researchers of child development state that yes, parental alienation is an emotional form of child abuse. Based on new understandings of how family relationships fundamentally affect child development and wellbeing, three researchers,  Jennifer Jill Harman, Edward Kruk and Denise A Hines are arguing that parental alienation—a deliberate attempt to break a child-parent relationship—should be classified as child abuse. The researchers recommend a family systems response to parental alienation, involving both victims and perpetrator, with a view to restoring all relationships to the child.

But before we dive into this a little deeper, let’s ensure we fully understand the definition of parental alienation.

What Is the Definition of Parental Alienation?

Parental alienation refers to a situation in which one parent, often during or after a divorce or separation, actively ruins the child’s relationship with the other parent. It occurs when a child is reluctant to have a relationship with a parent for illogical, untrue or exaggerated reasons.

This behaviour can be portrayed in a number of different ways, such as making negative comments about the targeted parent, getting in the way of communication or visitation, and trying to manipulate the child’s feelings toward the other parent.

There is a spectrum of parental alienation, from mild to severe. In mild cases, the child may enjoy a good relationship with the target parent provided the alienating parent is not present.

Common Symptoms of Parental Alienation Seen in a Child

There are a number of different parental alienation symptoms that can be seen in a child, for example:

• Open expressions of hostility towards the target parent.
• Extreme polarisation – one parent is all good and one parent all bad.
• Campaign of denigration of the target parent.
• Unfounded rationalisations for their complaints about the target parent.
• Borrowed scenarios created by the alienating parent.
• Spreading animosity about the target parent to other people.
• Lack of overt ambivalence, guilt or remorse for their rejection.
• Automatically siding with the alienating parent in any argument or conflict.

Parental Alienating Behaviours of a Parent

• Intention to hurt or destroy the other child-parent relationship and to hurt the other parent, while the other parent is motivated to avoid these things. Parental alienation does not include situations where one parent or the child is choosing to end their relationship. It does not include steps by one parent to protect a child from genuine abuse by the other parent.
• Enacted over an extended period of time – a pattern of behaviour rather than a single action.
• Ranging from mild to severe and explicit.
• Use of the child as an instrument to hurt the target parent.

Incidence:

• Custodial status is the main predictor of who is likely to alienate, rather than gender per se. Non-custodial parents can engage in alienating behavior, but it is rare.
• Prevalence is hard to measure because of the absence of an accurate diagnosis.

Parental alienation in the law:

• In 2010, Brazil passed a law criminalizing parental alienation on the grounds that is it “moral abuse” – a violation of the child’s fundamental right to have healthy family interactions and family life.
• In 2015, the Australian Federal Court recognised parental alienating behaviors as a form of family violence that causes harm to children.

 Parental alienation research:

• Over 1,000 books, chapters and research articles on parental alienation published, mostly legal case reviews, expert opinions, clinical case studies and qualitative research studies.
• Research on the prevalence, causes, diagnosis and assessment, and treatment outcomes is highly limited.

Parental Alienation as Child Abuse

The researchers highlight aspects of parental alienation that correspond with definitions of child abuse.

Parental alienation as emotional/psychological aggression:

• Creating fear in children that the target parent might be dangerous.
• Making children feel guilty or ridiculing them for showing warmth or loyalty to the target parent and their extended family.
• Withdrawing love and affection when children talk about the other parent.
• Interrogating children after visits to the other parent and/or forcing them to throw away any clothing, gifts or reminders of the other parent.
• Corrupting children’s identity by telling them the other parent is disappearing from their life – e.g., introducing a step-parent as a replacement, changing the children’s surname.
• Presenting false information to children – e.g., distorting their memories of the parent with false and negative details, pretending that the other parent failed to turn up to see the children at a scheduled time.
• Forcing children to make binary decisions – e.g., telling them they can see only one parent, not both.
• Using children to spy in the home of the other parent.
• Holding children responsible for violations of court orders.

Parental alienation as child neglect:

• Placing the needs of the alienating parent before the children’s need to be loved and cared for by the other parent.
• Being emotionally unavailable to children through parents’ own psychological pathologies.
• Making false allegations of abuse and fabricating illness in an attempt to get custody of children and prevent contact with the other parent.
• Giving false medication information to the other parent to justify sole care of children’s medical needs.
• Using professionals to “help” children cope with the alleged behaviors of the other parent. Some alienating parents work through one professional after another as each starts to suspect what is really happening.
• Isolating children from peers who may question their rejection of the other parent.

Parental alienation as local and administrative aggression:

• Making false allegations of abuse against the other parent to authorities and services. Sometimes children are co-opted into this process.

Parental alienation as physical and sexual aggression:

• Hitting children when they express a desire to be connected with the other parent.
• Preventing the other parent from protecting the children against a new partner with a history of sexual or violent offences.

Parental Alienation: The Psychology of Fractured Parent–Child Relationships

Parental Alienation as Intimate Partner Violence

The researchers also map common behaviours in parental alienation to behaviours common in intimate partner violence: aggression, coercive control, physical threats, exploitation of the victim’s secrets, lying about past events to modify parenting plans, stalking, and legal/administrative aggression. As most alienating parents are the custodial parents, they can use the power of their situation to keep the victim living in fear of total cessation of contact with the child.

In all cases, children are victims when they witness the abuse or are affected by it.

Impact of Parental Alienation on the Child

Practitioners will intervene only when the severity of abuse reaches a certain threshold. This requires accurate and skilled diagnosis, which is made more difficult by the lack of systematic and empirical research on the causes of parental alienation.

Severe parental alienation has obvious and immediate impacts on the child, but mild and moderate forms can also cause significant harm which can go on for many years. This harm goes beyond just the impacts of being exposed to conflict and parental pathology.

Examples of negative impacts of parental alienation found in research include:

• Low self-esteem.
• Feeling abandoned and unloved.
• Inability to express grief.
• Self-hatred through internalising the hate targeted at one parent.
• Disturbed attachment to both parents.
• Substance abuse disorders.
• Guilt.
• Anxiety.
• Mental illness
• Disturbed psychosocial development, for example, in handling interpersonal conflict and developing empathy.
• Poor academic performance.
• Poor physical health.

The Difficulties of Detecting Parental Alienation

Parental alienation can be hard to detect because it is a pattern of behavior extended over time, rather than a distinct action.

Another key difficulty regarding detection is that many professionals believe parental alienation occurs only in high-conflict relationships, and therefore both parents are held responsible for the situation. Such reciprocity does exist in some cases, but it cannot be assumed; in many cases, only one parent is the perpetrator. In these cases, holding the victim partly responsible is a manifestation of victim blaming that is a well-recognised feature in the field of intimate partner violence.

Victim parents may retaliate, for example, by defending their reputation against a campaign of derogation, and they may do this in inappropriate ways. It is important, however, to distinguish this pattern from mutual aggression. Likewise, victim parents may deliberately choose not to reciprocate any aggressive behavior in order not to become enmeshed in the alienating parent’s pathology, or in fear of the power that the alienating parent has over their relationship with the children.

A further difficulty is ignorance about the issue among professionals. “For parental alienating behaviors to be recognized and accepted as a form of serious child maltreatment and IPV ,” the researchers argue, “a clear and precise definition of the phenomenon of parental alienation is needed, and the exact nature of the harms befalling targeted parents and children as a result of parental alienating behaviors needs to be unambiguous.”

Responding to Parental Alienation

To prevent future harm to children affected by parental alienation, the researchers recommend taking a family systems approach that engages both the victims and the perpetrator. They warn against any approach that engages only with the victim parent or child.

They recommend five interventions.

1. Education for young people so that they can recognise abuse and take steps to protect themselves.
2. Address the issue in education for parents on parenting after separation.
3. Clinical interventions for children to repair the damage done. There are few of these, but one – the Family Bridges Program – has been specifically developed to help children to have a healthy relationship with both parents.
4. In some cases, the reversal of legal custody, so that children are not left in the primary care of an abusive parent. This should be accompanied by treatment for the abusive parent and then reunification programs to restore both parental relationships with the children.
5. In family courts, when children fully reject a parent, a process specifically adapted to the situation: (1) more intensive collaboration between legal and health professionals, (2) specific court orders setting clear boundaries for the alienating parent, (3) education for judges on the nature of parental alienation, its impacts on children and effective ways of mitigating these. Moreover, judges should be aware that awarding sole custody to reduce conflict leaves children exposed to the abuse of parental alienation.

The post Is Parental Alienation Child Abuse? appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

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.

The post A presumption of shared parenting after divorce? 40 years of research and argument paving the way appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

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.

The post A panel of leading child development experts answer the burning questions about shared parenting after divorce appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Early child development is underpinned by brain development, by genetic and epigenetic inheritance and by physical development. Two key features of early childhood development that researchers study are ‘self-regulation’ and ‘executive function’.

Parental care shapes early childhood development. Neglect, the absence of adequate parental care, is a severe threat to early childhood development. Over-exposure to stress – ‘toxic stress’ – undermines development while strong relationships with parents provide protection and build resilience.

The mechanics of early childhood development

The brain

The human brain develops continually through childhood development, from before the birth and into adulthood. Like the construction of a building, the foundations are laid early. The brain builds from the bottom up in clearly defined development stages. That’s why early support for development is so important. A stronger foundation not only means the child is further ahead at a given moment in time, it also means learning and development can proceed more rapidly in the future.

Early childhood development sees the brain developing extremely rapidly. Billions of new connections are created every hour among neurons in different parts of the brain. After this rapid proliferation, brain development shifts towards efficiency. Some neural connections are made stronger and faster and others are pruned and lost. Meanwhile, the brain builds ever more sophisticated connections during later childhood and adolescence, associated with more enhanced skills. Pruning continues.

Brain development fundamentally shapes early child development stages. More basic capacities, such as vision, hearing and touch, develop earlier on. Later comes the development of more complex capacities, such as communication, understanding facial expressions, reasoning, and decision-making. Higher-level skills, such as the ability to sustain attention, set goals, follow rules, solve problems and control impulses, start developing in early childhood and continue through adolescence.

Children’s experiences of the world – how they see, hear and feel, and how they relate with parents and other carers – shape every aspect of the brain’s development. This reinforces some circuits and allowing others to be lost.

Genetics and epigenetics

The genes that children receive from their mothers and fathers give them certain predispositions and susceptibilities that influence early child development. Some children are naturally less fearful than others, for example, and those who are less fearful are less at risk of long-term anxiety and depression.

Photo: will kay. Creative Commons.

But some researchers have found that children who are more vulnerable to adverse environments may also be more sensitive to positive experiences and profit from them more. (See our article, Tackling child behaviour problems effectively requires better understanding of differences between an ‘orchid’ child and a ‘dandelion’ child.) This provides great hope for supporting more vulnerable children.

Experiences of the world, including relationships within the family and community, can influence the expression of genes rather than the genes themselves. Positive and negative experiences result in the production of proteins that regulate gene activity, creating temporary or permanent changes in the “epigenome”. These epigenetic changes to how genes are expressed can be inherited by the next generation. For example, the children of men and women who survived the Holocaust have inherited epigenetic changes associated with response to extreme stress. (See our article, Epigenetics offers hope for disadvantaged children.)

Physical development in early childhood

Early childhood development is defined not only by brain development and genetics/epigenetics. Cardiovascular, immune, neuroendocrine and metabolic systems all have a role to play in shaping a child’s capacities for the future.

Everything is intertwined. Supporting early child development is about ensuring that all the strands are strong.

Components of early child development

Although researchers still debate how to define different components of early childhood development, a number of concepts have become mainstream in the field.

The three domains of development most widely discussed are cognitive (thinking), social and emotional. Research has demonstrated that these are closely intertwined. Their development is associated with neural activity across the entire brain.

The connections can also be seen in children’s behaviour. For example, children develop the ability to think through relationships with carers. A child with high social skills will typically develop cognitive skills more quickly.

Self-regulation

Based in a part of the brain called the amygdala is an automatic and impulsive response to risk and danger, commonly known as the “fight or flight response”. Self-regulation is the ability to bring in a more conscious response to a situation, working out how to respond in that moment. It may be that more planned responses counteract the initial fight or flight instinct. The ability to regulate emotion is a vital skill acquired in early childhood in part through relationship with carers.

Executive function

Executive function is a cluster of skills that emerge in early child development that create the foundations for learning and interacting well with others. Researchers have divided executive function into several distinct abilities:

• Working memory – holding and using information for short periods of time.
• Mental flexibility (or cognitive flexibility) – adapting quickly in response to external stimuli.
• Self-control (or inhibitory control) – resisting impulsive behaviour.
• Sustaining focus and attention throughout a task.
• Solving problems.
• Following rules.
• Setting goals.
• Delaying immediate gratification for more reward later.

Photo: kris krüg. Creative Commons.

Developing executive function is a key part of the early childhood development stages. By the age of three, basic executive functions are in place – remembering and following simple rules. The skills develop substantially between the ages of three and five, but they continue to develop right through adolescence.

These more advanced stages of early child development involve increased speed and efficiency of neural circuits acting across different parts of the brain.

Parental care shapes early child development

Responsive caregiving from parents, the wider family and all those involved in a child’s life, along with experience of the world, shape children’s development. Researchers have coined the term “serve and return” to describe the reciprocal actions with parents and carers.

Multiple relationships enhance social and emotional development, building the child’s ability to sustain strong relationships in future. A child with multiple stable and caring relationships has a strong advantage. Conversely, a child without even one stable and responsive relationship is at a severe disadvantage.

Researchers have used the term “scaffolding” to describe the environment that caregivers can create for children to practice skills. Scaffolding includes establishing routines, modelling social behaviour, enabling creative play, facilitating social connection and encouraging physical exercise.

Threats to healthy early child development: neglect and toxic stress

Neglect

The world’s most widespread risk to children is a lack of responsive care, known as neglect: 78% of all child maltreatment cases in the world relate to neglect, which can have a more detrimental impact on early child development than physical abuse.

Photo: Brandon Warren. Creative Commons. 

Like physical abuse, neglect severely disrupts the brain’s development in early childhood by depriving children of adequate relationships, thereby altering the development of biological stress-response systems. Neglect is related to a multitude of poor outcomes in children’s later life – mental health, physical health, social relations and educational achievement.

Toxic stress

Stress, as a part of learning how to cope with adversity, is a normal and essential part of early child development. A threat triggers physiological changes associated with the hormone cortisol that support a quick response to mitigate the danger. A child exposed to simple stresses, and protected by strong relationships with adults, learns to cope, and to regulate the stress response system. Strong relationships can also mitigate the potentially damaging effects of high levels of stress caused by events like the death of a loved one, serious injury, or a local disaster.

Excessive and prolonged stress, termed toxic stress, is not a normal part of early child development. Examples of toxic stress include physical and emotional abuse, chronic neglect, poor care as a result of drugs or mental illness, persistent poverty and prolonged exposure to violence.

Exposure to chaos and constant threat impairs the development of self-regulation, trapping children in an instinctive fight and flight response. Toxic stress that undermines early childhood development stages is associated with many poor outcomes in later life.

Building resilience through relationships

Relationships with caregivers are the key to protecting children from the adverse effects of stress. Early in life, such care can prevent or even reverse the damaging effects of toxic stress.

Resilience emerges when a child exposed to stress also has access to reliable and nurturing relationships. A child’s heightened physiological response to stress can be restored by relating to a caring adult. Exposure to stress in the presence of a caring adult can help the child learn to feel some control in the situation and to develop self-regulation.

The post Early Childhood Development: concepts behind the research appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Schneider studied data from the large Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which has followed the lives of 5,000 families in 20 American cities since 1998.

Studies like this show that family services should pay careful attention to the family relationships surrounding the disadvantaged children in their care, so that they understand how such relationships are changing.

Schneider found that after biological parents move in together, the mother’s likelihood of:

• Spanking frequently (an indicator of abuse) falls by 40%
• Using physical force frequently falls by 42%
• Using psychological aggression frequently falls by 37%
• Physically neglecting the child falls by 28%
• Exposing the child to adult substance abuse, violence and crime falls by 33%

Conversely, when mothers become single, the likelihood of these things rises. Risk of:

• Spanking frequently increases by 43%
• Physical neglect increases by 36%
• Exposure to adult substance abuse, violence and crime increases by 60%
• Involvement with Child Protective Services increases

The changes linked to a transition from cohabitation to marriage are much smaller. There is no significant change in the likelihood of abuse, though the chances of neglect fall by over one third. Perhaps this is because marriage may just confirm an already established pattern of collaborative parenting.

Compared to beginning to cohabit with a biological father, the impact of starting to cohabit with a stepfather is much smaller. There are no significant changes in abuse or neglect. But when the mother marries the stepfather, the likelihood of neglect falls more than 50%.

Such changes are commonly thought to be explained by changes in economic circumstances, but the analysis did not show correlations of this kind. Perhaps the nature of the relationship transition is more significant.

The post Moving in with a father or stepfather reduces the chances of abuse and neglect by mothers appeared first on Child and Family Blog.