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.

Seventy attachment researchers with long track records in the field collaborated globally to produce a seminal statement concerning the widespread use of attachment theory in family courts.

The start of 2021 sees a major new contribution to family court practice by child development researchers. A 35-page “Consensus position based on the concerted body of attachment research” has been published, under the names of 70 leading attachment researchers. It is the most comprehensive statement ever produced on how attachment theory can be applied in family courts worldwide in the best interests of children. It also shows ways in which attachment theory is frequently misused.

This summary highlights the key points in the statement, but family court professionals who wish to learn more about this important topic should read the document in full. References to page numbers are included in this summary to enable quick access to the more detailed account.

The “best interests of the child” has become the fundamental consideration in family courts. The concept is included in the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989): “In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration (#3.1)” (p. 5).

This article addresses four issues:

1. The challenge of using attachment theory in family courts
2. What is attachment theory?
3. Three attachment principles for family court practice
4. Eight pieces of advice for family courts

1. The challenge of using attachment theory in family courts

A fundamental difficulty applying attachment science in family courts is that the science and the courts start from very different places. The measures used in attachment research are accurate enough to produce average scores that predict patterns of future child development across groups, but they are not sensitive enough to be used as diagnostic tools for individual families, which is what courts need (p. 5). Correlations found in attachment science, while statistically significant, may not be substantial, and rarely provide the basis for making a prediction about one individual (p. 21). Even the more fine-grained attachment assessments have been designed and validated for standardized contexts and may not apply in highly charged situations common in family courts.

“Family courts are under pressure to appear to base their decisions on evidence, and attachment theory has become by far the most popular theory among professionals working with children and families.”

Therefore, specific measures of attachment quality should be used with great caution. They may play a part, but only in combination with other assessments. Other measures include the child’s physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development, and very importantly, the capacity of a parent to provide care or be helped to develop caring skills. Above all, it is crucial to assess risk of harm to the child. Every one of these factors is hard to assess, not least because each can change over time, particularly if the assessment is made at a moment of heightened trauma and change (pp. 15-16, 20-21, 30-32).

Family courts are under pressure to appear to base their decisions on evidence, and attachment theory has become by far the most popular theory among professionals working with children and families. This creates an environment in which over-confidence about the application of attachment classifications or concepts to individual cases is common (p. 21). Because of the complexity of cases in family courts, proceedings can be influenced by personal opinions or cultural and social values and norms (pp. 5, 6, 32).

2. What is attachment theory?

2.1 Defining attachment

The 70 attachment researchers who contributed to the statement defined attachment this way:

Attachment refers to an affectional bond in which an individual is motivated to seek and maintain proximity to, and comfort from, particular familiar persons (Bowlby, 1969/1982). Children are born with a predisposition to develop this motivation in relation to significant others (“attachment figures”) who have been sufficiently present and responsive. For children, these persons are usually their caregivers. The motivation is held to be governed by an attachment behavioral system. This system seeks to maintain a certain degree of proximity between child and attachment figures, with the setting for desirable level changing dynamically in response to internal and external cues. The motivation to increase proximity is activated when a person is alarmed by internal cues (e.g. pain, illness) and/or external cues (e.g. fear-evoking stimuli, separation), and manifests in a tendency to seek the availability of an attachment figure. When the attachment system is strongly activated, some kind of physical contact with an attachment figure is generally sought, especially by infants, though this contact can also be achieved by non-physical means later in development … Caregivers who have regularly interacted with and protect the infant when the infant has been alarmed usually come to be represented by the infant as someone he or she can turn to when in need (i.e. as a safe haven). Importantly, even the most sensitive and responsive of caregivers necessarily “tune out” from time to time – to visit the bathroom, make tea, or even temporarily hand over caregiving to another trusted person familiar to the infant, while the caregiver attends to other matters. Thus, that a caregiver provides a safe haven does not necessitate that this person is constantly accessible for the infant physically, or even psychologically, or that the child is securely attached to that caregiver. Conversely, being physically present does not necessarily mean that a caregiver is emotionally available (pp. 7-8).

Photo: Yogendra Singh. Unsplash.

2.2 Attachment quality is measured by secure/insecure, not strong/weak

In attachment research, trained and certified coders measure the quality of attachment through standardized observation of children’s relative ability to use their caregiver as a safe haven to which they can turn for protection, and as a secure base from which they can explore the environment (p. 8).

Secure attachment manifests itself in the child’s expectation that the adult will be available in times of need. Insecure attachment manifests itself in the child’s expectation that the adult will be relatively unavailable (p. 8).

Insecure attachment is not weak and is extremely common and normal. Insecure attachment is an important strategy for children to maximize the potential availability of a caregiver who is unavailable or insensitive. An insecure attachment does not mean that the caregiver is never a safe haven for the child (pp. 10, 17).

Insecure attachment is observed in three forms:

• Insecure-avoidant is when the child does not seek his or her familiar person when mildly alarmed, but remains near (p. 17).
• Insecure-resistant is when the child seeks proximity but is not readily comforted and can show anger toward the caregiver. Both this and insecure-avoidant behavior are termed organized insecure attachment because they are coherent and work to increase the availability of less sensitive carers (p. 17).
• Disorganized attachment is when the child is conflicted, confused, or apprehensive about a family caregiver in a situation of mild to moderate alarm. It is often associated with frightened, frightening, or dissociative behavior on the part of the caregiver, or a caregiver’s hostility, withdrawal, or maltreatment (p. 18).

All these forms of insecure attachment correlate with later compromised child development, but even in the case of disorganized attachment, the associations are not strong enough to infer that observing insecure attachment foretells poor development outcomes for a specific child (p. 19).

Furthermore, researchers observe patterns of attachment in carefully controlled conditions that involve only mild to moderate stress for a child. Family courts commonly deal with children in situations of intense stress. Disorganized behavior on the part of a seriously stressed child does not necessarily imply disorganized attachment (p. 19).

“Specific measures of attachment quality should be used with great caution. They may play a part, but only in combination with other assessments.”

2.3 Attachment disorder differs from insecure attachment

The negative effects of insecure attachments, as presented earlier, are far surpassed by the potential damage of attachment disorder.

Two types of attachment disorder have been defined. Reactive attachment disorder is when a child shows a lack of care-seeking toward any caregiver when alarmed. Disinhibited social engagement disorder is when a child is over-friendly with unfamiliar people.

Reactive attachment disorder is seen in children who have experienced extremely inadequate caregiving in their early years, for example, those who have lived in institutions. The symptoms are reversible if the child is placed in a stable caregiving environment (p. 19).

2.4 Children form attachments with multiple caregivers

There is a widespread belief in the importance of one psychological parent, which emerges from the practice in some cultures of a single parent being the primary caregiver. A related idea has emerged: that an attachment with one person competes with other attachment relationships. Bowlby himself started with the idea of a single attachment in his 1969 book, but had changed his mind by the time he wrote his second book in 1984.

The reality is that children form attachment relationships with multiple caregivers simultaneously if they have sufficient time with the caregivers and if the caregivers provide enough of a safe haven in times of need. For decades, the vast majority of attachment researchers have believed that children benefit from having more than one safe haven (p. 6, 11-12).

The presence of multiple caregivers is the norm in many cultural settings across the world. Multiple caregivers and a network of attachment relationships constitute a protective factor in child development when caregiving is inconsistent (e.g., a caregiver is unwell or unavailable). This does not imply that the number of attachments is limitless, nor that a child may not prefer some caregivers over others. A child’s preferences are often shaped by the current accessibility of one carer over another and do not seem to depend on relative attachment quality with the caregivers. However, in the context of inter-parental conflict and custody disputes, less is known about how children’s preferences play out (p. 11-12).

While all attachments with regular caregivers are important, researchers’ opinions differ about whether a most familiar carer should be afforded priority in the early years. Variations in context – such as cultural and family factors – might influence the organization of continuous contact with different caregivers (p. 12).

“Insecure attachment is not weak and is very common – the average rate of insecure attachment in the general population is nearly half.”

2.5 New attachments can form

When a child and new caregiver spend sufficient time together, attachments usually form. The time together can activate not only the child’s attachment system but also a complementary caregiving system in the caregiver. Both are malleable. This is a relevant consideration in decisions about custody and overnight stays. However, no empirical research shows that overnight stays are a necessary condition for the development of an attachment relationship (p. 14).

Photo: Alan Wat. Creative Commons.

3. Three attachment principles for family court practice

In their statement, the researchers present three principles for family court practice based on a full consideration of attachment research.

Principle 1: A child needs to experience safe havens provided by particular, familiar, and non-abusive caregivers.

Two considerations are key:

• Limited contact with a caregiver makes it more difficult for a child to form, enhance, and maintain expectations of that caregiver’s availability in times of need.
• Almost all non-abusive and non-neglecting family-based care is likely to be better than institutional care (p. 25).

Principle 2: Safe, continuous, “good enough” care is in the child’s best interest and caregivers should be helped to provide it.

A safe haven requires particular familiar relationships and sufficiently continuous interaction with these caregivers. Even if another caregiving environment may be better in some way than the child’s current one, continuity of good enough care constitutes part of a child’s best interests. Disrupting existing attachments in favor of an “optimal” solution should be pursued with extreme caution (pp. 25-26).

Safe, continuous, good-enough care can be actively supported. Many studies and meta-analyses demonstrate effective interventions that improve caregiving quality. Many of these interventions are limited in time, typically lasting just 6 to 10 sessions (p. 26).

To this end, it is important to assess a caregiver’s potential to provide good enough care with sufficient support, not just the caregiver’s actual caregiving. The assessment also needs to consider a future time, if a current extreme state of distress diminishes the caregiver’s current ability (e.g., fear of loss of custody). Also, any particular intervention does not suit every caregiver, so alternatives should be made available (p. 32).

In families where roles were different prior to the separation, it is important to give the less experienced caregiver the opportunity to develop the ability to provide a safe haven (p. 12).

Bowlby put it this way in 1951: “Just as children are absolutely dependent on their parents for sustenance, so … are parents … dependent on greater society for economic provision. If a community values its children it must cherish their parents” (p. 28).

“The reality is that children form attachment relationships with multiple caregivers simultaneously.”

Principle 3: Maintain a child’s existing safe havens if they don’t pose a threat.

A decision to maintain a child’s existing safe havens does not provide a blueprint for allocating time in shared care arrangements. Time must be sufficient for attachment relationships to be developed and maintained (p. 28).

This principle can also apply to foster care, where relationships with biological parents can be maintained during fostering. Similarly, relationships with foster carers can maintained after foster care (p. 29).

In addition, grandparents, step-parents, siblings, and extended family members can often provide a safe haven for children (p. 29).

Photo: Frank Mckenna. Unsplash.

4. Eight pieces of advice for family courts

1. Do not equate attachment quality with caregiver sensitivity.

Caregiver sensitivity – the ability to notice a child’s signals, interpret them correctly, and respond to them appropriately and in a timely way – is, of course, important and correlates with attachment. However, gender norms can influence how care is expressed, and measures of safe haven and caregiver sensitivity may be shaped by gendered assumptions about caregiving (pp. 8-9). For example, sensitive caregiving in mothers predicts secure attachment more than it does in fathers, suggesting that other factors play a greater role in father-child attachment.

2. Do not equate attachment quality with relationship quality.

Relationships are made up of more than attachment alone. Other factors, such as basic physical care, play, supervision, teaching/learning, setting standards for conduct, and discipline, are also important (p. 9).

3. Do not interpret one-off behaviors of children as reliably indicating attachment quality.

Children’s behaviors depend on context. Attachment is measured in very controlled contexts. A very frightened child behaves differently than a less frightened child. A child in a highchair may cry in response to a threatening noise, but not cry if he or she is free to move to the caregiver. Children’s behaviors are also a function of their individual temperaments (p. 9).

4. The Tender Years Doctrine is wrong.

The Tender Years Doctrine holds that custody automatically goes to the mother for children under a certain “tender” age. While this concept has been formally replaced in most countries by standards related to the best interests of the child, it remains influential (p. 13). In Israel, it remains the policy: custody automatically goes to the mother for children under the age of six. The researchers state: “We are in full consensus that the ultimate establishment of a network of attachment relationships is generally a protective factor in the long term and thus a desirable outcome in child development. We are also in full agreement that losses of and permanent separations from attachment figure are in themselves risk factors that should be prevented wherever possible in child development.” (p.13)

5. Overnight care with a second parent is not inherently harmful for children.

In the 1990s, researchers concluded that co-parenting arrangements that included overnight visits to the co-parent were associated with insecurity in a child’s attachment with the resident parent (Solomon & George, 1999). However, the data presented in the study actually showed that parental conflict, not overnight stays, was  the problem. The inaccurate conclusion of this study has been quoted frequently to defend a position that is not supported by this or other evidence (p. 13).

The key question regarding decisions about overnight stays is whether the child experiences a safe haven with each caregiver. Of course, having a secure attachment does not preclude a child being unsettled for a time by unfamiliarity with, say, a new home. Also, the application of Principle 2 (safe, continuous, “good enough” care is in the child’s best interest and caregivers should be helped to provide it) requires attention to actively enabling the caregiver to develop a safe haven over time (p. 14).

“It is important to assess a caregiver’s potential to provide good enough care with sufficient support, not just the caregiver’s actual caregiving.”

6. Addressing and reducing conflict is key.

Inter-parental conflict and hostility undermine a parent’s own caring competencies and ability to let the other parent provide care. Interventions to reduce parental conflict are important (pp. 14-15).

If courts are clear about their decisions regarding custody and time allocation, they can increase parents’ capacity to overcome conflict. Similarly, if courts are clear about their commitment to the three principles outlined earlier, caregivers’ anxiety can be reduced and their motivation for cooperation increased (p. 33).

7. Ensure that family court professionals are adequately trained in attachment assessment.

While attachment theory is typically a mandatory part of professionals’ training, specialist training in assessing attachment quality is not. This can lead to attachment theory being either under-estimated or used with over-confidence. If assessments of attachment are used, they must be performed by formally trained observers (pp. 23, 31).

8. Take evidence directly from experts, not via representing parties.

Appeals to attachment in family courts would be less partial, more balanced, and more aligned with convergent evidence if courts called in experts, rather than the representing parties (p. 23).

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The concept of a “community of care” should be adopted in relation to the care of children, extending beyond just mothers to include grandparents and others. “Family resilience” should be supported.

A review of 206 studies of care by grandparents has proposed a more coherent framework to analyse and understand how care by grandparents contributes to children’s development and health.

The research identifies:

• two types of care by grandparents
  • custodial care in skipped generation families (no parent present)
  • care within multigeneration families (one or both parents present)

• three measurements of involvement of grandparents
  • contact – e.g., co-residency, visit frequency
  • behavior – e.g., feeding, washing, transport
  • support – e.g., school fees, home expenses

• two types of contextual factor that influences care by grandparents
  • personal – e.g., age of child/grandparent, health of child/grandparent, gender of child/grandparent, cultural norms of family care, the parental relationship (status/quality)
  • structural – e.g., race, class, neighbourhood, situations of conflict or crisis, available of care in the community, income, loss of parental care through death or incarceration

• three types of child outcomes from care by grandparents
  • physical health – e.g., health, diet, growth, accidental injury
  • socioemotional health – e.g., mental health, behavior, substance use
  • cognitive development – e.g., academic achievement, language development, school readiness

In addition to making recommendations about more systematic research in the future, the researchers offer directions for policy and practice.

1. The concept of a “community of care” should be adopted in relation to the care of children, extending beyond just mothers to fathers, grandparents, friends, neighbors, siblings, other relatives, paid caregivers, teachers and pastors. Policy should promote networks of support and “family resilience”. More evaluations are needed of interventions that engage with communities of care.
2. Better support in practice and policy directly to grandparents in “family-level care”, including financial assistance, health, education and housing support.
3. Attention to gender bias in how grandmothers and grandfathers are viewed, similar to perceptions of mothers and fathers. Male carers are often framed in more negative terms than female carers.

Grandparental care is increasing around the world. Extended lifespans, decreasing family size, increased maternal employment, higher divorce rates, more single-parent households, economic stagnation and increasing drug use are all expanding the caring role of grandparents. Grandparents are often the first to assume caring of children when parents are unable to do so.

In the USA in 2018, 7.8% of 0-18 year olds lived with both a parent and a grandparent in three-generation families, and 2.3% lived with a grandparent without a parent present in skipped-generation families. In a study of several East European countries, 29.7% of households contained at least one grandparent; the figure in Western European countries is 5.5%. In Asia, a huge number of children in rural areas live with their grandparents because their parents have gone to cities to find work. And although Africa has a strong tradition of multigeneration care of children, it is also seeings an increase in care by grandparents in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and parental migration.

Research interest in grandparents has increased recently, and we’ve also seen some developments in support programmes that target grandparents who have custody of children. In the USA, the Supporting Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Act was signed into federal law in 2018, largely in response to the opioid crisis, which is affecting parental care. Support for grandparents includes information about school systems, access to mental health services and building community support networks.

Of the 206 studies of grandparents reviewed, 68 were from Africa, 60 from the USA, 32 from Europe, 17 from Africa, 12 from Latin America, three from Australia and two from Israel. Twelve were multi-country studies.

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Research shows that the quality of the parenting of both parents the child lives with influences joint custody outcomes – higher quality parenting is associated with fewer child problems.

Two recent studies from Arizona State University recommend that when considering joint custody, family courts should carefully consider the quality of parenting of both the mother and the father, including in high-conflict situations.

The research shows that the quality of the care provided by each parent influences child development; specifically higher-quality parenting is associated with fewer behavioral and mood problems on the part of the child. Moreover, parenting quality is not fixed: more parenting time may be linked to higher parenting quality. These findings were consistent in both high-conflict and lower-conflict situations.

The findings contradict the idea that in high-conflict situations, joint custody automatically leads to worse outcomes by exposing the child to more conflict.

Earlier research on joint custody has confirmed repeatedly that children do better when post-divorce parenting is of better quality, whether on the part of the mother or the father. Comparing the experiences of children in different families, the new studies found that the combination of more parenting time and lower-quality parenting produced poorer results, and that less time with such parents—whether they were mothers or fathers—was associated with better outcomes.

This issue is significant. In the first study, involving 472 mothers and 353 fathers (all from different families), 34% of the mothers and 18% of the fathers were in the more-time, lower-quality-parenting category, the category associated with the lowest child outcomes.

The second study producing more findings of direct interest to family courts determining joint custody arrangements. For example, in high-conflict cases, the quality of the father’s parenting is generally higher if he spends more time with the child—but only until he reaches around 12 days per month with the child, after which this relation no longer holds true. Meanwhile, if the child spends more than about 10 days per month with the father, the quality of the mother’s parenting starts to fall. That means there is an optimum point: around 33%-40% of the time with one parent and the rest with the other.

This study also produced a warning for joint custody parents who draw their children into the middle of covert conflicts (for example, making disparaging comments about the other parent, or making the child carry messages). If either parent does this, the child rates that parent’s parenting quality lower and the other’s parenting quality higher.

The first research project took place in 2015-16 in Arizona, with a sample of parents diverse in ethnicity and education who were not involved with child protective services. Four things were measured:

• Parenting time: parents were asked how often in the past 30 days they had spent two or more hours with the child when both were awake, and how many overnight stays the child had in their home.
• Parental conflict
• Parenting quality: this was assessed through four measures – acceptance/rejection of the child, consistency of discipline, quality of communication with the child, and maintenance of family routines.
• Child outcomes: parents were asked about behavioral problems (externalising) and the mood problems (internalising).

The second research project involved 141 9- to 18-year-old children who were experiencing high-conflict divorce, accessed through a family court program for high-conflict separating parents. Similar things were measured:

• Parenting time: number of overnight stays with father in last 30 days.
• Parental conflict: this was measured in two ways: the frequency and intensity of overt conflict and the extent to which the child felt caught in the middle of more covert conflict.
• Parenting quality: the child was asked to assess discipline, acceptance and how much they felt they mattered to their mother/father.
• Child outcomes: for this measure of behaviour and mood problems (externalising/internalising), parental reports were also sought.

These studies provide valuable new evidence that family courts can use when dealing with high-conflict divorce and separation and determining joint custody arrangements.

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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.

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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.

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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

The post Social scientists urge more priority to protecting the parent-child relationship to limit the effects of divorce on children appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

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.

The post Teaching family law professionals about child development needs may be more influential than changes in the laws themselves appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

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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