LINDA NIELSEN, PROFESSOR

Linda Nielsen is a nationally renowned expert on father-daughter relationships and shared physical custody for children of divorce. For more than 25 years, she has taught the only known college class in the U.S. devoted exclusively to father-daughter relationships. Her latest book, Father-Daughter Relationships: Contemporary Research and Issues, is written for college students and professionals who work with families.  Click HERE  read more 

Her research on shared physical custody is widely cited worldwide, having an impact on custody law reform in the States and abroad. She has presented her research in State Bar Association magazines and in seminars for family court lawyers and judges. She was one of the keynote speakers in the 2016 International Conference for Shared Parenting Research. Her research has been cited in more than 13 countries, 16 states and 10 recent books on family law. She has been vetted in five states as an expert research witness in child custody hearings.

Among the many media outlets that have interviewed Nielsen and featured her research are: the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, Star Tribune, USA Today, Time magazine, The Atlantic, U.S. News & World Report, Oprah magazine, National Public Radio, British Broadcasting Company, CNN, and the Public Broadcasting System (documentary).

Journal of Divorce & Remarriage
ISSN: 1050-2556 (Print) 1540-4811 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjdr20
Joint Versus Sole Physical Custody: Children’s Outcomes Independent of Parent–Child Relationships, Income, and Conflict in 60 Studies
Linda Nielsen

To cite this article: Linda Nielsen (2018): Joint Versus Sole Physical Custody: Children’s Outcomes Independent of Parent–Child Relationships, Income, and Conflict in 60 Studies, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, DOI: 10.1080/10502556.2018.1454204
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454204
Published online: 11 Apr 2018. Submit your article to this journal
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JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE
https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454204
Joint Versus Sole Physical Custody: Children’s Outcomes Independent of Parent–Child Relationships, Income, and Conflict in 60 Studies
Linda Nielsen
Department of Education, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
KEYWORDS
Joint physical custody; shared parenting; child custody; high-conflict divorce


ABSTRACT
Is joint physical custody (JPC) linked to any better or worse outcomes for children than sole physical custody (SPC)? How are these outcomes affected by family income, parental con- flict, and the quality of parent–child relationships? Compared to SPC children in 60 studies, JPC children had better outcomes on all measures in 34 studies, equal outcomes on some and better outcomes on other measures in 14 studies, equal out- comes on all measures in 6 studies, and worse outcomes on 1 measure, but equal or better on all other measures in 6 studies. In 25 studies, independent of family income, JPC children had better outcomes on all measures in 18 studies, equal on some and better on other measures in 4 studies, equal outcomes in 1 study, and worse outcomes on 1 but equal or better on other measures in 2 studies. In 19 studies, independent of parental conflict, JPC children had better outcomes on all measures in 9 studies, equal to better in 5 studies, equal in 2 studies, and worse outcomes on 1 but better outcomes on the other mea- sures in 3 studies. In the 9 studies, independent of the quality of parent–child relationships, JPC children had better out- comes on all measures in 5 studies, equal or better outcomes on other measures in 2 studies, and worse outcomes on 1 of the measures in 2 studies. Independent of income, conflict, or the quality of children’s relationships with their parents, JPC generally children had better outcomes on most or on all measures.
Do children fare better in joint or in sole physical custody (SPC) families? This question assumes increasing importance as joint physical custody (JPC)— where children live at least one third of the time with each parent—has become more common in the United States and abroad. For example, in Wisconsin JPC increased from 5% in 1986 to more than 35% in 2012 (Meyer, Cancian, & Cook, 2017). As far back as 2008, 46% of the parents in Washington State (George, 2008) and 30% in Arizona (Venohr & Kaunelis, 2008) had JPC arrangements. JPC has risen to nearly 50% in Sweden (Bergstrom et al., 2013), 30% in Norway (Kitterod & Wiik, 2017) and the Netherlands
CONTACT Linda Nielsen [email protected] Department of Education, Box 7266, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC 27109, USA.
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC


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(Poortman & Gaalen, 2017), 37% in Belgium (Vanassche, Soderman, DeClerck, & Matthijs, 2017), 26% in Quebec and 40% in British Columbia (Bala et al., 2017), and 40% in the Catalonia region of Spain (Flaguer, 2017). At least 20 states in the United States are considering revising their custody laws to be more supportive of JPC (Chandler, 2017).
Despite its growing popularity, JPC continues to generate controversy in regard to two major issues: Are children’s outcomes better or worse in JPC than SPC families? If JPC children have better outcomes, is this largely because their parents began with more money, more education, less conflict, better parenting skills, or higher quality relationships with their children than SPC parents?
Income, conflict, and parenting factors—specifically the quality of parent– child relationships and quality of the parenting skills--are the three factors that are most frequently proffered as the reasons why JPC children probably have the better outcomes (e.g., Smyth, McIntosh, Emery, & Howarth, 2016). From this perspective, children’s well-being largely rests not on JPC but on parenting, income, and conflict (PIC). In that vein, we might envision this article as a “PIC axe” that will dig up and root out many unfounded assumptions about the roles that parenting, income, and conflict play in explaining the better outcomes for JPC children.
The most comprehensive analyses of the quantitative studies comparing JPC and SPC children’s outcomes summarized all 40 studies that existed at the time the analyses were prepared (Nielsen, 2011, 2014a). This article first updates these previous reviews with 20 additional studies. Then the article addresses the PIC question: Does the parenting quality, income, and conflict between the parents change the outcomes for children in JPC and SPC families? Does PIC trump JPC?
Previous analyses of JPC and SPC children’s outcomes
There are 10 qualitative studies that have included 466 children from six different countries who were interviewed about their experiences and feelings about living in JPC or SPC families (Birnbaum & Saini, 2015). The authors concluded that JPC children’s experiences were “mixed and varied” and were related to the quality of their relationships with both parents and the “flex- ibility/rigidity” of the parenting arrangement. As is always the case with qualitative studies, the weakness of these 10 studies is that there were no objective, quantitative measures, which is why the 60 quantitative studies offer more reliable data.
There are presently only two meta-analyses comparing children’s out- comes in JPC and SPC families (Baude, Pearson, & Drapeau, 2016; Bauserman, 2002). Baude et al. (2016) only assessed 16 of the 55 studies published in English in academic journals that were available at the time of their analysis. In all 16 studies JPC was specifically defined as living at least 30% time with each parent, although in most studies the children were living more equally with both parents. JPC children had better outcomes than SPC children across all measures of well-being. Similarly, in a much older meta- analysis of 21 studies published between 1988 and 1999, JPC children had the better outcomes on all measures, except academic achievement where JPC and SPC children were not significantly different (Bauserman, 2002). The JPC advantage held even after controlling for levels of parental conflict. Because these studies dated back as far as 30 years to a time when JPC was extremely rare, JPC was defined as living at least 25% time with each parent. Not all of the studies were published articles; some were dissertations. Bauserman (2002) addressed this potential weakness by analyzing the data from published articles and dissertations separately. He found no significant difference in effect sizes.
In both meta-analyses the differences between JPC and SPC children’s well-being were statistically significant, but the effect sizes were small. Bauserman (2002) attributed this to the small size of the samples. Baude et al. (2016) attributed small effect sizes to the differences in the samples. For example, effect sizes were much larger for JPC children when the samples came from schools than when samples came from clinical populations of families seeking help. Baude et al. also emphasized that effect sizes were considerably larger for JPC children who lived more than 40% time with each parent than for JPC children who lived 30% to 39% with each parent.
In addition to these two meta-analyses, several articles have summarized a small portion of the studies comparing JPC and SPC children’s outcomes. For example, when Fehlberg, Smyth, Maclean, and Roberts, (2011) and Trinder (2010) wrote their summaries, there were 39 studies comparing JPC and SPC children’s outcomes (Nielsen, 2011). Fehlberg and Trinder included only 5 of the 39 studies. Similarly in “detailing the current body of literature” (p. 156) McIntosh and Smyth (2012) included only 5 of the 40 studies published in peer-reviewed journals (Nielsen, 2013). More recently, Smyth et al. (2016) included only 17 of the 42 studies available at that time in peer-reviewed journals, stating that they had “undertaken a comprehensive integrative review of studies of postseparation shared-time arrangements” (p. 123).
Of further concern, some of these research summaries have misreported the findings from several of the most prominent studies. For example, Smyth and his co-authors (2016) cited Buchanan et al.’s (1996) study as finding that JPC “works badly for children exposed to bitter and chronic tension” (p. 121). This is not correct. Buchanan and her colleagues concluded: “We did not find that dual residence [JPC] adolescents were especially prone to adjustment difficulties under situations of high interparental conflict” (p. 257). Similarly, Smyth et al. (2016) cited Bauserman’s (2002) meta-analysis as finding that JPC “may prolong or intensify children’s exposure to parental

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conflict, neglect, violence, abuse or psychopathology” (p. 120). This is not correct. Bauserman (2002) reached exactly the opposite conclusion: “The research reviewed here does not support claims by critics of joint custody that joint custody children are likely to be exposed to more conflict or to be at greater risk of adjustment problems due to having to adjust to two households or feeling torn between parents” (p. 99). Based on their summary of 17 of the 42 available peer-reviewed studies, Smyth et al. (2016) dismissed JPC studies as a “quagmire.” “Put simply, the international literature looks to comprise—at best—a disparate collection of partially overlapping investiga- tions with little convergence among the various lines of inquiry” (p. 135).
One of Smyth’s coauthors, Emery, has gone further in his representations of JPC research to the media and in seminars for family court and mental health professionals. Following the Florida governor’s veto of a shared parenting bill, Emery was quoted in the Florida Sun as saying that JPC studies “are based on small samples” and that “only 10%” of children live in these families.” “The problems with joint custody outweigh the benefits. Children suffer in joint custody arrangements.” Their lives “resemble that of traveling salesmen.” “The classwork, clothing, cleats or clarinet are always at the other house. The children often live under two sets of rules, sometimes with dire consequences” (Presson, 2016). When warning against the risks of JPC in his book, Emery (2016a) reiterated that there is “only a small body of reasonable studies” (p. 72) on how children fare in JPC and that “conflict is more damaging to children than having only a limited relationship with your other parent” (p. 51). In seminars he has announced that there is a recent study showing that “kids in JPC had worse psychosocial outcomes” (Emery & Pruett, 2015), and that in this “nice new study of different custody arrangements predicting 9 years into the future,” having a highly involved father when conflict between the parents was high led to worse outcomes in this 9-year longitudinal study (Emery, 2016b, slide 133). This is incorrect. In the study he was citing (Modecki, Hagan, Sandler, & Wolchik, 2015), there were no JPC children. All children were in SPC families living with their mother and “high involvement” some- times included letters and phones calls, with no face-to-face contact.
Misreporting, exaggerating, distorting, or omitting data in ways that support only one point of view has been referred to by Emery et al. (2016) as “scholar advocacy” and by Nielsen (2014b) as “woozling.” As Emery et al. (2016) put it, “We must be careful about leaving the door wide open for scholar advocates to promote false or misleading claims” (p. 137). “Making strong claims that go beyond the empirical evidence is a violation of perhaps the most basic rule of science: making consistent efforts to maintain objectivity” (p. 135). Especially when purporting to be presenting summaries of the research, or when making statements to the media or offering advice to practitioners that are supposedly based on summaries of the existing research, responsible scholars report the data as accurately as possible, include the results of all studies, and make clear, especially to the media, when they are expressing a personal opinion that is not supported by the existing body of research—or is supported by only a limited number of studies.
To address these concerns about “woozling” data and “scholar advocacy,” this article includes all 60 studies that have compared JPC and SPC children’s outcomes and has noted those studies that were commissioned and published by government agencies rather than published in academic journals.
Selection of the 60 studies
To identify relevant studies, three data bases were searched—PsycINFO, Social Science Citation Index, and ProQuest Social Science. The key search words were joint physical custody, shared parenting, shared care, custody and income, parenting plans and income, and income and children’s well- being. Eight journals likely to publish articles on these topics were also searched at each journal’s website: Journal of Family Psychology, Child Development, Journal of Marriage and Family, Child Custody, Family Court Review, Family Relations, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, and Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. Articles were selected on the basis of whether they had statistically analyzed quantitative data that addressed the questions pre- sented at the outset of this article. Sixty studies were identified and all were included, thus capturing all data that have been published in English in academic journals or in government-commissioned reports. As noted earlier, excluding any of these studies could potentially bias the analysis.
Overview of the studies
As Table 1 indicates, in the 60 studies children ranged in age from infants to young adults, with sample sizes ranging from 21 to 51,802. Data came from eight countries and from different sources: court records, mediation and counseling centers, public schools, convenience samples, and college courses. All studies were published in peer-reviewed academic journals, with the exception of seven studies that were commissioned and published by the Australian government (designated by “gov”). Even though these seven studies did not have the benefit of blind peer review as do articles in academic journals, they are included because they are based on large, nationally repre- sentative samples and because they were conducted at research institutes.
Data from the 60 studies are grouped into five broad categories of child well-being similar to the categories used by Bauserman (2002) and Baude et al. (2016) in their meta-analyses: (1) academic or cognitive outcomes, which include grades, attentiveness in class, and tests of cognitive develop- ment; (2) emotional or psychological outcomes, which include feeling depressed, anxious, or dissatisfied with their lives or having low self-esteem;
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Table 1. Outcomes for Children in Joint Physical Custody (JPC) and Sole Physical Custody (SPC) Families in 60 Studies No. children
JPC better on all measures than SPC: 34 studies
Bergstrom et al. (2014)
= $*
129 176 4–18
Better
Better
Bergstrom et al. (2018)
$*
136 151 3–5
Better
Bjarnason
$
2,206 25,578 11–15
Better life satisfaction
Bjarnason Carlsund et al.
$ $* P
2,206 25,578 11–15 888 2,019 11–15
Better
Better Better Better
Better
Better Better
(2013) Carlsund et al.
$*
270 801 11–15 84 473 0–17
Better
Factors included in
Academic & cognitive development
Depression, anxiety overall satisfaction, self-esteem
Peer behavior, substance use, hyperactivity
Health & psychosomatic problems
Parent–child or other family relationships
51 Brotsky C+ 45
168 mom, 62 13–16 dad
Better
Better Better
Better Better
Better
Better
Buchanan
= C = $
Breivik Barumazadeh
C $* C * $
41 483 12–16
Better
(2012)
Cashmore (gov)
Cashmore (gov)
Campana 207 Dissing $* 3,222
Better
Better Better Better Better
study JPC
SPC Ages
= C+ $ = C+ = $
90 411 0–17 272 10–18 3,032 11–12
10 1–10
91 328 mom, 34 11–12 dad
Better
Better
(Continued )

JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 7

Table 1. (Continued).
Fabricius et al. (2012)
C*
152
Better
Fabricius (2003) Fabricius &
80 75
739 College 136 College
Better Better
Better Better
Factors included in study
JPC
SPC Ages 871 College
Academic & cognitive development
Depression, anxiety overall satisfaction, self-esteem
Peer behavior, substance use, hyperactivity
Health & psychosomatic problems
Parent–child or other family relationships
C $
Fabricius&Suh =C=$ 13
Luecken (2007) (2012)
103 College
Better
Fransson et al. C > $* 391 (2016)
543 mom, 111 10–18 dad
Better
Frank C 16 Hagquest $* P 17,754 Irving =C=$ 108 Jablonska 443
90 College 30,400 12–15 294 1–11 2,920 14–15
Better
Janning =$ 5 Jappens 176
17 College 707 10–25
Better
Laftman $* P 1,573 Lee >C*=$ 20 Nilsen > $* 398 Pearson C > $ 62 Shiller =C 20 Turunen C $* P 387 Turunen < C $ 240 Wadsby >$ 324
1,584 15–16 39 6–12 1,223 16–19 459 9–12 20 6–11 758 10–18 567 10–18 736 17–18
Better
Better
Better
No. children
Better
Better Better
Better Better
Better Better Better Better
Better Better Better
Better
Better
equal drinking
behavior,
Better with grandparents
(Continued )

8 L. NIELSEN

Table 1. (Continued).
Westphal
C $*
Better with grandparents
JPC equal or better outcomes than SPC: 14 studies
Bergstrom et al. (2013)
17,350 43,452
12–15 12 & 15
Equal Equal
Better
Better Better
Better
Bergstrom (2015) Bastaits &
$* P $
15,633 29,468 138 238
Better
Mortelmans (2016)
Drapeau =C>$*
37 75 12 88
Equal to better
Equal
Donnelly Fransson
= C
6–18 10–18
Equal affection, better boundaries
Havermans Kaspiew (gov)
224 446 947 3,513
11–19
Equal
Better
Factors included in study
JPC SPC 1,076 2,767
Ages 10–18
Academic & cognitive development
Depression, anxiety overall satisfaction, self-esteem
Peer behavior, substance use, hyperactivity
Health & psychosomatic problems
Parent–child or other family relationships
≠ $ C > $
497 854
Equal psychological, better stress
Equal drinking, better smoking, better bullying
Better
Better
= C > $ < C = $
Moms say equal, dads say better
Moms say equal, Dads say better
Grandparents better
Luepnitz
Melli >C+>$
Neoh 27 40
8–13 1–16 8–15
Equal Equal Equal
Better Better
No. children
22 30 597 595
Better
10–18 8–12
Better self-esteem, equal life satisfaction
Better
Better
(Continued )

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Table 1. (Continued).
Qu & Weston (2010) (gov)
= C $
1,000
4,320 1–17 2,354 4–17
Moms say equal, dads say better
Better
Qu et al. (2014) (gov)
= C $ < C = $
720 135
Equal Equal
Equal
Spruijt
400 10–16
Equal
Equal
Better dad and stepmom
Equal outcomes: 6 studies
Factors included in
Academic & cognitive development
Depression, anxiety overall satisfaction, self-esteem
Peer behavior, substance use, hyperactivity
Health & psychosomatic problems
Parent–child or other family relationships
> $ P
Cashmore 26
227
110 Teenage
Equal
Bastaits et al. (2014)
139
Faust C+ 34 Johnston =C+=$ 28 Kline =C+>$ 35 Pearson C>$ 9
35 69 65 83
2–19 9–15 4–12 9–12
Equal Equal Equal Equal Equal
Equal Equal Equal Equal
JPC worse outcome on 1 measure: 6 studies
= C > $
Sandler <C+P 67
398 mom, 120 dad
12–18 12–14
Equal
Better for girls, worse for boys
Better for parents, grandparents, and stepparents
Lodge (gov)
105
No. children
study JPC SPC Ages
74
Mixed
Mixed
(Continued )

10 L. NIELSEN

Table 1. (Continued).
Sodermans
C $* P
330 mom, 70 14–21 dad
Mixed for depression, equal for life satisfaction
Vanassche McIntosh (gov)
395
Ages2–3: 20 Ages 2–3: 232 2–5
Mixed for toddlers, equal for preschoolers
Equal to better for all ages
Tornello
> C > $
174
1,880 0–5
Equal
Better social development
Equal
Mixed infant attachment
Factors included in study
JPC
104
SPC Ages
Academic & cognitive development
Depression, anxiety overall satisfaction, self-esteem
Peer behavior, substance use, hyperactivity
Health & psychosomatic problems
Parent–child or other family relationships
= C + >$ P < C* > $ *
1,045 12–19 Ages 4–5: 870
Worse for girls, better for boys
Better with dad, equal with mom
Ages 4–5: 60
No. children
Note: Mixed differences between JPC and SPC outcomes depended on factors like gender, personality, or age. C = conflict links to children’s well-being were included in the study; C * = JPC and SPC parental conflict was statistically factored into analysis; C + = researchers specified that very high-conflict parents in litigation over custody were in this study; + C = no significant differences in JPC and SPC conflict; < C = JPC parents had significantly less conflict than SPC parents; > C = JPC parents had more conflict than SPC conflicts; $ = income links to children’s well-being were included in the study; $ = = no statistically significant income differences in JPC and SPC parents; $ ≠ = incomes not equal, JPC parents had higher incomes than SPC parents; $ * = income differences were factored into statistical analysis before comparing outcomes; P = parent–child relationship quality was factored in before comparing outcomes; gov = government-published study (Australia), not peer-reviewed academic journal.

(3) behavioral problems, which include misbehaving at home or school, hyperactivity, and teenage drug, nicotine, or alcohol use; (4) overall physical health or stress-related physical problems (e.g., sleep or digestive problems, headaches); and (5) the quality of parent–child relationships, which includes how well they communicate with and how close they feel to their parents.
The second column in Table 1 provides much more detailed information about the many different ways that the researchers treated family income, parental conflict, and quality of parent–child relationships in their study. This level of detail had to be provided by using a number of different symbols in the table, as it was not possible to include all of this information in the body of this article.
In 44 of the 60 studies, the researchers considered the quality of parent– child relationships, family income, or parental conflict (the PIC factors) in ways that allowed the impact of the custody arrangement to be assessed separately. This was accomplished in one of two ways. The first was to include the information about JPC and SPC parents’ income, conflict, or the quality of parent–child relationships in the statistical analysis. This resulted in statistical models where the effects of income, conflict, or relationship quality could be assessed separately from the custody arrangement. These studies are desig- nated with an asterisk P* for parent–child relationship quality, $* for income, and C* for conflict between the parents. The studies that included more than one of the three factors in the statistical analysis merit special attention because they are ruling out parenting quality, income, and conflict as probable expla- nations for children’s outcomes. The second approach was to compare the outcomes in samples where JPC and SPC parents’ incomes or levels of conflict or parent–child relationships were not significantly different from one another. These studies are marked = $ or = C, meaning equal income or equal conflict.
Other information about income and conflict is provided in the second column of Table 1 and designated with various symbols for people who want to know more about each individual study. Studies where JPC parents had significantly higher incomes than SPC parents are marked > $ for greater income, versus = $ for equal incomes between the two groups. In regard to conflict, when the researchers specifically mentioned that there were parents in the study who presently were, or who formerly had been, in litigation over custody, the study is marked C+, meaning high conflict plus litigation. When JPC parents had significantly less conflict than SPC parents, the study is marked < C. A number of studies explored the ways income, conflict, or the quality of parent–child relationships affect children’s well-being in JPC and in SPC families, but without comparing the two custody arrangements to one another. These studies are marked with $ (money), C (conflict), or P (parent– child relationships).
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Positive outcomes for JPC children
As Table 1 illustrates, in 34 of the 60 studies JPC children had better outcomes on all measures of well-being than SPC children. In 14 studies JPC children had better outcomes on some measures and equal outcomes on others. In six studies JPC and SPC children were not significantly different on any measure in the study. In six other studies, JPC children had worse outcomes on one of the measures, but equal or better outcomes on all other measures. In none of the 60 studies were the outcomes worse for JPC children on all measures of well-being.
JPC and SPC children were the most alike (had the most “equal” out- comes) in regard to academic achievement or cognitive skills. In seven studies they were equal and in three studies JPC children had the better outcomes. This is consistent with Bauserman’s (2002) meta-analysis, where there were no significant differences in academic achievement between JPC and SPC children. This suggests that the custody arrangement might have the least impact on children’s school performance or on their cognitive develop- ment compared to other areas of their lives.
The biggest advantage for JPC children was better family relationships. In 22 of 23 studies that assessed family bonds, JPC children had closer, more communicative relationships with both parents. The one exception is dis- cussed in the section on negative JPC outcomes (Sandler, Wheeler, & Braver, 2013). It is worth noting that the largest of these studies compared 2,206 JPC and 25,578 adolescents who participated in the World Health Organization Health Behavior Survey from 36 different countries (Bjarnason & Arnarrson, 2011). Similarly, in all four of the grandparent studies, JPC children had the closer relationships (Jappens & Bavel, 2016; Kaspiew et al., 2009; Lodge & Alexander, 2010; Westphal, Poortman, & Van Der Lippe, 2015). These findings matter because children who have close relationships with their grandparents after their parents separate are better adjusted emotionally and behaviorally than those who do not (Jappens, 2018).
The next greatest advantage for JPC children was better physical and mental health. In 13 of 15 studies, JPC children were physically healthier and had fewer psychosomatic, stress-related physical problems (insomnia, intestinal problems, headaches, etc.). In 24 of the 40 studies that assessed emotional health (depres- sion, life satisfaction, anxiety, and self-esteem), JPC children had the better outcomes and in 12 studies there were no significant differences between the two groups. In 6 of the 40 studies of emotional well-being, the results were “mixed” depending on the child’s gender and which measure of emotional well- being was being assessed. These six studies are described in the next section.
JPC children were also better adjusted than SPC children during adoles- cence on a number of measures. Twenty-four studies assessed multiple dimensions of adolescent behavior: drinking, smoking, using drugs, being aggressive, bullying, committing delinquent acts, and getting along poorly with peers. In 21 of the 24 studies, JPC teenagers were more well-adjusted than SPC teenagers. In three studies the differences between JPC and SPC teenagers depended on gender or on which one of the several measures was being assessed.
Representative studies
Four of the 40 studies that assessed emotional or behavioral well-being are briefly presented here to illustrate the wide range of behaviors that the researchers explored. In a nationally representative sample of Swedish children aged 3 to 5, the 136 JPC children were better adjusted than the 151 SPC children, as assessed by both parents on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and by the preschool teachers’ answers to a separate questionnaire. The SDQ scale assesses a wide range of behavior including hyperactivity, conduct problems, inattentiveness, symptoms of stress or depression, and problems getting along with peers. The better results for the JPC children held even after controlling for parents’ educational levels and even after separating the children into three age groups: 3-year-olds, 4-year- olds, and 5-year-olds (Bergstrom et al., 2018).
In another Swedish study, the 17,350 JPC adolescents rated themselves higher than the 43,452 SPC adolescents on 7 of the 10 subscales of the 52- item Kidscreen questionnaire developed by researchers from 13 European countries to assess children’s well-being. JPC children rated themselves as better adjusted in regard to physical health, psychological well-being, moods and emotions, satisfaction with material resources, relationships with par- ents, peer relationships, social acceptance, and bullying. JPC and SPC teen- agers were equal on the other three subscales: school satisfaction, self-esteem, and autonomy (Bergstrom et al., 2013).
In regard to school, in Belgium 224 JPC adolescents were more engaged in their academic work and better behaved at school than the 476 SPC adolescents, and parents’ educational levels had no impact on these results (Havermans, Sodermans, & Matthijs, 2017). The most engaged and best behaved children were those who had good relationships with their parents--especially with their fathers. Given the claim that children are stressed by having to move between homes, it is worth noting that JPC children who moved “frequently” during the week between their parents’ homes had outcomes as good as JPC children who spent one whole week with each parent on an alternating week schedule.
We might wonder whether SPC children would have outcomes similar to JPC children if their mother remarried, but this was not the case in a Norwegian study that tested this hypothesis. The 212 SPC children whose mothers had remarried and the 1,011 SPC children whose mothers had not
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remarried both had more behavioral and emotional problems than the 398 JPC children (Nilesen, Breivik, Wold, & Boe, 2017).
Overall then, the most prevalent and most consistent benefit for JPC children is having better relationships with their parents. This is also the most important advantage, as it is firmly established in the child development research that close parent–child relationships bestow a wide range of benefits on children—and that the quality of their relationships is as strongly, or even more strongly, linked to children’s well-being than parents’ incomes or educa- tional levels (Lamb, 2010; McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). Based on the 60 studies, JPC children are not more stressed and distressed than SPC children and are not in dire circumstances when their parents have two different sets of rules.
Negative outcomes for JPC children
As previously mentioned, in 6 of the 60 studies JPC children had worse outcomes than SPC children on one of the measures of well-being, but equal or better outcomes on the other measures. The earliest study included 105 JPC and 398 SPC children between ages 12 and 18 living with their mother in Australia (Lodge & Alexander, 2010). The 50 JPC boys were more likely than the SPC boys to report having trouble “getting along well” with their peers. In contrast, the 55 JPC girls reported getting along better with peers than the SPC girls. Specifically 16% of JPC boys versus 8% of SPC boys reported only getting along well with peers “sometimes.” In contrast, only 4% of JPC girls versus 16% of SPC girls reported only getting along well “sometimes.” Other than this one negative finding for JPC boys, JPC teenagers reported having better relationships with both parents, stepparents, and grandparents than SPC teenagers. Interestingly, in JPC families only 2% of children reported not feeling close to their father, whereas almost 9% reported not feeling close to their mother. In stark contrast, in SPC families 35% of children reported not feeling close to their father and 3% reported not feeling close to their mother.
In the second Australian study, 19 to 22 toddlers (the sample size differed on various measures) under the age of 3 had worse outcomes than 191 SPC toddlers on two of the six measures of well-being (McIntosh, Smyth, Kelaher, & Wells, 2010). Compared to SPC toddlers, JPC toddlers scored lower on three questions about “persistence at tasks” and on three questions about how often they “looked at” their mother or tried to “get her attention.” The researchers interpreted the mothers’ answers to these six questions to mean that JPC toddlers were less securely attached to their mother and less persistent at tasks than SPC toddlers. The JPC toddlers also had lower scores on a validated “problem behavior” scale (i.e., sometimes refusing to eat, clinging to mother when she tried to leave). McIntosh et al. (2010) interpreted this as a negative outcome of JPC. In fact, however, JPC toddlers’ scores were well within the normal range and were not significantly different from the scores of 50% of the toddlers in the general population. On the four validated measures of well- being, JPC and SPC children were not significantly different.
The third study to report some negative outcomes for JPC children compared adolescents from 545 mother custody, 92 father custody, and 385 JPC families in Belgium (Vanassche, Sodermans, Matthijs, & Swicegood, 2013). Overall JPC and SPC teenagers had similar outcomes on all measures—with two exceptions. First, those teenagers who had bad relationships with their fathers were more depressed and more dissatisfied in JPC than in SPC. Second, in those families where conflict remained high 8 years after the divorce, girls were more depressed in JPC than in SPC. In contrast, boys in these high-conflict families were less depressed in JPC than in SPC. Still, the quality of parent–child relationships was more closely linked to the outcomes than was the custody arrangement or the conflict.
In the fourth study, also from Belgium, there were 400 adolescents in SPC (70 were living with their fathers) and 104 in JPC (Sodermans & Matthijs, 2014). No differences between JPC and SPC children were found on the three measures--feelings of mastery (feeling “in control” of their lives), depression, and life satisfaction--until the quality of the parent–child relationship and the child’s personality traits were included in the statistical analysis. Although some might expect that teenagers who were very “neurotic” (anxious, tense, depressed, sad) would not adjust as well living in two homes, this was not the case. Scores on neuroticism, openness (intelligent, curious, and creative), and agreeableness (well-behaved, compliant, and trusting) were not linked to any outcomes. In contrast, teenagers who scored high on conscientiousness (task oriented, planful, rule oriented) felt more depressed and less in control of their lives in JPC than in SPC, although they were no less “satisfied” with their lives in JPC than in SPC. On the other hand, adolescents who scored low on conscientiousness felt more in control and less depressed in JPC than in SPC. As for extraversion (very social, outgoing, active), those who scored very high felt less in control of their lives in JPC than in SPC, but they were no more depressed and no more dissatisfied than the very extraverted children in SPC. Those who scored low on extraversion, however, felt more in control in JPC than in SPC. Again though, personality traits mattered less than the quality of the parent–child relationships and the conflict. “We observe very few changes in the effect sizes of the control variable by entering the personality variables” (Sodermans & Matthijs, 2014, p. 350).
The fifth study was conducted in Arizona with 74 SPC and 67 JPC adoles- cents in high-conflict families (Sandler et al., 2013). All JPC and SPC parents had been designated as high in conflict by a judge and all were in litigation over custody issues. Those adolescents who gave one of their parents low ratings for “positive” parenting (e.g., making the children feel they “mattered,” setting and enforcing rules) had more behavioral and emotional problems in JPC than in
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SPC. When they gave both parents good ratings, however, JPC children had fewer emotional and behavioral problems than SPC children.
The sixth study stands apart from the other 60 studies in several ways that make it difficult to generalize or to interpret the data (Tornello et al., 2013). First, all of these children (ages 0–5) were living in impoverished, inner-city, minority families where only 20% of the parents had been married or cohabited and where mothers’ and fathers’ rates of incarceration, substance abuse, addiction, violence, and mental health problems were extremely high. Second, one third of the children lived primarily with their fathers, yet all of their scores on the measure of secure attachment to the mother were interpreted as if these children were living with the mother and “overnighting” with the father. The 51 1-year- olds who spent more than 50 nights a year with their father or their mother (for the 26 babies who were living with their father) had more insecure attachment scores than the 583 1-year-olds who only saw their father during the day or spent fewer than 50 nights a year with him. The researchers concluded that “frequent” overnighting--which sometimes reached JPC levels—had a negative impact on babies’ attachments to their mothers. The other five measures of child adjustment were not linked to how much overnight time the babies spent with their nonresidential parent. The one exception was that children who were in JPC as 3-year-olds were better behaved than the SPC children as 5-year-olds.
In these six studies, JPC was less beneficial in some regards than SPC for certain groups of children: adolescents who did not have a good relationships with both parents, teenage girls whose parents had high, ongoing conflict 8 years after separating, adolescents who were highly conscientious or extre- mely extraverted, and babies under the age of 2 living with impoverished, single parents. With these exceptions, the 60 studies report generally better outcomes for children in JPC versus SPC families. The question then becomes this: What might account for their better outcomes? We thus return to the issue of whether JPC trumps PIC.
The P in PIC: Parent–child relationship quality versus quantity
Do children in JPC families have these better outcomes because they started out with better relationships with their parents and because their parents had better parenting skills than SPC parents? Is it the higher quality of parenting and of their relationship that these children had all along, and not the addi- tional quantity of fathering time in JPC families, that is largely responsible? Quality or quantity: Which matters more? One argument raised against JPC is that these children were doing better before their parents separated due to two parenting advantages: higher quality relationships with their parents and higher quality parenting skills. Supposedly then, it is not the greater quantity of fathering time in JPC that matters, as these children would have done as well in SPC given the advantages they had on the parenting factors.


This argument against JPC is often based on the claim that research shows that the quantity of fathering time has no effect on children and then citing two meta-analyses by Amato and Gilbreth (1999) and Adamsons and Johnson (2013). For example, citing both meta-analyses, Emery (2016b) stated that “father contact made zero difference,” that “Amato found no link between children’s outcomes and father contact” (Emery & Pruett, 2015), and that “Research does not support a focus on time. In fact the amount of time children spend with their divorced dads actually is tied only weakly, or not at all, to measures of children’s psychological well-being” (Emery, 2016a, p. 70). In responding to the issue of states revising custody laws to more equally distribute the parenting time and to be more supportive of JPC, in the Washington Post Emery was quoted as saying, “It’s not the amount of parenting time but the quality of parenting and the quality of co- parenting that matter‘ (Chandler, 2017). Similarly, advocating against enact- ing JPC statutes, Trinder (2010) cited Amato and Gilbreth’s paper: “A meta- analysis of 63 studies found no relationship between the frequency of contact with non-resident parents and child wellbeing” (p. 181).
Reporting these two meta-analyses in this way is misleading and incorrect. More important, applying these meta-analyses to JPC families is inappropri- ate and illogical. These two meta-analyses address this question: Does the frequency of “contact” with the father by phone, by letter, or in person affect the well-being of SPC children who live with their mother? An entirely separate body of research asks: Is living with the father in JPC more bene- ficial than living in SPC with the mother?
To not confuse these two issues, we have to understand that studies about “frequency of contact” with the father are not talking about children who live with their father in JPC families. Both meta-analyses reached a number of the same conclusions about fathers’ contacts with their children. The only con- clusion reported by those who use these two analyses in arguing against JPC, however, is this: Children who had more “contact” with their father did not have better emotional, behavioral, or academic outcomes than children who had less “contact.” Reporting only this one portion of the findings, however, is misleading and inaccurate for at least six reasons--all of which are explained in both meta-analyses. First, in contrast to the studies that were 20 to 30 years old, in the more recent studies, children with more frequent contact with their fathers did have better outcomes. The researchers believe this is because modern-day fathers play a much larger role in their children’s lives while the parents are together and that the “contact” with their children is much more likely to be personal and to be in person than by phone or letter. Second, White children with more frequent father contact did have more positive outcomes, whereas non-White children had more negative outcomes. This meant when the two were averaged together, it made it appear as if contact had no impact, which was not the case. Third, the
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frequency of contact did make a difference for girls, but not for boys, in regard to academics, and for younger children and for children in studies using representative samples. Fourth, contact had a positive impact on academic and internalizing problems, but not on externalizing problems— which, once again, when averaged together made it appear as if contact was not beneficial. Fifth, children with authoritative fathers who were involved in their lives did have better outcomes—which, as the researchers pointed out, could not happen without ample quantities of contact. Sixth--and perhaps most important of all—phone calls and letters (e-mails did not exist decades ago when many of these studies were conducted), with little or no time actually spent with their father, were counted as “contact.”
These two meta-analyses would, in fact, lead us to expect that JPC children would have better outcomes because they are far more likely than SPC children to have the kinds of involvement and interaction with their father that were linked to better adjustment. Amato (personal communication, April 10, 2016) reiterated, “Contact is a necessary condition for a high- quality relationship to develop and be maintained.” In response to people who have misreported or misunderstood her 2013 meta-analysis, Adamsons (2018) explained:
Some have taken the non-significant association between contact and child well- being as an argument against joint physical custody. . . .It should not be assumed that fathers do not need time with their children or that the amount of time spent does not matter. . . . A father who only sees his children on Wednesday evenings and every other weekend, after which the child returns “home,” has extremely limited opportunities for engaging in children’s activities on a regular basis, being an authoritative parent or engaging in the types of everyday interactions that build relationships. . . . How likely are children to view their fathers as “being there” for them, if fathers only can “be there” if the child’s need arises on 1–3 specified evenings or afternoons per week? Fathers should be given equal parenting time and encouraged to spend that time with their children in a variety of positive ways. . . . When it is known that father–child contact has positive benefits in some circum- stances, but potentially a negative influence in others, to conclude and report that, on average, father contact is not important for children’s well-being is both inaccu- rate and misleading. (Emphasis added)
In regard to whether children benefit more from JPC than from SPC, the “quantity” issue is specifically asking whether children who live with their father at least a third of the time year round and during the school week have better outcomes than SPC children who spend lesser quantities of time and little or no school week overnight time with their father because they are living with their mother.
The quality–quantity question is this: Do JPC children have better out- comes because they have higher quality relationships to begin with—or is it because they have the additional quantity of time together to build and to maintain high-quality relationships? It is clear from the 60 studies that JPC children have better relationships with their parents than SPC children. That is not the question. The question is whether these better relationships are largely a result of living in a JPC family. The answer to that question lies in the 60 studies on children’s outcomes. By assessing the quality of the parent– child relationship and then including that assessment in the statistical ana- lysis, we can see whether the custody arrangement itself is having an inde- pendent impact.
Unfortunately only 9 of the 60 studies included the quality of the parent– child relationship and parenting skills in the statistical analysis so that the effect of the custody arrangement was assessed separately. In the various questionnaires used in these studies, the children were rating their parents on parenting skills (i.e., setting and enforcing rules, supervising and monitoring, authoritative parenting) as well as on specific aspects of the relationship itself (i.e., feeling loved, being able to communicate comfortably, feeling emotion- ally supported). Although few in number, the findings from these nine studies are more reliable and more trustworthy than speculations about whether quality matters more than quantity.
What do these nine studies tell us about “quality versus quantity” of parenting in JPC and SPC families? Compared to SPC children, JPC children were better adjusted on all measures in four studies (Carlsund et al., 2013; Hagquist, 2016; Laftman et al., 2014; Turunen et al., 2016), equal on some outcomes and better on others in one study (Bergstrom et al., 2015), equal on all outcomes in one study (Bastaits, & Mortelmans, 2016), and worse out- comes on one measure but better outcomes on the other measures in three studies (Sandler et al., 2013; Sodermans, & Matthijs, 2014; Vanassche, Sodermans, & Matthijs, 2013).
Six of these nine studies went a step further and also included income in the statistical analysis. In four of these six studies, JPC children had better outcomes on all measures than SPC children. They were equal on some and better on other measures in one study, and worse on one of the outcomes in one study. It is worth noting the large number of children in most of these studies: 15,633 JPC and 30,468 SPC (Bergstrom et al., 2015), 17,774 JPC and 30,400 SPC (Hagquist, 2016), 888 JPC and 2,019 SPC (Carlsund, Eriksson, & Sellstrom, 2013), and 1,573 JPC and 1,584 SPC (Laftman et al., 2014).
One additional study should be noted here because it asked parents about father “involvement” with the children before the parents separated. In this large Australian study from a nationally representative sample, both parents were asked how involved the father had been in the children’s lives before their separation (Kaspiew et al., 2009). Fathers and mothers of 1,235 JPC and 6,485 SPC children reported that SPC fathers were just as involved with the children as JPC fathers—with the exception of those SPC fathers who had no contact at all with their children after the parents separated. Over the course of this 5-year study, compared to SPC children, JPC children had better
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emotional and behavioral outcomes according to their fathers and equal outcomes according to their mothers (Kaspiew et al., 2009; Qu & Weston, 2010; Qu, Weston, & Dunstan, 2014).
In three of the nine parent–child quality studies, JPC children had worse outcomes than SPC children on one of the measures. In a study with 67 JPC and 74 SPC U.S. teenagers from high-conflict families, those who had good relation- ships with their fathers had fewer emotional and behavioral problems—but only when they lived in a JPC family (Sandler et al., 2013). Children who had good relationships with their father, but who were not living with him at least a third of the time, reaped no benefits. This finding syncs with a study from Belgium where having a supportive, authoritative (the most beneficial parenting style) father had twice as positive an effect on children’s life satisfaction for the 139 JPC children as it did for the 227 SPC children (Bastaits, Ponnet, & Mortelmans, 2014). On the down side, though, Sandler et al. (2013) found that when the teenagers in these high-conflict families gave either parent a “bad” rating for the quality of their relationship, they fared worse in JPC than in SPC. This was also the case in a study from Belgium where teenagers who had bad relationships with their fathers were more depressed and more dissatisfied in JPC than in SPC (Vanassche et al., 2013).
In two other studies from Belgium, even when the quality of the parent– child relationship was good, some JPC children had worse outcomes than SPC children on one of the measures of well-being. Gender and personality traits played a role. When children were highly conscientious or highly extraverted, they felt more depressed in JPC families. Somewhat perplexingly, though, they reported being just as “satisfied with their lives” in either type of family. Perhaps this was because the quality of their relationships with their parents was more closely linked to their well-being than were their person- ality traits (Sodermans, & Matthijs, 2014).
In the second study, the quality of relationships with their mother and with their father affected how depressed or how dissatisfied the girls were with their lives. In contrast, for boys, only the quality of their relationship with their father affected depression and life satisfaction. The quality of their relationship with their mother affected boys’ life satisfaction, but not depres- sion. After accounting for the quality of these relationships, if there was high conflict between the parents, girls were more depressed in JPC than in SPC, but boys were more depressed in SPC than in JPC (Vanassche et al., 2013).
A gender difference and weak effect of the parent–child relationship also emerged in a Swedish study. For 1,573 JPC and 1,584 SPC teenagers, being able to turn to their parents for help was more closely linked to girls’ than to boys’ emotional problems and psychosomatic, stress-related health problems (Laftman, Bergstrom, Modin, & Ostberg, 2014). JPC children more often than SPC children sought help and advice from their parents—especially their father. However, the quality of their relationship explained only a small part of the variation between JPC and SPC children. These two studies suggest that the quality of parent–child relationships might affect boys and girls differently.
Two other studies approached the quantity versus quality question in a different way, both underscoring the importance of quantity of fathering time even in high-conflict families. Seventh graders who spent the most time with their divorced fathers—including living with him up to 50% of the time—had better relationships with him 3 years later than children who spent less time with their father during those 3 years (Fabricius, Sokol, Diaz, & Braver, 2012). Even for those who had the worst father–child relationships in seventh grade, the more time they spent together over the next 3 years, the better their relationship became. This held true even in high-conflict families.
This is consistent with another study with 136 SPC and 75 JPC U.S. college students (Fabricius & Luecken, 2007). The more time they had lived with their father after the divorce, including JPC, the better their current relation- ship was with him. This held true regardless of the level of conflict between the parents at four separate times: just before separation, during separation, 2 years after, and then 3 years after separation. On a 12-item scale of parental bonding, high-quality relationships were strongly linked to JPC—twice as strongly as the level of parental conflict over 5 years. Children from high- conflict families were not as close to their fathers as those from low-conflict families, but the more time they had spent with their father, the better the relationship was at present. JPC children also had better health and fewer stress-related physical problems than SPC children.
To be clear, the fact that JPC children fare better than SPC children even after factoring in the quality of relationships with their parents does not mean that having a good relationship with parents is not beneficial in SPC families. In a number of studies where JPC children had the better outcomes, good relationships with their parents were more closely linked to their good outcomes than was the custody arrangement (Bastaits & Mortelmans, 2016; Fransson, Turunen, Hjern, Ostberg, & Bergstrom, 2016; Hagquist, 2016201; Sodermans & Matthijs, 2014). For example, JPC children did better at school in terms of behavior, attention, and engagement than SPC children (Havermans et al., 2017). However, this depended more on how close JPC or SPC children were to their father than the custody arrangement. Likewise, teenagers in SPC and in JPC families who could comfortably talk to their parents were the least likely to smoke, drink, or have conduct problems (Carlsund, Eriksson, Lefstedt, & Sellstrom, 2012). In both types of families, children with authoritative parents were less depressed, were less aggressive, and had higher self-esteem than children with permissive or authoritarian parents (Campana, Henderson, & Stolberg, 2008).
In sum, parenting matters in that children are less likely to have problems when they have good relationships with both parents, regardless of the
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custody arrangement. JPC children fared better even after the quality of these relationships was included in the statistical analysis. These studies did not conclude, however, that a good parent–child relationship is more beneficial than JPC or that, if the relationships with both parents are good, children will do just as well in SPC as in JPC families. Nor did these studies conclude that JPC children had better relationships with their parents to begin with and that is largely why they fared better than SPC children. Is it quantity or quality? It is not "either–or"; it is "both–and." JPC and good parent–child relationships are each beneficial—especially when combined.
The I in PIC: Income
The second issue is whether JPC children have better outcomes largely because their parents are substantially richer and better educated than SPC parents. Twenty-seven of the 60 studies compared JPC and SPC parents’ incomes or educational levels, which was used as a proxy for income. In these studies there are three ways to explore the effect that parents’ incomes and educational status might have on children over and above the effect of the custody arrangement. We can compare children’s outcomes in the 10 studies where parents’ incomes or educations were equal (= $), in the 16 studies where income or education differences were incorporated into the statistical analysis ($*), and in the 11 studies where JPC parents had higher incomes or educations than SPC parents but income was not factored into the statistical analysis (> $).
In the 10 studies where the parents’ incomes or educations were equal, on all measures JPC children had better outcomes in 7 studies, equal to better outcomes in 2 studies, and equal on all outcomes in one study. In the 16 studies where income or education differences were statistically controlled, JPC children had better outcomes on all measures in 12 studies, equal to better outcomes in 2 studies, and worse outcomes on one measure but better outcomes on the others in 2 studies. In the 11 studies where JPC parents had the higher incomes and income was not statistically controlled, we would expect JPC children to have generally better outcomes than SPC children, if income was an influential factor. In fact, however, compared to SPC children in only 2 of the 11 studies were JPC children better on all outcome measures; in 4 studies they were equal on some and better on others; in 3 studies they were equal on all measures; and in 2 studies the results were mixed depend- ing on the child’s gender.
These “income-outcome” studies suggest that the I in PIC is less likely than the P to explain the JPC advantages. Again though, these studies should not be misconstrued to mean that income has no impact on children’s well- being after their parents separate. For example, adolescents who believed their parents were having serious financial problems were twice as likely to have difficulty communicating with their parents in JPC and in SPC families and were less satisfied with their lives (Bjarnason & Arnarrson, 2011). In JPC and SPC families, teenage girls who thought their mothers were having financial problems were more depressed than girls who felt their mothers were not struggling financially (Vanassche et al., 2013). Similarly, in both custody arrangements, children whose parents’ incomes were in the bottom 25% had more emotional and behavioral problems than children whose parents were in the top 25% (Bergstrom, Fransson, Hjern, Kohler, & Wallby, 2014).
Still, having wealthier, more educated parents is not always to children’s advantage after their parents separate. In each of the following studies, children with wealthier, more educated parents had worse outcomes than children with less educated, less wealthy parents in both SPC and in JPC families. In a Swedish study with 391 JPC families and 654 SPC families, children with the wealthier, more well-educated parents were more stressed and more anxious (Fransson et al., 2016). Moreover, having a parent with a graduate degree was more closely linked to children’s stress and anxiety than was the physical custody plan. The researchers speculated that highly edu- cated, wealthier parents might put more academic and social demands on their children, which, in turn, increases children’s stress and anxiety.
In a French study with 91 children living in JPC, 34 living with their fathers, and 328 with their mothers and 1,449 living in intact families, in all four family types, wealthier children were just as likely as less wealthy children to report being entangled in their parents’ conflicts and to report high conflict between their parents (Barumandzadah, Martin-Lebrun, Barumandzadeh, & Poussin, 2016). For American adolescents in SPC families, those with higher income mothers had higher levels of deviant behavior and of substance use--which was not the case in the JPC families (Buchanan et al., 1996). Similarly, Flemish adolescents with more well-edu- cated, wealthier fathers were not more satisfied with their lives (Bastaits et al., 2014). Even though JPC parents were richer and more well-educated than SPC parents, JPC children were no more well-behaved and no more engaged in school. The Flemish children who were most engaged and well-behaved were those who had the best relationship with their father--and those were the JPC children (Havermans Sodermans, & Matthijs et al., 2017). Wealthier Dutch children were also no more likely to spend time or to maintain close relationships with their grandparents after their parents separated than less affluent children (Westphal, 2016). One unusual finding is that Canadian children with wealthier parents had fewer internalizing problems in JPC families, but no fewer problems in SPC families (Drapeau, Baude, Quellet, Godbout, & Ivers, 2017).
Metaphorically then, “money does not buy happiness” in that children still generally fare better in JPC than in SPC independent of family income.
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The C in PIC: Conflict
If parenting and income do not appear to play a strong role in accounting for the advantages of JPC, what about the C in PIC—conflict? Do JPC parents have significantly less conflict than SPC parents when they separate or in the ensuing years? Do they have a much better coparenting relationship, working together closely in a low-conflict, cooperative, communicative way? Is con- flict more closely connected than the custody arrangement to children’s outcomes? If all three of these things are true, then the conflict factor might help to explain why JPC children fare better.
People who warn against the potential risks of JPC often assert that children do not benefit from this arrangement unless their parents have a low-conflict, cooperative relationship—and that being exposed to conflict has a more negative impact than not having an involved relationship with the father (who is almost always the nonresidential parent in SPC families). Some go so far as to claim that the research strongly supports their position. For example, Emery (2014) contends that “the best research supports the con- clusion that in high conflict divorces children do worse in joint physical custody than in other arrangements.” “Based on research . . . living in the middle of a war zone between two parents is more harmful to children than having a really involved relationship with only one of them” (Emery, 2016a, p. 28). “Protection from Conflict is a more basic need than Two Good Parents in my hierarchy of children’s needs in two homes” (Emery et al., 2016a, p. 49, Emphasis added).
In fact this is not what the research shows, according to analyses of the studies that have actually compared JPC and SPC children’s well-being in high-conflict families. Children in high-conflict families generally fare better in JPC than in SPC families. largely it seems because JPC children have closer relationships with their parents to help buffer the impact of high conflict (Bauserman, 2002, 2012; Fabricius et al., 2012; Mahrer, O’Hara, Sandler, & Wolchik, 2018; Nielsen, 2017).
In terms of conflict, in an analysis of 19 studies that compared JPC and SPC parents’ levels of conflict and the quality of their coparenting relation- ship, JPC couples did not have significantly less conflict or more cooperative, communicative relationships than SPC couples at the time they separated or in the years following their separation (see Nielsen, 2017, for detailed sum- maries of the 19 studies). Compared to SPC couples, in three studies JPC couples had less conflict, in one study they had more, and in one study the conflict differences depended on the age of the children. Not all of these studies, however, assessed children’s outcomes, so they cannot address the question of whether conflict might have influenced children’s outcomes.
Another aspect of conflict is how much disagreement the parents had over the custody arrangements at the outset. Are JPC parents a unique group who, unlike SPC parents, agree to the parenting plan voluntarily without being forced or coerced to share? According to the seven studies that have speci- fically addressed this question, the answer is “no” (see Nielsen, 2017, for a discussion of these studies). The percentage of couples who were initially opposed to JPC at the outset ranged from 30% to 80%. Yet in all seven studies, JPC children had better outcomes than SPC children despite the fact that many of their parents had not agreed to the plan at the time they were separating.
As Table 1 illustrates, 19 of the 60 studies took parental conflict into consideration in one of two ways. In 15 studies there were no significant differences between JPC and SPC parents’ conflicts (=C), which means conflict would be unlikely to explain any differences in outcomes. In the other four studies, the differences between JPC and SPC parents’ levels of conflict were included in the statistical analyses so that conflict would not influence the outcomes (C*). In these 19 studies JPC children had better outcomes on all measures in 9 studies, equal outcomes on some measures and better outcomes on others in 5 studies, equal outcomes on all measures in 2 studies, and worse outcomes on one measure but equal or better outcomes on other measures in 3 studies.
In six other studies there were differences between JPC and SPC parents’ levels of conflict, and this difference was not included in the statistical analysis. This leaves open the possibility that conflict was having an impact separate from the custody arrangement. Compared to SPC parents, in two studies JPC parents had more conflict (> C) and in four studies they had less conflict (< C). If lower conflict bestows benefits on children, then JPC children in these four studies should have generally had better adjustment. This was not the case. Even though their parents had the lower levels of conflict, in only one study did JPC children have better outcomes on all measures. In the other three studies, JPC and SPC children were equal overall. In the two studies where JPC parents had more conflict than SPC parents, JPC children were still better off than SPC children.
As Table 1 indicates, only eight studies controlled for both income ($*) and conflict (C*). These eight studies are especially important because they ruled out both factors as possible causes of children’s adjustment. In five studies, on all measures JPC children fared better than SPC children. In one study JPC children were equal to SPC children on some measures and better on others. In one study they had equal outcomes on all measures; and in one study JPC resulted in worse outcomes on one measure but equal or better results on all other measures. JPC children had the better overall outcomes above and beyond the effects of income and conflict.
As with income and parent–child relationships, however, these conflict studies should not be misinterpreted to mean that high, unrelenting conflict —especially when children are dragged into it—has no effect on children. In
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many studies there were links between conflict and various aspects of chil- dren’s well-being. Unlike the conflict studies just discussed, these studies did not assess whether the conflict was significantly different in JPC and SPC families, but these studies do shed light on the complicated role that conflict plays separate from the custody arrangement.
Contrary to the assertion that conflict has a very negative impact on children, conflict accounted for only a small portion of the difference between JPC and SPC children in a number of studies where JPC children had the better outcomes (Barumandzadah et al., 2016; Buchanan et al., 1996; Johnston, Kline, & Tschann, 1989; Vanassche et al., 2013). The small impact of conflict decreased even more after children’s personalities were taken into account (Sodermans & Matthijs, 2014). Moreover, even when conflict was high, children had better relationships with their father in JPC than in SPC (Fabricius & Lueken, 2007; Fabricius et al., 2012). In contrast, when conflict was high and children did not have a good relationship with their father, they fared worse in JPC than in SPC (Sandler et al., 2013). Also interesting, even in two studies where JPC parents had more conflict than SPC parents, JPC children still had the better outcomes (Lee, 2002; Melli & Brown, 2008).
As for gender, in JPC or SPC, high conflict had a negative effect on the daughter’s relationship with the father, but not on the son’s--and not on either’s relationship with their mother (Frank, 2007). Similarly, when conflict was high, girls in SPC and SPC families were more stressed than boys (Fransson et al., 2016). In high-conflict families 8 years after the parents’ separation, girls were more depressed in JPC, but boys were more depressed in SPC (Vanassche et al., 2013). Then again, in another study, 4 years after their parents’ divorce, when conflict was high, in JPC and SPC families, boys were more depressed than girls (Buchanan et al., 1996). In regard to school, high conflict before the divorce was linked to less motivation and worse behavior, regardless of the custody arrange- ment or their parents’ educational levels (Havermans et al., 2017).
Based on these findings, there does not appear to be any clear-cut, con- sistent, or predictable way that conflict affects children in JPC and in SPC families. It does appear, however that we might be exaggerating the role that conflict plays, especially when children have good relationships with their parents and are living in JPC.
The PIC factors: Understanding the interplay
The 44 studies that considered parent–child relationship quality, income, or conflict also show us that no one factor can account for all the differences. PIC factors work in conjunction with the custody arrangement, interacting in ways that are not consistent or predictable. By looking closely at one study, we can more fully appreciate this interplay.


A California study assessed 51 JPC and 455 SPC teenagers’ social and behavioral problems and their grades 41⁄2 years after their parents’ divorce (Buchanan et al., 1996). Incomes and conflict levels of JPC and SPC parents were not significantly different. In fact, 80% of JPC parents had been in conflict over the custody arrangement at the outset, even though they eventually adopted a JPC plan. Even in the highest conflict families and even when the children were caught in the middle, JPC teenagers fared better. In both types of families, adolescents who did not feel close to either parent had more emotional and behavioral problems than adolescents who were caught up in the high ongoing conflict. “Interparental conflict had much smaller relations to adolescent adjustment than we had expected” (Buchanan et al., 1996, p. 257). Indeed, in high-conflict families, JPC children were more likely than SPC children to get caught in the middle—and yet they still had fewer problems than SPC children. The researchers attributed this to the fact that JPC children had closer relationships with their parents, which offset the impact of high conflict. In short, quality of parent–child relation- ships trumped conflict and income, but the greatest benefits only accrued when quantity of parenting time through JPC was added to the mix.
Limitations of the studies
Several limitations should be kept in mind in regard to the studies discussed in this article. First, the studies report correlations, which means they cannot prove that the quality of the parent–child relationship, family income, par- ental conflict, or the custody arrangement caused the outcomes. As already explained, however, many of the studies controlled for one or more of these factors, which increases the likelihood that it was the JPC arrangement that accounted for the children’s better outcomes.
Second, the 60 studies are not of equal quality. Some are superior to others in regard to sample size, representativeness of the sample, validity and reliability of the measures, and sophistication of the statistical analyses. The higher quality studies included income, conflict, and the quality of the parent–child relationship quality in the statistical analysis to assess the effect of the custody arrangement itself. Then, too, most of the reports of children’s well-being and about parental conflict came only from mothers, not fathers. Especially because these parents were separated, relying on only one parent’s feedback could yield an inaccurate or skewed view.
Some social scientists have criticized or dismissed JPC studies because the researchers used different measures and different types of samples (e.g., Smyth et al., 2016). This criticism is somewhat unusual because the research on many topics, such as parental conflict or divorce, also use different measures, different research designs, and different samples. More important, when a body of studies has used different measures, different samples, and
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different approaches to explore the same basic question, this is considered a strength, not a weakness, in social science research. When studies differ in these respects, but still arrive at the same general conclusion, this is a desirable situation referred to as convergent validity (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2001). Convergent validity adds to the confidence and the trust- worthiness of the findings. The 60 JPC studies have a high degree of con- vergent validity in that they consistently find that JPC children are better adjusted than SPC children across a wide range of measures, using different samples, using data from different countries, and collecting data across several decades.
Finally, even though differences between JPC and SPC children’s outcomes are statistically significant, the effect sizes are generally small to moderate. Given this, it has been argued that JPC is not especially beneficial. For example, speaking about these small effect sizes, “Mountains are being made out of molehills” Emery (2015).
Several things must be understood, however, about effect sizes. Small effect sizes are common in studies that assess factors, such as poverty or parental conflict or domestic violence, that affect children. Indeed, fewer than 3% of the studies in social psychology meet the standard for a “strong” effect size (Hemphill, 2003). Nevertheless, small effect sizes in social science and in medical science have important implications for large numbers of people (Ferguson, 2009). In fact, many public health policies and mental health treatment protocols are based on research with weak to moderate effects (Meyer, 2001). Furthermore, “there is no agreement on what magnitude of effect is necessary to establish practical significance” (Ferguson, 2009, p. 532).
Then, too, we need to consider the risks versus the benefits before dis- missing small effect sizes as trivial or meaningless “molehills” (Rosenthal, 1990). For example, if there is a statistically significant but weak link (small effect size) between JPC and children’s using drugs, smoking, drinking, and having a weaker or troubled relationship with their father, and if there are no worse outcomes for JPC children, then the benefits outweigh the risks regardless of how small the benefit. Small effect sizes also become increas- ingly important if the risks are low but the consequences can be enormous; for example, children dying as a result of a drinking accident or drug over- dose, or having lifelong health problems as a result of starting to smoke as a teenager, or having little to no relationship with their father for the remain- der of their lives.
Underscoring the importance of small effect sizes in regard to children’s well-being, Amato and Gilbreth (1999) offered a hypothetical example of children who have authoritative fathers (the most beneficial parenting style) versus children whose fathers do not have an authoritative parenting style. By changing their wording from “authoritative” fathering to “JPC,” their exam- ple would read, “Half of the children live in JPC families and 20% of them experience a particular behavior problem, compared with 30% of those in SPC families. This outcome would mean that JPC is associated with a one third decline in the probability of experiencing the problem. Most observers would agree that this is a substantively important effect. Yet this example would yield a correlation of only –.115.” (p. 568). Put differently, in this hypothetical example, even an extremely weak effect size would mean the JPC children were 30% less likely to develop the behavioral problem than SPC children.
In regard to the 60 JPC studies, the issue of effect sizes is further compli- cated by the fact that most studies did not report effect sizes. Given this, it would be a mistake to jump to the conclusion that the effect sizes are small. Effect sizes can differ dramatically depending on which facet of a child’s well- being is being assessed and what type of sample is used. For example, in Baude et al.’s (2016) meta-analysis, the effect size for the correlation between JPC and behavioral problems was four times as big as the effect size for the correlation between JPC and emotional problems. Effect sizes were also five times stronger for JPC children in studies using school samples than studies using national samples. More noteworthy still, effect sizes in studies where JPC children spent 50% time with each parent were five times stronger than in studies where JPC children lived more than 35% but less than 50% time with each parent. In Bauserman’s (2002) meta-analysis there was also a wide range of effect sizes for the positive impact of JPC, ranging from .005 (very weak) to .97 (extremely strong).
Finally, we should keep in mind that effects of JPC are sometimes as strong or stronger than the effects of parental conflict or family income. For example, in a meta-analysis of 68 studies, the effect size for high parental conflict and children’s adjustment problems was only .19 (Buehler et al., 1997). In another meta-analysis of 50 studies involving 10,364 children, the link between having adjustment problems and blaming themselves for their parents’ conflicts or feeling threatened by the conflict was merely .18. Most of us would be unlikely to criticize people for “making mountains out of molehills” because they considered these findings relevant for children’s well-being.
This is not to say that large effect sizes do not merit more attention or carry more weight than small effect sizes. They do—especially if we are forced to choose only one option. As a hypothetical example, assume we are trying to lower the odds of children becoming clinically depressed after their parents separate. Sixty studies showed that three options all led to statistically significant lower rates of depression for these children. None of the three options was linked to any negative outcomes. If we were free to choose all three, that is what we would do regardless of the effect sizes. If allowed to choose only one, however, we would choose the one with the largest effect size. If there were only one option that had proved to be
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statistically significant, no matter how small the effect size, we would choose it. The point is that we should not allow small effect sizes to be the “tail” that wags the “dog” in determining whether JPC is beneficial for most children.
Conclusion
As the studies summarized in this article demonstrate, JPC is generally linked to better outcomes than SPC for children, independent of parenting factors, family income, or the level of conflict between parents. It appears that leaving the classwork, clothing, cleats, or clarinet at the other parent’s house and living under two sets of rules has not created dire circumstances for JPC children—perhaps because they are not leaving behind the love, attention, involvement, and commitment of either parent when with their other parent. Those who minimize the contribution of JPC argue that it is factors such as parents’ income, education, parenting skills, and low conflict that better account for the positive outcomes seen in JPC children. This view finds very little support in the data from the 60 studies.
This is not to say that children do not benefit from high-quality relation- ships with their parents, or living in higher income families, or having parents with low-conflict relationships. As explained in this article, these factors do matter. Nor is this to say that JPC is the most beneficial arrange- ment for all children. As documented in this article, that is not the case. What these studies do mean is that the vast majority of children benefit more from JPC than from SPC—and that there is no compelling evidence that PIC trumps JPC. Even if the parent–child relationship, income, and conflict were equal, children are still more likely to benefit in JPC families.

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*Spruijt, E., & Duindam, V. (2009). Joint physical custody in the Netherlands and the well being of children. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 51, 65–82. doi:10.1080/ 10502550903423362
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Journal of Divorce & Remarriage
ISSN: 1050-2556 (Print) 1540-4811 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjdr20
Night Shifts: Revisiting Blanket Restrictions on Children’s Overnights With Separated Parents
Richard A. Warshak
To cite this article: Richard A. Warshak (2018): Night Shifts: Revisiting Blanket Restrictions on
Children’s Overnights With Separated Parents, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454193
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JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE
https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454193
Night Shifts: Revisiting Blanket Restrictions on Children’s Overnights With Separated Parents
Richard A. Warshak
Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, USA


ABSTRACT
Professional opinions have shifted regarding the value of young children receiving overnight care from each parent. Contemporary proposals of blanket restrictions are contradic- tory and rest on faulty interpretations of a narrow bandwidth of scholarship. No coherent theory or research confirms spec- ulations that fathers’ overnight care poses greater risks to their young children than daytime care, or that overnights are con- traindicated if opposed by the mother. Theory, research, and practical considerations support the benefits of overnights. It violates logic and common sense to welcome father–child contact around bedtime and morning rituals when parents live together, but eschew overnight contact when parents separate.
Prologue
A young couple returned home from the hospital with their firstborn son, thrilled but anxious about their new roles in life. To best meet their baby’s psychological needs, they sought guidance from parenting books and their pediatrician’s nurse practitioner. The advice was consistent: Be sensitive, be predictable, be affectionate, and be timely. Spend plenty of one-on-one “face time.” Play with your son. Share the parenting when your baby is hungry, wet, tired, or ill. No expert suggests that parents count the number of diapers each changes, or the number of times each gets up in the night to soothe the baby. No expert cautions the parents to limit the father’s contact with his child.
All parents need breaks from child care, and parenting experts advise that when both parents are unavailable, they should select child care providers who have the time, desire, and skill to engage in sensitive, one-on-one time with the infant. This couple enlisted the help of eager grandparents, experi- enced at raising children, who decorated a spare bedroom as a nursery and doted on their grandchild. When the grandparents were unavailable, the parents used a day care center that promoted children’s emotional development.
CONTACT Richard A. Warshak [email protected] 1920 N. Coit Rd., Suite 200-203, Richardson, TX 75080, USA.
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
KEYWORDS
child custody; joint custody; overnights; parenting plans; shared parenting


2 R. A. WARSHAK
As is true in a majority of U.S. families, both parents were employed (U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017), keeping them away from the baby at least 45 hours each week. Some weeks the parents max- imized their time with their son by synchronizing work schedules so that one parent remained at home during the day while the other parent worked an evening or night shift, a practice known as tag-team parenting (Boushey, 2006; Fox, Han, Ruhm, & Waldfogel, 2013).
Ten months later, the wife filed for divorce. Each spouse retained a lawyer. Both lawyers asked their clients to consult a child specialist to discuss a parenting plan. The father’s consultant told him to maintain continuity of care. Because his son is accustomed to both parents’ care, sees them daily, and has a relationship with both parents, the boy needs to continue seeing both parents frequently to maintain his existing relationships and broaden the foundation for his future relationships with his parents. Although, with the parents living apart, it might no longer be practical for the child to see both parents every day, neither parent should go more than 2 or 3 days before spending time with their son.
The consultant suggested that for the next 2 years the parents divide each week into three blocks of time and alternate the blocks between parents: Block 1 is Monday and Tuesday. Block 2 is Wednesday and Thursday. Block 3 is Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This plan gives each parent every other weekend with the boy.
The mother’s consultant gave very different advice. This consultant holds a double standard about shared parenting: one guideline for parents who live together; a different one for those who separate. The mother’s consultant told the mother to spend as much time as possible with her baby and insisted that the more time the baby is away from her, the greater the risk to the child’s development. The consultant claimed to value the father’s contributions to the child’s development, but believed that the father should cut back on the frequency and amount of contact for the next few years and then gradually “step up” his overnight child care and parenting time. The expert was convinced that all babies need to sleep every night in the same crib, in the same room, in the same home. The expert recommended, for now, that the father should reduce his contact to 2 days per week from the current 7 days: 2 hours on Wednesday, 4 hours on Saturday, but rarely, if ever, overnight.
Initially, these parents thought they would part ways amicably, but the consultants’ conflicting advice triggered a custody dispute. Both parents became anxious at the prospect of losing time with the child and worried that the custody arrangement sought by the other parent would harm their son. As the custody dispute heated up, the parents began to devalue each other’s parenting skills and minimize their spouse’s past involvement in child-rearing. The mother interpreted her son’s normal, but troubling, tod- dler behaviors as symptoms of being away too often from her and spending too much time with his father. The father attributed the same behaviors to his son not spending enough time with him. The parents no longer trusted each other to make decisions that were best for their son.
The issues
The consultants’ opinions mirror differences among scholars and policy- makers on two issues. The first issue is whether young children are better off spending most of their time with one parent or more evenly balancing time between parents in a shared physical custody arrangement generally defined as at least 35% time living in each home. The second issue is whether all young children are better off receiving overnight care from only one parent or whether some children benefit from being in the overnight care of both parents.
Scholars regard these overnight policies and decisions as high-stakes issues. On the one hand is the concern that denying children more overnight care and contact with their fathers weakens the foundation of the paternal relationship and could leave emotional deficits that cannot be overcome when overnights begin after age 4. On the other hand is the concern that additional overnight care from the father away from the mother exacts a toll by undermining the security of attachment with the mother. Rather than fostering the child’s healthy relationship with both parents, overnight shared physical custody might leave children without a single healthy attachment.
Overview
This article updates an earlier treatment of blanket restrictions regarding overnights for young children (Warshak, 2000). The first sections clarify terminology, offer a brief history of blanket restrictions, and discuss shifts away from and back toward restricted overnights. Proposed restrictions shift from researcher to researcher and sometimes shift from one article to another by the same writer. The article examines the relationship between attachment theory and blanket restrictions with particular attention to a hierarchical attachments model, concerns about mother–child separations, and rationales offered for claims that fathers’ overnight care poses greater risks to young children than daytime care. Next, the analysis contrasts the hierarchical model of attachments with a heterarchical model, and discusses the manner in which overnights contribute to attachments.
The article then moves beyond attachment theory, adopting a bioecologi- cal framework in addressing a broad range of factors and contexts that impinge on children’s development (Bronfenbrenner, 1986; Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994). The article demonstrates why a wide range of research is relevant to the issue of overnights, and contrasts the “wide lens” approach
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with one that defends blanket restrictions based on three seriously flawed, but influential studies. The analysis exposes the weakness of the case for blanket restrictions built on these three studies. Next the article describes a consensus on shared parenting and overnights for young children that was published in reaction to the growing influence of misinformation on custody decisions.
Recent efforts to promote blanket restrictions are discussed, including proposals that overnights should be restricted when parents dispute custody. The article then describes sleeping arrangements for children that are con- sidered normal when parents live together but alarm some professionals when parents separate. Finally, a discussion of the ecology of overnights draws attention to benefits that are sometimes overlooked by proponents of blanket restrictions.
Disputes among professionals regarding the wisdom of overnights often become heated. Some professionals have personalized what should remain academic disputes, impugned the motives of those with whom they disagree, and likened the disagreements to a war (see, e.g., quotations in Arndt, 2014; McIntosh, 2014). Yet it is clear that researchers and practitioners, who devote their careers to understanding and helping children and families, share the common goal of improving the well-being of those whose lives they study and attempt to help. In the case of overnights, all contributors to the debate want children to have secure relationships with their parents and optimal circumstances for their future development. Without pulling intellectual punches, this article aims for a scholarly, nonpolemical tone.
A note about the title. “Night Shifts” highlights six key “shifts” this article addresses: (a) the shift between homes where the child spends the night, (b) separated parents sharing night shifts with the child, (c) shifts over time in cultural and professional views about issues related to overnight shared parenting, (d) shifts over time in positions about overnights held by the same individual, (e) married mothers employed on night shifts who leave the father to care for the child overnight, and (f) shifts between accepting situations as normal in families before divorce but unacceptable after divorce.
Clarifying terminology
Discussions of parents who live together refer to the mother and father, or in the case of same-sex parents, the mothers or the fathers. Some studies of separated parents, striving to avoid gendered language, refer instead to primary and nonprimary caregivers. This could be misleading if nearly all of the study’s primary caregiver group were mothers (e.g., McIntosh, Smyth, & Kelaher, 2015). Most disputes about overnights involve a father who wants more overnights; thus, this article’s discussion assumes rather than obscures this fact. For the small percentage of cases where the child lives primarily with the father and the mother wants more overnights, the reader should substitute father for mother, and in an even smaller percentage of cases involving same-sex parents, the reader should use fathers or mothers (plural). Most of the theoretical and practical considerations about blanket restrictions apply to these less prevalent situations.
Two terms, caution and frequent, often invoked when professionals recom- mend overnight restrictions, warrant attention. Some proponents of blanket restrictions frame their recommendations as a caution against overnights rather than an absolute prohibition. Presumably the term is used to indicate the desirability of a flexible as opposed to rigid application of the guideline. Caution signifies a hazardous situation that does not necessarily need to be avoided, but requires extra care and attention to steer clear of harm. When professionals advise parents to be cautious about a child spending one or more overnights per week in a second home, however, decision makers who believe that the caution has scientific support treat the caution as a mandate to avoid overnights.
The second term that professionals might invoke in connection with blanket restrictions is frequent. Two studies used frequent to designate as few as four overnights per month (McIntosh, Smyth, & Kelaher, 2010; Tornello et al., 2013). When proponents of blanket restrictions cite these two studies to support their opposition to frequent overnights, what they mean by frequent is not generally considered frequent by a child or father.
Blanket restrictions through the ages
Until well into the 19th century, common law gave married and divorced fathers complete and absolute custody and control over their children. For many families the question of which parent cared for the child overnight was a nonissue: Those who could afford it, especially those who lived in cities, outsourced care of their infants and toddlers to wet nurses whose countryside homes were regarded as healthier for young children. Mothers did not think their presence was necessary for their young children to thrive. Judging from autobiographies of the period, the concept of emotionally intensive mother- ing emerged sometime later in the 19th century (“What 19th Century Women Really Did,” 2014).
The idea that mothers are by nature uniquely suited to nurture children began taking hold in the second half of the 18th century, spread in the 19th century, and eventually penetrated law governing child custody (Stone, 1990). What became known as the tender years doctrine gave courts the authority to award mothers custody of children under the age of 7. Over time the doctrine expanded to include children of all ages (Commonwealth v.
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Addicks, 1813; for additional case law and legislation expressing the tender years doctrine see Warshak, 2011).
A legal presumption in favor of mother custody remained throughout the 19th century and most of the 20th century. Most divorced fathers saw their children at the mothers’ discretion, a gatekeeping policy advocated in an acclaimed book by Goldstein, Freud, and Solnit (1973/1979). Drawing on ideas from Freud (1940) and Bowlby (1951/1952, 1969), Goldstein et al. hypothesized that children have one psychological parent who should retain sole custody in the event of divorce, and asserted that children cannot benefit from contact with two parents who are in conflict with each other. Bowlby’s and Goldstein et al.’s ideas were the basis for excessive concerns about separat- ing young children from their mothers, even brief separations such as those occasioned by leaving the child with a father, babysitter, or day care attendant.
The Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act (UMDA, 1973) proposed the gender-neutral best-interest-of-the-child standard. Nevertheless, the legacy of the tender years presumption was evident in the comments to the UMDA: “The preference for the mother as custodian of young children when all things are equal, for example, is simply a shorthand method of expressing the best interest of children.” The tender years doctrine legacy also was apparent in blanket restrictions prevalent between 1980 and 2000. Despite custody policy that stressed the importance of frequent and continuing contact between children and both parents, infants and toddlers continued to be denied their father’s overnight care, a practice consistent with the prevailing professional judgment of the time (Warshak, 2000).
Research from the 1970s to the 1990s revealed that most children needed and wanted more contact with their fathers after divorce than they were getting (Braver & O’Connell, 1998; Hetherington, Cox, & Cox, 1982; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002; Santrock & Warshak, 1979; Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980; Warshak, 1986, 1992; Warshak & Santrock, 1983). In 1994, 18 experts sponsored by the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHHD) met to evaluate the divorce research literature. The group subsequently issued a consensus statement concluding that to “keep nonresidential parents playing psychologically important and central roles in the lives of their children,” distribution of custodial time should ensure “the involvement of both parents in important aspects of their children’s everyday lives and routines--including bedtime and waking rituals, transitions to and from school, extracurricular and recreational activities” (Lamb, Sternberg, & Thompson, 1997, p. 400).
Shifting away from blanket restrictions
Articles published in Family Court Review between 2000 and 2002 challenged guidelines that restricted young children from sleeping in their father’s home.


A group of authors extended the NICHHD consensus to young children by supporting flexible, individualized parenting plans rather than proposing absolute rules favoring or prohibiting overnights (Gould & Stahl, 2001; Kelly & Lamb, 2000; Lamb & Kelly, 2001; Warshak, 2000, 2002). Those authors recommended that decision makers consider the option of over- nights because of the potential benefits to the foundation of stable and lifelong parent–child relationships.
In contrast to these blanket restriction challenges, Solomon and Biringen (2001) cited only one empirical study (Solomon & George, 1999a, 1999b), to defend their view: “Repeated overnight separations present a greater chal- lenge to the development of organized primary attachments than do daytime separations” (p. 357). They added, “The available evidence, albeit scarce, indicates that separations from the mother should still be viewed with caution, particularly where nighttime separations are concerned and until more empirical evidence is gathered” (p. 359). Despite their caution, Solomon and Biringen (2001) did acknowledge, “Even separations of a few days from the primary caregiver seem to be well tolerated when conditions are supportive” (p. 361).
In their rejoinder, Lamb and Kelly (2001) referred to extensive literature that demonstrated that U.S. infants generally form attachments to both parents at about the same age. They also emphasized that overnights offer unique opportunities for relationship-building interactions that reduce the risk of severed or attenuated father–child relationships and that the Solomon and George study provided a poor foundation for public policy: “The evi- dence suggests that overnight separations from one parent in order to be with the other strengthen rather than harm attachment relationships” (Lamb & Kelly, 2001, p. 368).
Biringen et al. (2002), however, asserted that children have a hierarchy of attachment figures of unequal salience. They interpreted the Solomon and George (1999a, 1999b) results as showing that “overnight visitations did not improve the infant-father attachment and actually harmed the infant-mother attachment” (p. 206). They did offer the concession, “We do not claim that overnight visitations are necessarily bad for infants/young children, merely that the empirical findings currently available suggest that until we have more information, we should proceed with caution” (p. 206).
Warshak (2002) concluded that the literature on parent–child relation- ships and on the impact of divorce on children, supports a best-interests- based flexible and individualized approach to overnights: “The data show that overnights should be among the options considered for infants, toddlers, and older children. Overnights should neither be made mandatory nor be routinely excluded” (p. 217). Warshak based his conclusions on several considerations, including theoretical work on the establishment and growth of parent–child relationships; empirical studies on parent–child relationships
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and on the protective and risk factors linked to the impact of divorce on children; common experience of infants sleeping apart from their mothers in day care, with babysitters, with fathers, with grandparents, and so on; and the common sense logic that, if young children sleep during the day apart from their mother with no harm, it is unlikely that sleeping at night apart from their mother brings special risks.
The difference that emerged from the Family Court Review exchanges was one of emphasis. All the authors agreed that the prevailing empirical litera- ture did not contraindicate overnights and did not support blanket restric- tions against any overnights. One side interpreted the literature to emphasize the potential value of overnights. The other side emphasized the potential risks.
Shifting back to blanket restrictions
The decade following these exchanges saw greater acceptance of fathers’ overnight care (Kelly, 2005). This remained the case until 2011 when McIntosh (2011b) advocated a renewal of blanket restrictions. Based on one report (McIntosh et al., 2010) copyrighted by the clinic she founded, along with her mistaken interpretation of Solomon and George (1999a, 1999b), McIntosh (2011b) concluded, “In early infancy, overnight stays are contraindicated, undertaken when necessary or helpful to the primary care- giver, and when the second parent is already an established source of comfort and security for the infant” (p. 4, italics added). McIntosh (George, Solomon, & McIntosh, 2011) said, “On the basis of my research and clinical experience, I am cautious about regular overnights [1–3 nights monthly] for under twos [by which McIntosh means until the third birthday]. ... I am also conserva- tive about equal shared overnight care prior to age six” (p. 525).
As guest editor of a special issue of Family Court Review, McIntosh (2011a) claimed that the attachment experts she had invited to contribute articles concurred: “Overnight stays away from the primary caregiver in early infancy are generally best avoided, unless of benefit to the primary caregiver” (p. 424). For example, Sroufe told McIntosh, “Prior to age 18 months, over- nights away from the primary carer [sic] should be quite rare” (Sroufe & McIntosh, 2011, p. 472). Several scholars (Kelly, 2014; Lamb, 2012; Ludolph, 2012) criticized McIntosh for choosing commentators who failed to represent the range of opinions among attachment scholars.
McIntosh gave no explanation of why overnight stays, which she believes are contraindicated and presumed harmful, become acceptable when they benefit the primary caregiver. This guideline could suggest that if the mother felt that having a night away from her child would benefit her, this would outweigh the presumed costs of the separation to the child. Or this guideline could reflect the belief that it is not separation from the mother that causes harm, but separations against the mother’s wishes. Regardless of its rationale, this guideline makes one parent the gatekeeper of overnights, resurrecting Goldstein, Freud, and Solnit’s long-discarded policy of giving sole discretion to one parent to regulate the other parent’s access to the child. Given the very low incidence of courts designating fathers as primary parents, McIntosh’s guideline privileges mothers in decisions about physical custody.
Contemporary blanket restrictions: Shifts and inconsistencies
Since 2011, McIntosh has modified her position on blanket restrictions, acknowledging that “clinical and theoretical cautions against any overnight care during the first three years have not been supported” (Pruett, McIntosh, & Kelly, 2014, p. 250). Nevertheless, she continued to advocate restrictions, although not complete prohibitions of overnights. Part 1 of a two-part article that McIntosh coauthored recommends “caution” about “high frequency” overnights for children younger than 4 years, particularly under certain conditions, such as when parents cannot agree on the parenting plan (Pruett et al., 2014, p. 250). Recall that “cautions” about practices that can harm babies become “prohibitions” in most parents’ minds, and “high frequency” to these researchers means as few as five overnights per month. Part 2 of the article shifts from the recommendation made in Part 1 in three crucial ways: (a) a shift from “caution” about more than four overnights per month to a more definite “not generally indicated”; (b) a shift from condi- tions that reinforce the restrictions (e.g., parental disagreement) to uncondi- tional application to all parents--even those who consistently and sensitively meet their children’s needs; and (c) a shift in the target range for blanket restrictions from ages 0 to 4 years to 0 to 18 months (McIntosh, Pruett, & Kelly, 2014, p. 57). No explanation was offered for these significant shifts within their two-part article.
From their article, McIntosh and Pruett developed an instrument, Charting Overnight Decisions for Infants and Toddlers (CODIT), that they have since been promoting as a guide for parents and professionals (McIntosh, 2015; Pruett, 2015). CODIT includes a proscription against “high frequency” overnights (more than four per month) for infants younger than 18 months, but the authors shifted their previous recommendation by applying the restriction only to infants who are subject to family law disputes. McIntosh and Pruett offered no explanation for the shift.
Pruett further shifted her recommendation, in a chapter authored sepa- rately from McIntosh, by narrowing the circumstances for caution to situa- tions in which the parents’ disagreement “interferes with the child’s care” (Pruett, Cowan, et al., 2016, p. 97). That is, Pruett no longer maintained that the mere presence of a dispute over custody is sufficient to be cautious about overnights. Kelly (2014), writing separately from Pruett or McIntosh,
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explicitly rejected the proposal that the presence of conflict between parents justifies blanket restrictions, advocating, instead, remedies to reduce the child’s exposure to high parental conflict.
Although the authors just discussed presented their recommendations and the CODIT instrument as though they were based on child development theory and research, the shifts, inconsistencies, and contradictions in their recommendations expose the lack of an objective scientific foundation for some of these proposals. For instance, McIntosh offered five inconsistent recommendations. Although it is not unusual for a scientist to revise her views, McIntosh has not repudiated in writing her past proposals or acknowl- edged that she has revised her opinion. Instead, she asserted that her position with respect to blanket restrictions has not changed (McIntosh et al., 2015).
Other scholars have also shifted their views about overnight policies. For example, Emery’s (n.d.)online “Alternative Parenting Plans (Child Custody Schedules)” proposes multiple schedules with blanket restrictions. For chil- dren younger than 18 months, these schedules range from no overnights and no more than 6 hours of contact with the father each week when parents have a “distant” or “angry” divorce, to a maximum of two overnights per month when parents have a cooperative divorce. Emery believes that every couple in custody litigation is a high-conflict couple unsuitable for shared parenting (Emery, 2014; Jackman, 2010). In a book for the general public, Emery (2016) defended blanket restrictions by citing a study he led. Yet in a journal article the same year, Emery shifted from this defense, stating that there was “an inadequate body of research upon which to speculate about policy implications” for overnights (Emery et al., 2016, p. 144).
Another example of shifting recommendations is found in Smyth’s work. Writing with McIntosh and Kelaher, Smyth cautioned against more than one overnight per week for infants and toddlers (McIntosh et al., 2010, 2015). In an earlier article (Smyth & Ferro, 2002), though, Smyth praised overnights as providing “opportunities to engage in an array of interactions and functional contexts that are usually not possible in day-time contact” (p. 58) and helping to “foster the development of close emotional bonds between children and non-resident parents” (p. 54).
Attachment theory
Scholars who believe that science supports blanket restrictions, and those who believe the opposite, each reference attachment theory to frame a portion of their analyses (Ainsworth, 1982; Bowlby, 1969). This theory proposes that attachments develop from regular and reciprocal parent– child interactions that enable the infant to discriminate parents from other persons. For example, when parents sensitively and consistently respond to their baby’s behavior (e.g., cries), the baby experiences them as reliable, and
this nurtures a secure attachment. The sine qua non for attachment forma- tion is ample opportunity for the child to interact with a parent and for the parent to regularly provide love and care. Attachment theory further pro- poses that children encode these relational experiences into an internal working model of themselves, of other people, and of the nature of relation- ships. These internal models then influence children’s regulation of emotions and subsequent adjustment, such as early attachment security predicting higher quality interpersonal relationships and fewer behavior problems.
Despite professionals’ agreement on some aspects of attachment theory, the theory does not easily translate into propositions about the potential impact of overnights. Most children develop multiple attachments--a gen- erally accepted view. Shifts over time in the prevailing professional opinions about overnights reflect, in part, two different models about the significance and role of children’s attachments to their mothers in relation to their attachments to their fathers.
Hierarchical attachments model: If it quacks like a duck ...
Professionals who caution against overnights for a young child argue that attachment theory emphasizes the importance of protecting the young child’s attachment to a single primary caregiver as a foundation for subsequent relationships, even if this attachment is promoted at the expense of the child’s relationship with the second parent (Goldstein et al., 1973/1979). These professionals believe that a hierarchy of early attachment relationships, with mother–child attachments more salient and serving as templates for all later relationships, serves ethological ends (e.g., Biringen et al., 2002; Schore, 1994, 2012). Some professionals support this belief with analogies that miss the mark. For example, Sroufe (Sroufe & McIntosh, 2011) defended the survival value of an attachment hierarchy by posing a hypothetical in which he encountered a panther in a forest. If he had “exactly equal attach- ments” to his two parents, he would be unable to quickly decide which parent would best protect him. If his attachments were rank ordered, though, when faced with danger he would automatically seek proximity to his “primary” attachment, and thus ensure his survival.
Sroufe’s hypothetical fails to prove his point. In his scenario the best survival strategy is not a default to the “primary” attachment, but a decision about which attachment figure will offer the best protection. The “secondary” attachment figure might be stronger, armed with a weapon, and more experienced defending against panthers. If Sroufe had a hierarchy of attach- ments, and automatically ran toward his “primary” attachment figure, it is more likely that he would be the panther’s meal du jour.
Emery (2016) posed an equivalent scenario. In Emery’s scenario a mother and father duck swim in opposite directions: “If the duckling doesn’t have a
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preference, that is, a hierarchy of attachment figures, it’s going to be stuck in the middle--and in danger” (p. 99). Rather than consider the survival benefits of the duckling being able to follow either parent for protection, Emery assumed that the duckling would be overcome by paralysis and remain in danger unless it followed its “primary” parent. Although it is unlikely that duck parents will swim in opposite directions--as angry parents might do after they separate--some young waterfowl will freeze in place when either parent utters an alarm call, while both parents either draw predators away or attack intruders (Coluccy, n.d.). Emery’s duckling analogy also fails to consider the possibility that environmental factors, such as water currents or wind direction, might overcome the duckling’s confusion about which attachment figure to follow. Notwithstanding the differences between a duck on a pond and a human infant in a crib, Emery’s scenario does not anticipate the possibility that rather than follow either parent to survive, the duckling might attract both parents’ attention with loud quacks, much as human infants do with their cries.
The Sroufe and Emery analogies illustrate why some professionals who subscribe to a hierarchical model emphasize the importance of preserving the continuity of a child’s relationship with one primary caregiver (usually the mother), but not with both parents (e.g., Wallerstein & Tanke, 1996). In sum, proponents of blanket restrictions express concern that separation from the single primary caregiver will reduce the odds of the child developing any secure attachments (George et al., 2011).
Key questions, then, are raised: How much interaction is necessary to form a secure attachment, and how much and what type of separation from a parent will interfere with the development of a secure attachment?
Mother–Child separations
Bowlby’s (1951/1952) early theories fueled concerns about mother–child separations. Based principally on nonsystematic observational studies of children in hospitals, orphanages, and other residential institutions, Bowlby warned, “Prolonged deprivation of the young child of maternal care may have grave and far-reaching effects on his character” (p. 46). Over time, some attachment theorists have mischaracterized Bowlby’s warning by expanding his concerns to include relatively brief mother–child separations, even those that we today consider routine.
Prominent in the latter 20th-century attachment literature was the expectation that daily separations of mother and child, such as those occasioned by child care, would damage that relationship (e.g., Sroufe, 1988). For instance, Goldstein et al. (1973/1979) argued that children have one psychological parent who should be granted sole custody. They asserted that for children younger than 18 months, “any change in routine” causes appetite, digestive, and sleep problems and increased cry- ing. In addition, “Such reactions occur even if the infant’s care is divided merely between mother and babysitter. They are all the more massive where the infant’s day is divided between home and day care center” (Goldstein et al., 1973/1979, pp. 31–32).
Bowlby’s maternal deprivation theory is ill suited to guide child custody policy. He primarily based his theory on Robertson’s (1952, 1953) obser- vations of hospitalized children. Yet Bowlby’s theory went beyond Robertson’s findings. Robertson understood that his studies “did not permit responses to separation from the mother to be reliably differen- tiated from the influence of associated adverse factors such as illness, pain, cot confinement, multiple caretakers and the confusion which follows transfer from home into a strange environment” (Robertson & Robertson, 1971, p. 265). Other studies from which Bowlby drew his conclusions similarly did not distinguish the effects of the mother’s absence from factors such as the father’s absence, the conditions that resulted in the child being removed from the parents and home (e.g., illness, evacuation in wartime, being orphaned), and the effects of being reared in an impersonal group care environment that sometimes included horribly adverse conditions. Analyses in the past five decades established that the studies on which Bowlby based his theory had much to do with trauma and inadequate care but little to do with mother–child separations (Lamb, 2002; Rutter, 1995b; Warshak, 2000; Yarrow, 1961). In sum, Bowlby reviewed studies on the effects of deprivation on child develop- ment, not the effects of maternal deprivation.
In an effort to tease out the impact of being separated from their mothers versus the impact of the adverse conditions in institutions, Robertson and Robertson (1971) undertook the foster care of four children between 11⁄2 and 21⁄2 years of age whose mothers were going into the hospital to have a second baby. The children were separated from their mothers for between 10 and 27 days. The study also reported on nine children who were cared for in their own homes by a familiar relative.
Unlike the institutionalized children Robertson studied earlier, none of the 13 children displayed the “mournful” and traumatized behavior pre- dicted by Bowlby’s theory. The children “functioned and related well, learned new skills and new words, and at reunion greeted their mothers warmly” (Robertson & Robertson, 1971, p. 305). None of the children showed acute distress and despair, and the two children who were away from their parents the longest “appeared to be adapting and finding secure niches in the foster family” (p. 309). The Robertsons concluded, “Our findings do not support Bowlby’s generalizations about the responses of young children to loss of the mother per se” (Robertson & Robertson, 1971, p. 313).
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Maternal deprivation theory: Irrelevant to child custody decisions?
The Robertsons’ conclusions illustrate that professionals make a fundamental error when they rely on Bowlby’s generalizations about maternal deprivation to inform custody policy and decisions. The experience of being separated from all familiar caregivers and routines, often in psychologically appalling conditions, bears no relation to the experience of a child who routinely spends time away from the mother but with a nurturing father with whom the child has a secure relationship. To some extent Bowlby seemed to recognize this. In a passage usually overlooked by those who cite Bowlby to justify concerns about overnighting and other mother–child separations, he wrote, “This deprivation will be relatively mild if he is then looked after by someone whom he has already learned to know and trust” (Bowlby, 1951/ 1952, p. 12). Nevertheless, Bowlby remained fixed on the idea that “a child is deprived if for any reason he is removed from his mother’s care” (p. 12). Bowlby never shifted his position even in the face of the Robertsons’ data.
An interesting historical footnote is that, according to the Robertsons, Bowlby seemed unreceptive to data that might alter his position about maternal deprivation (Robertson & Robertson, 1989). When the Robertsons’ pilot study failed to confirm Bowlby’s theory, the Tavistock Research Unit that Bowlby directed withdrew the funding that had been earmarked for the research. Nevertheless, the Robertsons continued their studies, published the results in 1971, and described these results in their 1989 book.
Just as Bowlby ignored the Robertson and Robertson (1971) data that failed to support maternal deprivation theory, McIntosh did the same four decades later (Sroufe & McIntosh, 2011). In cautioning against overnight custody plans, she mentioned Robertson’s (1952, 1953) early studies to support the idea that just a few days of mother–child separation is harmful. McIntosh cited the Robertson and Roberston (1989) book, which in fact had failed to support the maternal deprivation hypothesis. McIntosh did not mention this fact, though. Instead she left the mistaken impression that the study of hospitalized children is relevant to children spending overnights away from their mother and in the care of their father.
The difference between day and night Concerns about infants’ separation from their mothers during the day have, for the most part, been put to rest, in part as a result of robust research on the effect of maternal employment and day care on children’s development (Brooks-Gunn, Han, & Waldfogel, 2010; Lucas-Thompson, Goldberg, & Prause, 2010; Warshak, 2014 [Warshak Consensus Report]). For example, the impact of maternal employment in early childhood is highly context-dependent. Overall there are few main effects, the effect sizes are small even when significant, and positive effects offset any negative effects. A meta-analysis of 69 studies concluded, “Taken together, the results of these analyses suggest that maternal employment early in a child’s life is not commonly associated with decreases in later achievement or increases in behavior problems” (Lucas-Thompson et al., 2010, p. 938).
Proponents of blanket restrictions generally recommend extensive and frequent daytime contacts between children and their fathers. For instance, Emery (n.d.) suggested that children under the age of 18 months spend Saturdays with their father, including an afternoon nap. No one has formu- lated a coherent theory to justify the proposition that children can sustain daytime, but not nighttime, separations from their mothers, however. Nor has anyone responded to Warshak’s (2000) challenge that parenting plans recommended by proponents of blanket restrictions violate logic and com- mon sense. If sleeping away from both parents during nap time at day care centers does not harm young children, and napping during the day in their father’s home does not harm young children, how can spending the night in their father’s home harm them, when the majority of the time they are asleep and unaware of their surroundings? What reasons or evidence can explain the greater risk attached to nighttime care?
McIntosh broached this question in her Family Court Review interviews with attachment scholars: “What is it about nighttime that might make the impact of day and night hours sum up differently?” (George et al., 2011, p. 524). The answers were less than convincing.
George asserted “night time sleeps are a big deal,” but also said, “Attachment with the second parent does not seem to depend on that person being the first person that the baby sees in the morning or in the middle of the night” (George et al., 2011, p. 524). George gave no explanation or evidence for why attachment with the first parent depends on overnight care but attachment to the second parent does not.
Solomon asserted, “There is a special vulnerability about nighttime. The state of the organism is to be more anxious at night. That is hard-wired in our cortisol rhythms” (George et al., 2011, p. 524). No evidence was given for this assertion, and no explanation for why only one parent can manage the child’s nighttime anxieties. George’s and Solomon’s answer to McIntosh’s question about why nighttime care brings more risks than daytime care amounted to, “It just does.”
George then asked McIntosh for her view. McIntosh fell back on her research and clinical experience to support her usual caution “about regular overnights for under twos and about frequent overnights for a child 3 to 4 years” (George et al., 2011, p. 525). McIntosh’s research data provide no support for her opinions about overnights (Cashmore & Parkinson, 2011;
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Lamb, 2012; Ludolph, 2012; Millar & Kruk, 2014; Nielsen, 2014, 2015; Warshak, 2014, 2017).
Richard Bowlby (John Bowlby’s son) gave no better answer to McIntosh’s question. He asserted that children “instinctively feel vulnerable at night” and have an “instinctive drive” to seek proximity to a primary attachment figure (Bowlby & McIntosh, 2011, p. 552). He believes that these instincts make children younger than 2 years old unsuitable for overnights with their second parent. R. Bowlby cited no study to support his speculations.
In McIntosh’s interviews, Schore came the closest to trying to justify, rather than merely assert, that babies need their mothers every night. Schore endorsed a hierarchical attachment model and reasoned that (a) sleep disturbances occur in 20% to 30% of infants and toddlers, and (b) an orderly nightly bedtime routine is effective in alleviating sleep disturbances, and thus, in the first year of life, “access to a predictable, consistent, and emotionally available primary caregiver is as important during the night as the day. ... The science suggests that this person needs to be a constant source of a nightly bedtime routine” (Schore & McIntosh, 2011, p. 508). However, neither Schore nor McIntosh cited any research to support this proposition, an idea that runs counter to parenting practices in many families in which parents rotate putting the children to bed (e.g., Tamm, n.d.).
Schore’s leap from the value of bedtime routines to blanket restrictions is a non sequitur. The 20% to 30% of infants who have sleep disturbances should not dictate custody policy for the majority of infants. Also, infant sleep problems could be linked to other factors, such as maternal depression (Bayer, Hiscock, Hampton, & Wake, 2007; Teti & Cosby, 2012; Warren, Howe, Simmens, & Dahl, 2006). Teti and Cosby (2012) found that depressed and anxious mothers disturbed their babies when they were sleeping by picking them up, feeding them, taking them into their own bed, and cuddling with them for the mother’s own emotional comfort. Helping depressed mothers adhere to a bedtime routine is effective in alleviating their babies’ sleep problems. Depression can take time to abate, though, even with treat- ment. Rather than keep the baby with the mother every night as Schore suggested, a baby’s sleep problems that are traced to the mother’s anxiety and depression might resolve more quickly if the baby spends more, rather than fewer, overnights with the father.
Heterarchical attachments model
Two attachment models highlight the overnights dispute. The few attach- ment scholars that McIntosh interviewed in the Family Court Review issue generally espoused the hierarchical attachments model, interpreting this model to contraindicate regular overnights for young children with the parent who is not deemed the primary caregiver. In contrast, a heterarchical model proposes that when children are developmentally capable of forming attachments, they normally form multiple attachments, neither of which serves as a template for the others.
Attachment theorists agree that infants in two-parent families commonly form attachments with each parent. For more than four decades, the research has been clear that these attachments occur at about the same time in the middle of their first year (Lamb, 1975). There is less agreement about whether mother–child attachments are primary, or whether attachments to mothers and fathers play different roles or affect different aspects of person- ality development (Thompson, 2005). However, the notion of a superior hierarchical attachment to one parent no longer remains central to attach- ment theory (Rutter, 1995a).
Although authorities agree that having at least one secure attachment gives a child an important developmental advantage, they note that the odds of having at least one secure attachment to a parent are doubled when the child regularly interacts with two parents and thus has two central relationships from which a secure attachment can emerge. Notably approximately 40% of children develop an insecure attachment either with their mother or with their father, but only 18% have insecure attachments with both parents (Kochanska & Kim, 2013). The security of the relationship with each parent is independent of the other (Lamb, 1977). Moreover, fathers and mothers are equally sensitive toward their infants (Braungart-Rieker, Garwood, Powers, & Notaro, 1998; Cabrera, Shannon, & Tamis-LeMonda, 2010; Kringelbach et al., 2008; Lamb, 1977). If the goal is to increase the odds of a child having at least one secure attachment and to maintain attachments, the schedule of parenting time needs to afford infants and toddlers frequent opportunities to experience both parents’ care in a variety of everyday activities and routines (Smyth & Ferro, 2002).
From an evolutionary vantage point it makes sense for children to have more than one secure attachment. Mothers might not always be physically or emotionally available or competent. They can die, become ill, or be emo- tionally incapacitated by depression or stressful life events. For instance, approximately one in five mothers suffers from depression (Pascoe, Stolfi, & Ormond, 2006). Having a secure attachment to a second parent is nature’s system of redundancy to ensure the child’s survival and well-being.
How overnights contribute to attachments
Drawing on attachment theory, Kelly and Lamb (2000) underscored the special importance of parental care during the evening and overnights to provide opportunities for “crucial social interactions and nurturing activities” (p. 306) that are not possible without overnights. As a result, the child’s trust in the parents is promoted, strengthened, and consolidated.
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Spending time with their baby helps parents provide the regular care that allows them to become attachment figures. Also, spending more time with the baby offers more opportunities for parents to hone their parenting skills through “on the job training” (Magill-Evans, Harrison, Benzies, Gierl, & Kimak, 2007). By spending time interacting with their babies--talking, sing- ing, playing, feeding, changing diapers, bathing, cuddling, and so forth— parents become more confident in their abilities to understand and respond sensitively to their child’s needs (Lucassen et al., 2011). They learn to tailor their responses synchronously and contingently to the baby’s socioemotional expressions and initiatives. Because a young child undergoes such rapid developmental changes, parents need regular contact to remain in sync with the child. For instance, fathers who are more involved with their infants and toddlers adapt physiologically to child care experiences (Abraham et al., 2014; Gettler, McDade, Feranil, & Kuzawa, 2011), develop better parenting skills, and have better relationships with their children (Boyce et al., 2006). One study found that 1-year-olds were more likely to have secure attach- ments with fathers who, when the children were 3 months old, were more affectionate, had more positive attitudes, and spent more time with their children (Cox, Owen, Henderson, & Margand, 1992). Reviewing the litera- ture on the effects of father care on young children, Pruett (2000) concluded, “The closer the connection between father and child, the better off they both are now and in the future” (p. 41).
Using a wide theoretical and empirical lens to evaluate the overnights issue
Attachment theory is a dominant framework for explaining early social and emotional development, but it is not the only framework. Other theories contribute important perspectives (Thompson, 2006). Bioecological theory emphasizes the need to consider wider contexts and reciprocal interactions in understanding child development. For instance, the father’s caring for his infant during the night might benefit an exhausted mother, which, in turn, benefits the infant. One rigorous study found that when fathers were more involved in daytime and nighttime caregiving of their 3-month-old infants, both mothers and infants were more likely to sleep through the night at 6 months (Tikotzky et al., 2015). It is an open question whether this benefit would accompany a father’s care when the parents live apart from each other.
Multiple factors could be expected to mediate the impact on children of overnights, such as the intellectual richness of the home, the quality of parent–child conversations and emotional exchanges, the level of father involvement, and sibling interactions. Studies of the father’s role in child development illustrate the benefits of promoting rather than marginalizing the father’s involvement. For instance, fathers’ verbal communication with their toddlers was more closely linked to children’s subsequent language development than was mothers’ communication (Pancsofar & Vernon- Feagans, 2006).
Some commentators (e.g., Emery, 2016; McIntosh et al., 2015) believe that analyses of the overnights issue should rely solely on four studies that specifically focused on the effects of overnights (McIntosh et al., 2010; Pruett, Ebling, & Insabella, 2004; Solomon & George, 1999a, 1999b; Tornello et al., 2013). This article takes a different and more ambitious approach. Many fields of inquiry and strands of research form the tapestry of our knowledge about child development. Connecting data points through reasonable infer- ences expands the usefulness of research. Following is an example of con- necting the dots when evaluating the relevance of a finding that divorced fathers who cared for their infants overnight were less likely to abandon their children (Maccoby & Mnookin, 1992).

• ●  Data point 1: A robust literature provides strong evidence that, on average, fathers’ emotional investment in, attachment to, and positive parenting of their children predicts better psychological outcomes across a wide range of domains in social, emotional, and cognitive develop- ment (Cabrera, Tamis-LeMonda, Bradley, Hofferth, & Lamb, 2000; Lamb & Lewis, 2013; McClanahan, Tach, & Schneider, 2013; Pruett, 2000; Suh et al., 2016).
• ●  Data point 2: Compared with children whose parents are married, other children had a higher incidence of adjustment difficulties that extended into adolescence and early adulthood including high school dropout and suspension, externalizing behavior problems, substance abuse, and poor relationships with both parents (McClanahan et al., 2013; Zill, Morrison, & Coiro, 1993).
• ●  Data point 3: In the National Survey of Children’s longitudinal study of young adults 14 years after their parents’ divorce, the majority of children from divorced homes scored within normal limits in most developmental domains with one exception: Two out of three suffered chronically poor relationships with their fathers that failed to improve over time (Zill et al., 1993). This effect was most pronounced among children whose parents divorced when the child was younger than 6 years old compared with children who were older than 6 at the time of divorce. The child’s age at the time of divorce did not affect the incidence of a poor relationship with mother, and the child’s age had only a marginally significant effect on the other three developmental problem areas investigated (high school dropout, history of psychologi- cal treatment, and behavior problems). Similarly, Schwartz and Finley (2005) found that the earlier the parental separation, the greater the impact on the quality of the father–child relationship.

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●
Data point 4: Children whose parents divorced when the child was younger than 6 years old were more likely to suffer problems than children of late-divorcing parents (Ermisch, Francesconi, & Pevalin, 2004; Schwartz & Finley, 2005; Zill et al., 1993). For instance, in a study of 1,789 young adults drawn from the British Household Panel Survey, living in a nonintact family before the age of 6 was more likely than later family disruptions to lead to children’s subsequent lower educational attainment and productivity, and higher psychological dis- tress (Ermisch et al., 2004).
To recap, fathers’ involvement and positive parenting predicted benefits for their children. Children whose fathers moved out of the home had a higher incidence of psychological difficulties--most evident in poor father– child relationships--and children who were youngest when they lost frequent contact with their fathers were more likely to suffer these difficulties. It is reasonable to infer that young children’s greater vulnerability to impaired relationships with their divorced fathers results, in part, from restrictions placed on fathers’ time with young children that are not imposed on fathers’ contact with older children. It is with this context that we should consider the next data point:
● Datapoint5:Whenfather–infantcontactsincludedovernightsafterparents separated, there was a lower incidence of father dropout when compared to father–infant contacts that were restricted to the daytime (Maccoby & Mnookin, 1992). Maccoby and Mnookin (1992) concluded, “It appears that daytime visitation is a fragile arrangement. For many families, it signals the early stage of loss of contact with outside fathers” (p. 175). “Because our evidence suggests that the probability of a father maintaining a connection with the child over time is greater if there are overnight visits,” they wrote, “we believe that visitation should ordinarily be construed to permit over- night stays if that is what the secondary parent desires” (p. 288).
Some people contend that Maccoby and Mnookin’s (1992) study has no place in a conversation about potential benefits of overnights because the study did not measure child adjustment (Emery et al., 2016). This view is myopic. Only if this data point is viewed in a vacuum could we overlook its significance for discussions of blanket restrictions. If fathers with overnights are more likely to remain involved in their young children’s lives, this finding merits attention. Overnights might not cause fathers to remain involved; rather, fathers who are more committed to raising their children might be more likely to gain overnights (Warshak, 2000). A causal relationship is more plausible, though, when we bring in another data point and perspectives drawn from extensive professional experience.


● Data point 6: In a longitudinal study where measures were taken before and after divorce, divorced fathers who felt enfranchised rather than marginalized as parents maintained greater contact with their children and were more apt to pay child support (Braver & O’Connell, 1998; Braver et al., 1993).
Depriving a father of the experience of having his child spend the night in his home is likely to diminish the father’s sense of being a fully enfranchised parent (Lamb & Kelly, 2001). Overnights potentially lead to fathers’ greater investment in child-rearing, thus bringing more financial and social capital into children’s lives (Braver et al., 1993; Furstenberg, 2005; Marsiglio & Roy, 2013).
In connecting such data points, Warshak (2014) and the endorsers of the Consensus Report drew on a wide range of knowledge about early child development, parent–child relations, and divorce to address the issue of overnighting. Even researchers who rely on only a few studies for conclusions about parenting plans for young children implicitly incorporate a much broader base of research that informed the design and interpretation of their studies. Thus the issue regarding the scope of research relevant to blanket restrictions is not whether to include studies that have a focus not entirely on overnights; the issue is the bandwidth of scholarship that informs policy recommendations. Scholars (e.g., Cashmore & Parkinson, 2011; Lamb, 2012; Ludolph, 2012) have criticized policy recommendations that are based on a narrow, outdated, and dogmatic perspective on attachment scholarship, one that elevates the importance of mother–child attachment over father– child attachment and sounds an alarm at the prospect of separating an infant from the mother to spend the night with the father.
A house of cards: Analytic gaps between scientific evidence and blanket restrictions
Those who endorse blanket restrictions rely heavily on three studies (McIntosh et al., 2010; Solomon & George, 1999a, 1999b; Tornello et al., 2013) to support their recommendations. In Emery’s (2016) words, “Three of four studies raise concerns about babies spending too many overnights away from the primary caregiver in the first year to eighteen months of life” (p. 101). The fourth study Emery alluded to, by Pruett et al. (2004), compared children between the ages of 2 and 6 who had one or more overnights per week with their fathers, with those who had no overnights. This was the only one of the four studies to report data from fathers as well as mothers. Fathers and mothers reported fewer social problems for children with overnights and mothers reported fewer attention problems. No difference was found in children’s outcomes whether overnights occurred once a week or more
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frequently. Consistent parenting time schedules, positive parent–child rela- tionships, and low parental conflict were more strongly linked to children’s outcomes than were overnights. The investigators concluded that there is no reason for concern about overnights for infants and toddlers.
In 2017, two studies reported positive results for young children who regularly overnighted with their fathers. Fabricius and Suh (2017) studied children with overnights from under 1 year old to age 3. Their results are discussed later in the section about whether overnights should be restricted when parents dispute custody. The second study, Bergström et al. (2018), found that children 3 to 5 years old who spent about equal time in each parent’s home after separation had fewer psychological symptoms than those who lived in other custodial arrangements.
The Warshak (2014) Consensus Report identified multiple and serious flaws in the three studies used to justify concerns about overnighting (McIntosh et al., 2010; Solomon & George, 1999a, 1999b; Tornello et al., 2013). The flaws included insufficiently valid measures, results derived from faulty data of those measures, and unwarranted inferences drawn from those results. These limitations widen the gap between data from these studies and opinions supporting blanket restrictions (Warshak, 2017). If the gap is too wide, courts might regard the opinions as untrustworthy, inadmissible, or worthy of little weight (see General Electric Co. v. Joiner, 1997; Zervopoulos, 2015). Following is a brief recap of concerns raised about the application of these three studies to custody policy.
Solomon and George (1999a, 1999b)
Solomon and George (1999a, 1999b) conducted the earliest study of over- nights and attachment. The sample is not typical of the average custody litigant. “Many” of the parents had never lived together (the study does not specify how many) and 20% no longer had an intimate relationship by the time the children were born. The average age of the children at the time of separation was 5 months, too young to have formed an attachment to their fathers. Also contributing to a gap between this sample and the average couple facing custody decisions is that one or both parents of nearly every child were under a restraining order. In fact, mothers of children who spent nights with their fathers were significantly more likely than mothers of children without overnights to have restraining orders against them. The overnighters’ parents also had higher levels of hostility and abuse, were more likely to be unmarried, and were more likely to have children from more than one relationship. These factors make it difficult to interpret the impact of overnights on infants, given that the infants’ relationships with their parents were forming during a period of great turmoil and high conflict. The study’s authors attributed disruptions in attachment security primarily to stresses related to interparental conflict and to maternal insensitivity toward the child.
It is striking how some authors (McIntosh et al., 2010; Pruett et al., 2014; Tornello et al., 2013) cite this study as showing harmful effects of overnights when Solomon and George reported that overnights were not a significant determinant of outcomes. Summarizing the results, Solomon (1998) wrote that secure attachment to the mother was not related to “the amount of time spent with the father each month, the number of transitions between the mother’s and father’s care, the total number of overnights per month, [or] the number of consecutive nights away from the mother during a visit” (p. 5).
McIntosh et al. (2010)
McIntosh et al. (2010) is a controversial Australian study widely cited to support blanket restrictions. Yet the only data showing poorer outcomes for children who had regular overnights with their fathers were on mother- report measures with unknown validity. For instance, the data set that these researchers analyzed had no validated measure of mother–child attach- ment. On the basis of mothers’ responses to three questions, however, the authors created a measure of “vigilance” that they interpreted as an index of “emotional regulation” problems. The three questions came from a 24-item validated measure of infants’ readiness to learn language; children with higher scores were better able to learn language (Wetherby & Prizant, 2001). The three questions that make up the vigilance measure were the following: Does your child (a) sometimes or often try to get your attention? (b) look to see if you are watching her or him at play? and (c) try to get you to notice other objects? Given the source of the three questions, positive answers might be taken as a sign of advanced cognitive development. The higher scores of overnighting babies would be consistent with studies that have linked involved fathering to toddlers’ more advanced language skills (Cabrera et al., 2010; Magill-Evans & Harrison, 1999; Pancsofar & Vernon- Feagans, 2006). Positive answers to the three questions might also seem to indicate that babies enjoyed interacting with their mothers. Instead, McIntosh et al. (2010) and McIntosh (2011b) interpreted higher scores as indicative of impaired mother–child relationships.
Another index of an infant’s “stress regulation” problems was the mother’s rating of her infant’s irritability. Although infant irritability is generally regarded as an inborn temperament trait rather than a reaction to a stressful environment (Rothbart, 1981), the researchers interpreted scores on the measure of irritability (which had questionable reliability and no predictive validity) as indicating that overnighting had created stress regulation pro- blems for infants. However, the irritability score for babies with no
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overnights actually was slightly worse than the score for babies who had one or more overnights. Moreover, McIntosh et al. overlooked the fact that the irritability scores of the children who had overnights were equal to the scores of the children in the normative intact families.
Group differences were not evident on any of the more objective measures that McIntosh et al. (2010) used and the differences they observed in infants were no longer evident by the time the children were 4 years old. As with Solomon and George (1999a, 1999b), the McIntosh et al. sample was not typical of parents going through a divorce. For example, 90% of the parents of infants in the study were never married to each other.
Tornello et al. (2013)
As with the two studies previously discussed, there is a wide gap between the sample studied by Tornello et al. (2013) and most parents who are engaged in a custody dispute. This study’s data came from the Fragile Families sample of inner-city children born in impoverished circumstances: 60% of the parents were imprisoned before the children’s fifth birthday, 65% had parents who had nonmarital births from more than one partner in their teenage or young adult years, and nearly two-thirds had not completed high school.
To measure the number of father–child overnights when the children were 1 and 3 years old the researchers asked the mothers how many nights the child had stayed with the father since birth and since the child’s first birth- day. The accuracy of the mothers’ recall was not checked. The mothers rated the quality of the mother–child attachment relationship using an abbreviated version of a measure that was designed for use by trained observers. The abbreviated version has no known validity, and the ratings by mothers rather than trained observers have questionable validity (Millar & Kruk, 2014; Nielsen, 2014; Pruett, Cowan, et al., 2016; Van IJzendoorn, Vereijken, Kranenburg, & Walraven, 2004; Warshak, 2014; Waters, 2013). The other outcome measure was a standard, well-validated measure of child behavior (Achenbach, Dumenci, & Rescorla, 2003).
The study’s authors, the press release (Samarrai, 2013), and the media accounts emphasized the higher incidence of insecure mother–child attach- ments for children who had frequent overnights (one to five overnights per week) with fathers before their first birthday. (The press accounts did not mention that the attachment measure lacked validity.) Children who spent frequent overnights with fathers between the ages of 1 and 3 did not have higher incidences of attachment insecurity at age 3. A critical omission in the reporting of these results is that the majority of children classified as having frequent overnights with their fathers actually lived predominantly with their fathers. Thus, the “resident” and “nonresident” parents were mislabeled. If infants living primarily with their fathers had poorer quality attachments to their mothers, in a sample that was overrepresented by mothers with sub- stance abuse, depression, and incarceration, one could hardly conclude that spending frequent overnights in the fathers’ homes caused the poorer mother–child attachments. The presence of umbrellas does not cause rain.
In common with Solomon and George (1999a, 1999b), Tornello et al. (2013) did not find a linear relationship between overnight frequency and attachment insecurity. Instead, insecure attachment scores were more com- mon among the frequent overnighters, followed by the never overnighters, followed by the occasional overnighters--the same nonlinear patterns that characterized the McIntosh et al. (2010) results with respect to “emotional dysregulation.” On the valid measure of behavior, Tornello et al. (2013) found that frequent overnights with fathers between the ages of 1 and 3 predicted positive behavior at age 5. Rather than finding ill effects of separa- tion from the primary caregiver, the study actually found that the children who did best in the long run were those who had more opportunities to be with their father. Thus, as the Warshak Consensus Report and others have noted (Fabricius, Sokol, Diaz, & Braver, 2016; Lamb, 2016; Warshak, 2014), frequency of overnights did not predict insecurity in any of the three studies.
Social Science Basis for Resurrecting Blanket Restrictions?
These three studies, individually or combined, do not shift the settled posi- tion of the 1997 NICHHD consensus statement nor that of later articles that challenge blanket restrictions (Kelly & Lamb, 2000; Lamb & Kelly, 2001; Warshak, 2000, 2002). Emery (2016) and McIntosh (2014), trying to support their case for blanket restrictions by invoking the three studies, argued that “the box score” (Tornello et al., 2013, p. 883) of negative results supports their case. In sum, their case for blanket restrictions is a nonstarter--a mere house of cards--given the flaws in the three studies.
Nevertheless, the report by McIntosh et al. (2010), and McIntosh’s sub- sequent work, had a strong impact. Extensive media coverage consistently quoted McIntosh describing dire consequences attributed to overnights (see Nielsen, 2014, for citations and descriptions of media reports that, in some cases, reached extreme proportions, as in an article that warned against violent behavior in toddlers resulting from overnights). After the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts publicly embraced McIntosh’s research and views on shared parenting and overnights (see Kelly, 2014; Salem & Shienvold, 2014; Warshak, 2017), mental health experts frequently and confidently cited McIntosh and her coauthors to caution against overnights. The phenomenon was widespread (Nielsen, 2014). A major Australian newspaper wrote, “The influence of this study on Australia’s family law system has been so profound that barristers have a special phrase to describe the common experience of losing the battle for
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some overnight care of toddlers--they joke they’ve been ‘McIntoshed’” (Arndt, 2014). Lawyers in several countries described the same experience. Similarly, media accounts of Tornello et al. (2013), including the university press release that accompanied the study’s publication (Samarrai, 2013), reinforced the impression of a strong scientific case favoring blanket restrictions.
Shifting the tide of misinformation: A consensus on shared parenting and overnights
Research psychologists, mental health practitioners, and lawyers throughout the world expressed concern about the impact of questionable research and skewed views of settled social science research on custody matters (see Arndt, 2014; Lamb, 2012; Nielsen, 2014, 2015). Misinformation--largely traced to the government report prepared by McIntosh et al. (2010) for Australia’s Attorney General and the manner in which that report was interpreted and promoted--had generated widespread confusion and uncertainty about whether the scientific community had shifted its position on overnights.
The Warshak Consensus Report addressed these troubling concerns (Warshak, 2014). Its purpose was to reaffirm the settled science on the effects of overnights on young children and to stem the tide of misinformation that had been driving custody decisions, guidelines, and expert opinions. The American Psychological Association journal, Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, edited by Michael Lamb, published the report with the endorsement of 110 social scientists.
The researchers and practitioners who endorsed the Warshak Consensus Report included prominent international authorities on attachment, princi- pal investigators for the celebrated NICHHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, and leading researchers who have studied the impact of divorce since the mid-1970s. Publishing the paper with these endorsements conformed to the recommendation made in 2003 by a group of 28 research- ers and practitioners. These professionals advised, “The best safeguard against [the possibility of bias] is a summary that has the consensual endor- sement of a large number of experienced and respected social science researchers, as well as enlightened consumers or practitioners of this litera- ture” (Warshak et al., 2003, p. 2). Discussing the impact of a cosigned amicus brief, Sales (1995) explained an additional benefit: “It [the cosigned amicus brief] had instant scientific credibility, not only because of its authors’ credentials and reputations, but also because it was cosigned by 43 other scholars” (p. 245).
The endorsers of the Warshak Consensus Report agreed that, in general, a robust body of social science evidence supports shared residential arrange- ments, including overnights, for children under 4 years of age whose parents live apart. The three studies relied on by proponents of blanket restrictions (McIntosh et al., 2010; Solomon & George, 1999a, 1999b; Tornello et al., 2013) do not provide sufficient evidence to support postponing the intro- duction of regular and frequent involvement, including overnights, of both parents with their babies and toddlers.
Circumstances that constitute exceptions to the general recommendations include manifestations of restrictive gatekeeping such as persistent and unwarranted interference with parenting time (Austin, Fieldstone, & Pruett, 2013; Pruett, Arthur, & Ebling, 2007; Pruett, Cowan, Cowan, & Diamond, 2012; Warshak et al., 2003), a history or credible risk of neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, or psychological abuse toward a child, a history of intimate partner violence, a history of child abduction, a child’s special needs (e.g., cystic fibrosis or autism), and a significant geographical separa- tion between the parents.
The presence of conflict between the parents, though, is not a sufficient reason to deny children the benefits of joint physical custody. Automatically restricting children’s time with one of the parents when a couple is labeled as “high conflict” deprives children of the protective buffer of a nurturing relationship with that parent. A policy that allows one parent to veto joint physical custody merely by claiming a conflicted relationship with the other parent provides motivation for parents to initiate, sustain, and escalate conflict and involve children in the conflict as a path to winning sole physical custody. In many cases, children can be protected from frequent exposure to conflict without depriving them of important time with a parent.
And the dance continues
After the consensus report’s publication, McIntosh et al. (2015) conceded that their three-item vigilance scale has “relatively low” reliability and is a “weak link” in their study. Their concession is weak. They used this measure as a proxy for insecure attachment and as a sign of emotional regulation difficulties, but they have not disavowed their conclusions or cautions against overnights derived from this and other untrustworthy measures in their study. Instead, McIntosh and Smyth continue to report that the infants in their study with weekly overnights had “higher levels of emotionally dysre- gulated behaviors” (Smyth, McIntosh, Emery, & Howarth, 2016, p. 153) and showed “a greater cluster of stress regulation problems compared with infants with fewer overnight stays” (McIntosh et al., 2015, p. 113). In fact, McIntosh et al. (2015) adopted a more extreme position by extending the age range for warnings against overnights: “Regardless of the context of their parents’ separation, more frequent overnight stays might be more challen- ging for emotional regulation processes in young children under 4 years of age than for children aged 4 years and over” (p. 113). These continued
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assertions of McIntosh et al. are the equivalent of reporting a baby’s weight on a broken scale while concealing the fact that the scale is faulty.
Like the whack-a-mole arcade game, the idea that overnighting is likely to be harmful threatens to pop up, most recently in the CODIT checklist (McIntosh, 2015; Pruett, 2015). A brief disclaimer at the end of the CODIT states that it is not intended as a diagnostic instrument or as the sole basis for decisions. Nevertheless, the CODIT asserts, “Even when all parenting conditions are met, high numbers of overnights (more than weekly) are not generally indicated for young infants 0–18 months sub- ject to family law disputes.” This guideline proposes a rebuttable pre- sumption against more than one overnight per week, even when the parents consistently and sensitively meet the children’s needs. In practice this guideline limits the child’s interactions with the father around bed- time rituals and morning routines simply if the mother objects. That is, the mother’s preference prevails even if her objection is capricious, even if her motives are vindictive, or even if the father demonstrates superior parenting.
The CODIT raises other concerns. Despite its brief disclaimer, the CODIT Profile is derived from scores on various factors. Yet the CODIT is a subjectively rated checklist with no known reliability or validity for its scores. The checklist assesses children’s behaviors such as “excessive clinging on separation,” “frequent crying,” “aggressive beha- vior,” and “low persistence in play & learning” with no anchors to distinguish between troubling behavior that is typical for children at this age and atypical behavior. For instance, the CODIT provides no guidance about ages at which babies will normally cry frequently and will resist soothing or about how much crying warrants concern. Nor does it provide guidance about situations where a baby is naturally more likely to cry, such as early evening when exchanges to the father are likely to occur (Wolke, Bilgin, & Samara, 2017). Will CODIT users recommend no overnights because they deem a normal toddler’s clinging, crying, or irritability as too frequent? Such judgments will be likely when profes- sionals, such as judges and mediators, lack expertise in developmental psychology.
Even if behaviors such as excessive clinging and frequent crying could be rated reliably, there are no studies that correlate scores on the CODIT --or decisions based on these scores--with outcomes for children. The CODIT assumes, without evidence, that troubling behaviors in an infant or toddler that persist more than 2 weeks are caused or exacerbated by too much overnighting and can be resolved by restricting or eliminating over- nights. Thus, the instrument provides a means for parents to rationalize restricting their children’s overnights with the other parent (Austin, 2018).


Should overnights be restricted when parents dispute child custody?
Contemporary blanket restrictions emphasize the role of interparental con- flict as a factor contraindicating overnights, but professionals’ opinions are inconsistent. With angry or distant coparenting relationships, Emery (n.d.) advised that all sleeping, with the exception of daytime naps, occur in the mother’s home. Solomon (2013) recommended no overnights until children are at least 20 months old if their parents have high conflict and impaired communications. Pruett, Cowan, et al. (2016) recommended a conservative approach to overnights only when parents’ disagreements interfere with the care of the child, presumably recognizing that not all disagreements directly affect the quality of child care. In the CODIT McIntosh (2015) and Pruett (2015) promoted a presumption against more than one overnight per week for children younger than 18 months if their parents are in a dispute over custody.
Emery (2014) promoted a more radical position for contested custody cases. Regarding joint physical custody, he advised, “It’s all but certain to be the worst [arrangement] when parents end up in court” (para. 6). Emery opposed shared parenting arrangements for all contested custody cases, regardless of the nature of conflict, the manner in which the conflict is expressed, and the age of the children. In this view, a couple who commu- nicate well; share parenting philosophies, styles, and routines; and agree on most child-rearing decisions, are unsuited for joint physical custody if they take their dispute to court because they disagree about the wisdom of shared parenting and overnights.
These views about conflict and overnighting assume that conflict takes a greater toll on young children when their fathers care for them overnight compared with daytime care. Just as no coherent theory explains why night- time mother–child separations entail more risks than daytime separations, however, no one has explained why parental conflicts are presumed to be more damaging to children who spend nights in their fathers’ care.
Empirical Studies
Nielsen’s (2017) analysis of studies that included measures and controls for conflict affirmed the value of shared parenting even when one parent opposes the arrangement and the parents sustain high conflict (excluding domestic violence cases). With one exception, studies have yet to address whether parental conflict has a different impact on very young children versus older children in shared parenting arrangements. The exception is a longitudinal study of 116 college students (Fabricius & Suh, 2017). This study found better outcomes for those who, in the first 3 years of life, spent overnights with their fathers after their parents separated. The more
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overnights they had spent with their fathers, up to equally shared over- nights, the higher the quality and the more secure were their relationships as young adults with their fathers and mothers. The young adults who had more overnights in infancy felt closer to both parents and were more certain that they were important to their parents. Overnights away from mothers did not harm mother–child relationships. Moreover, having more daytime visits with their father in midchildhood did not compensate for having fewer overnights with him in early childhood.
The data from Fabricius and Suh (2017) failed to support the hypothesis that joint physical custody children did better because their parents were better educated, had less conflict, and agreed on the parenting plan. The benefits of overnights were evident even when parents reported high levels of conflict early in the child’s development. “Even when parents present with high conflict, intractable disagreement about overnights, and a child under 1 year old,” Fabricius and Suh (2017) concluded, “both parent-child relation- ships are likely to benefit in the long term from overnight parenting time up to and including equally-shared overnights at both parents’ homes” (pp. 80–81). These results support the Consensus Report recommendation that parental conflict should not trump joint physical custody arrangements (Warshak, 2014).
Because Fabricius and Suh (2017) studied university students, their results might not generalize to children from impoverished families who do not attend college. Also, this study does not report about child adjustment in the earlier years. It is possible that although overnight separations might have stressed the mother–child relationship in earlier years, this effect was tem- porary and was overshadowed by the benefits to their relationship in later years. Fabricius and Suh (2017) noted that their data directly oppose the CODIT recommendations promoted by McIntosh and by Pruett: “The find- ings also indicate that normal parent conflict, disagreements about over- nights, and children under 1 year of age are not circumstances that should require caution; on the contrary, more overnight parenting time appears to be needed in those cases” (p. 80).
Conflict Management
Parents have good reasons for shielding children from their disagreements about overnights. A parent’s anxiety can be transmitted to a child through nonverbal means, such as the manner in which a parent holds the child. Thus, a blanket restrictions proponent might argue that if the mother is not comfortable handing the child to the father for an overnight contact, the child will sense the mother’s discomfort and react poorly during the transition.


This rationale for denying overnights is weak. It is easy to craft a plan that shields the child from the mother’s tension associated with the transfer to the father. The transfer can take place at a neutral site. The baby experiences the father’s care in the father’s home with no sense of the mother’s feelings about the overnight. Under this circumstance the mother’s agreement or lack of agreement on overnights is irrelevant to the impact on the child. If separation anxiety is the raison d’etre for blanket restrictions or if separation from the primary caretaker overnight is harmful to children, then it should not matter how the mother feels about overnights. If, however, as McIntosh maintains, overnights are okay as long as the mother agrees to them, the basis for opposing overnights cannot logically be a concern that the child cannot tolerate separations from the mother.
Normative experiences relevant to policies about overnights
The last two shifts this article addresses are (a) night shifts worked by mothers that keep them apart from their babies at night, and (b) shifts in how some people judge normative family situations versus situations after divorce.
Many mothers work evening and night shifts, leaving fathers to deal with children’s bedtimes, middle of the night awakenings, and morning routines (Boushey, 2006; Burstein & Layzer, 2007; Fox et al., 2013). Also, many couples alternate nighttime child care responsibilities. Our society regards the father’s participation in these child care activities as normal, expected, and desirable. These parents do not report unusual problems between mother and child or problematic behaviors for the child arising from the father’s overnight care.
Consider two additional common scenarios. In the first one, a family with an infant has a house at the lake that they live in on weekends. The infant sleeps in one crib in one house on weekdays, and in another crib in another house on weekends. In the second, a young couple leaves their baby every Friday and Saturday night with the baby’s grandparents so that the couple can have romantic time together and a break from parenting. If infant sleeping arrangements like these raise no alarms when parents live together, those who propose a double standard bear the burden to justify a radical shift in how these arrangements are judged after parents separate.
Ecology of overnights
All child care arrangements occur in a context and are nested in a number of interrelated systems that require us to move beyond the individual child as the unit of analysis. McIntosh explicitly recognized the importance of considering the context in which overnights take place: “A mother of an infant may simply
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be a better, more responsive parent the next day if she had a good night’s sleep herself and felt grateful for and supported by father’s willingness to give her an occasional overnight break” (George et al., 2011, p. 525). This begs the question: If an occasional overnight contributes to the mother’s improved sleep, which contributes to better parenting the next day, would regular overnights contri- bute to better parenting on a regular basis instead of just occasionally? Recall Tikotzky et al.’s (2015) finding that both mothers and their 6-month-old infants were more likely to sleep through the night when fathers had been more involved in daytime and nighttime caregiving 3 months earlier.
Logistics of Parenting Plans Without Overnights
The importance of context seems to be lost on some proponents of blanket restrictions. For instance, one of Emery’s (n.d.) suggested alternative child custody schedules for a child under the age of 18 months is spending time with the father from 8:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. 2 days a wee k, or 2.5 hours beginning at 3:00 p.m. on one or two weekdays. Most fathers’ work schedules would be incompatible with such a parenting schedule. Also, fathers with very young children are likely to be in the early stages of their careers or occupations at a time when they lack much control or flexibility over their work schedules. Even if fathers could keep their jobs while regularly being absent from work during the day, they are likely to suffer a loss in income, which in turn forces a father to choose between time with his child and providing adequate financial support. How many fathers can arrange or afford to take off from work two half-days every week?
Parenting time schedules that deny fathers overnights often include 2- to 3-hour contacts once or twice during the work week. This kind of contact is hurried and stressful for both father and child--not a situation that fosters sensitive and reciprocal interactions that promote secure attachments (Ludolph, 2012). By the time the father loads the car with the baby and baby paraphernalia, drives home, unloads the car, and feeds the child, little time is left for relaxed interaction before reloading the car and returning the baby to the mother. An overnight reduces the number of transitions and allows the father and child the time and structure to bond in ways that more closely resemble an intact family and to become accustomed to being in each other’s presence during the evening, at night, and in the morning. Overnights can also benefit the child by allowing the father to return the child to day care in the morning instead of to the mother’s home, thus shielding the child from conflict and tension between the parents.


Shifting Parenting Plans: Stepping Up Overnights
Some proponents of blanket restrictions call for overnights to be gradually phased in through a “step-up” plan when a child reaches a certain age (Pruett, Deutsch, & Drozd, 2016). Various proposals set the age for “step- ups” at between 18 months and 4 to 5 years, and the child’s age is not the sole criterion for a shift. If the goal is to help the child, and perhaps the father, acclimate to overnights, however wouldn’t it be easier if the overnights existed since infancy? Then overnights with both father and mother would be the life the child has always known. As Pruett et al. (2004) wrote, “It stands to reason that it is easier to be ‘born’ into parenting plans that require overnights and multiple caregivers than to adjust to it once the child has habituated to a different family pattern” (pp. 54–55).
A toddler who has never or rarely spent the night in the father’s home might feel stressed when regular overnights are introduced. This is more likely if the child is slow to warm up to novel experiences. A child with such a temperament is most likely to benefit if overnights were always a part of life, rather than first introduced at age 4. Four-year-old children in Western culture usually face a major transition in where they spend their daytime hours, shifting from home or day care to prekindergarten. The child who is accustomed to overnights with the father is spared the challenge of another major life transition in addition to the changes faced in daytime care.
“I Want My Daughter to See Her Grandparents”
The bioecological model expands our focus beyond the parent–child relation- ship. A father explained another reason why overnights with his baby were important: “I wanted longer weekend time with overnights so that I could take our daughter to see her grandparents out of state.” Blanket restrictions in his case meant postponing and curtailing the development of the grand- parent–grandchild relationship. As Jappens (2018) pointed out, children who have close relationships with their grandparents benefit more than those who lose these relationships because of their parents’ separation.
In families where a parent’s distance from the child’s school will make it unfeasible to share custody during the school week, overnights before the child begins daily school attendance provide opportunities to solidify the foundations of their relationship. Although restricting parent–child con- tacts to weekends is not desirable for most school-age children, an early and strong foundation supported by regular overnights during infancy and toddlerhood can help to sustain the relationship despite the lack of in- person contact during the school week. These examples underscore the importance of considering the ecological fit of parenting plans within wider contexts.
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Conclusion
The evidence reviewed in this article does not support a shift backward to blanket restrictions by implementing a double standard in which over- night and early morning fathering time is welcomed when parents live together, but eschewed when parents separate. Considerations favoring overnights for most young children are more compelling than concerns that mother–child separations jeopardize children’s psychological develop- ment. Nearly two decades ago Warshak (2000) proposed this thesis--a thesis that now carries the imprimatur of a consensus of 110 researchers and practitioners who define the accepted and settled view of science (Warshak, 2014).
This sequel to the “Blanket Restrictions” article has not shifted from the conclusions of 18 years ago (Warshak, 2000) and it concludes on the same note as the original ended. In nearly two decades no one has adequately answered this question: If babies can sleep apart from mothers during the day under the care of day care attendants, grandparents, babysitters, and fathers, by what logic do we deprive children after their parents’ separation of enriching bedtime and morning experiences enjoyed by children in two- parent homes? This challenge overshadows the theoretical and research perspectives and the shifts among professionals in their views about overnights.
Fathers take the night shift in two-parent homes. They can, and should, do so when living apart from their children’s mothers.
Acknowledgments
Linda Nielsen, PhD, and John A. Zervopoulos, PhD, JD, ABPP, offered valuable feedback to a draft of this article.
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Journal of Divorce & Remarriage
ISSN: 1050-2556 (Print) 1540-4811 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjdr20
Does Shared Parenting Help or Hurt Children in High-Conflict Divorced Families?
Nicole E. Mahrer, Karey L. O’Hara, Irwin N. Sandler & Sharlene A. Wolchik
To cite this article: Nicole E. Mahrer, Karey L. O’Hara, Irwin N. Sandler & Sharlene A. Wolchik (2018): Does Shared Parenting Help or Hurt Children in High-Conflict Divorced Families?, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, DOI: 10.1080/10502556.2018.1454200
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454200
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JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE
https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454200
Does Shared Parenting Help or Hurt Children in High-Conflict Divorced Families?
Nicole E. Mahrer a, Karey L. O’Hara b, Irwin N. Sandlerb, and Sharlene A. Wolchikb
aDepartment of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA; bREACH Institute, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
KEYWORDS
Fathers; interparental conflict; parenting quality; parenting time; shared parenting; youth adjustment


ABSTRACT
Despite a recent shift in the allocation of parenting time arrangements following divorce, there is no clear consensus regarding the effects of shared parenting on children’s adjust- ment in high-conflict families. We propose key questions and methodological options to increase the ability of results from well-designed empirical studies to inform practice and policy. We review 11 studies of relations between parenting time and parenting quality with children’s adjustment in high-conflict divorced families. Despite heterogeneity of methods used across the studies, some tentative conclusions can be made based on findings of multiple studies. Higher levels of shared parenting were related to poorer child adjustment in samples with high conflict many years following the divorce, but typi- cally not in samples that assessed conflict during the divorcing process or in the 2 or 3 years following the divorce. There is also evidence that the effects of shared parenting on child adjustment in the presence of high conflict differs by gender, and that high quality of parenting by at least 1 parent is associated with better child adjustment in high-conflict divorces. Implications for policy and practice are discussed as well as directions for research to strengthen the knowledge base to inform policy.
Over the past several decades, there has been a significant shift in the allocation of parenting time following divorce, such that fathers are receiving more parenting time than ever before (Meyer, Cancian, & Cook, 2017). Reasons for this cultural shift in parenting time include increases in women’s participation in the workforce, legislation encouraging shared parenting arrangements, changing attitudes about the benefits of father involvement in children’s upbringing (Lamb, 2012), and changes in what is considered a fair distribution of parenting time following divorce (Braver, Ellman, Votruba, & Fabricius, 2011). As shared parenting arrangements have become more widely accepted, changes in court practices have followed, either by holding a presumption for shared parenting (Fabricius, Aarons, Akins, &
CONTACT Nicole E. Mahrer [email protected] Department of Psychology, University of California at Los Angeles, 1285A Franz Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563, USA.
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC


2 N. E. MAHRER ET AL.
Assini, 2017) or by imposing shared parenting on families who cannot reach a voluntary agreement on a parenting plan (Smart, 2004). Although there is broad agreement that shared parenting is generally associated with better child adjustment following divorce (Braver, 2014), there is disagreement about whether this generalization holds under conditions of high interpar- ental conflict (IPC; Nielsen, 2017; Smyth, McIntosh, Emery, & Howarth, 2016).
Over the past two decades, three groups have made recommendations related to shared parenting, including optimal parenting arrangements in the context of high IPC. In 1997, a group sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Lamb, Sternberg, & Thompson, 1997) emphasized the importance of both parents staying involved following separation or divorce and recognized the need to protect children from an ongoing pattern of violence between parents but did not provide special recommendations for parenting arrangements when high levels of nonviolent conflict were present. In 2013, a group sponsored by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts advocated for a balance of the needs to maintain family relationships following divorce and protect children from exposure to high levels of IPC (Pruett & DiFonzo, 2014). This group of judges, lawyers, mental health professionals, and social scientists proposed that decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis for families with high levels of conflict. Their report cautioned against using research findings uniformly, particularly in high-conflict cases, and instead advocated that research should inform lines of inquiry and variables to consider when assessing families during custody evaluations. They reached no consensus on shared parenting for young children. A third group reached consensus that shared parenting was appropriate for families with young children (Warshak, 2014, with 110 endorsements from researchers and practitioners). The report considered the special case of high-conflict families (i.e., families who litigate custody or show conflict in their interactions) and supported the consideration of shared parenting arrangements even in families with high levels of IPC.1 This group suggested that courts heavily weigh their assess- ment of the quality of parenting in both parents and consider ways to improve transitions between parents and reduce conflict, rather than dismiss the option of shared parenting arrangements in cases of high IPC.
Despite the considerable attention that the issue has received, there continues to be conflicting recommendations from prominent social scientists about whether shared parenting is likely to be in the best interest of children in divorced families when there is a high level of IPC (Nielsen, 2017; Smyth et al., 2016). Further, it remains unclear how much quality of parenting should be considered. Many have argued that it is important to consider quality of
1The report specifically exempted families with a history of violence or child abuse from its recommendations.


parenting when deciding on parenting time arrangements in high-conflict divorces because quality of parenting is more strongly associated with child adjustment than parenting time per se (Adamsons & Johnson, 2013).
Critical questions for the scientific community
For the scientific community to better inform policy recommendations for parenting time in families with high IPC, there are three critical questions that need to be addressed:

1. (1)  Is shared parenting time associated with better child adjustment when there are high levels of IPC?
2. (2)  Is the quality of mothers’ and fathers’ parenting associated with better child adjustment when there is high IPC?
3. (3)  Do shared parenting time and quality of parenting interact to influ- ence child adjustment in high-conflict families?

Before reviewing the studies that have addressed these questions, we discuss how IPC, parenting quality, and parenting time have been defined and measured in the literature.
Defining and measuring IPC
IPC following divorce has been defined broadly in the literature to include a wide range of factors including anger, unresolved grief, hostile contempt, uncooperative coparenting, verbal and physical fighting, and legal conflict between the parents (Nielsen, 2017; Smyth et al., 2016). Previous research and large-scale meta-analyses have documented the negative impact of IPC on a wide range of youth adjustment outcomes including internalizing and externalizing problems, self-esteem, and relationship problems (Rhoades, 2008). However, the measures of IPC used in the literature differ in their association with child adjustment. For example, Goodman and colleagues found only modest relations among mothers’ and fathers’ ratings of IPC, “incompetent parenting” by the other parent, and legal conflict (range of r = .24–.39), and reported that only the measure of mother and father reports of IPC was related to child mental health problems (Goodman, Bonds, Sandler, & Braver, 2004).
Several factors are important to consider when assessing IPC. First, con- flict should be distinguished from domestic violence, which refers to severe emotional and physical abuse that occurs between parents. This distinction has been noted in reviews of the literature on factors that might influence decisions about parenting time arrangements following divorce (Lamb et al., 1997; Warshak, 2014). Second, it is important to distinguish between high
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4 N. E. MAHRER ET AL.
IPC that occurs immediately following separation and during the custody deliberations but declines over time (Hetherington & Kelly, 2002) and con- flict that persists years later. Third, the intensity of IPC can range from verbal disagreements to verbal abuse. Fourth, the IPC might or might not involve, or occur in front of, the children. Fifth, reporter effects are important to consider. Children’s exposure to IPC might be best assessed by child report rather than parent report (Davern, Staiger, & Luk, 2005).
Defining and measuring quality of parenting
Parenting quality is a broad term that has been applied to several constructs including the quality of the parent–child relationship (e.g., warmth, commu- nication, support, encouragement, closeness), parental involvement in chil- dren’s activities, and use of effective discipline (e.g., consistency, appropriate consequences, effective monitoring). The combination of a warm parent– child relationship and use of appropriate discipline has been consistently linked with positive child adjustment following divorce (Adamson & Johnson, 2013; Sandler et al., 2012). Reliable and valid measures of the quality of parenting by mother and father have been developed, although sometimes different measures are used for fathers because children have historically lived primarily with their mothers after divorce. For example, many studies use fathers’ parenting time and involvement in their children’s activities as proxy measures for quality of parenting (see Fabricius, Sokol, Diaz, & Braver, 2012, for review). In contrast, mothers’ quality of parenting tends to be assessed more directly with measures asking about specific aspects of parenting such as warmth, communication, and discipline style.
Defining and measuring parenting time
Shared parenting is typically defined as living with each parent a minimum of 30% of the time. It has been measured by some researchers as a dichotomous variable of shared physical residential parenting versus sole or primary residential parenting. Other researchers report parenting time as a contin- uous variable, by measuring the number of overnights, or the typical number of days and nights children spend with each parent (Fabricius et al., 2012).
Theories concerning the effects of parenting time and quality of parenting in high-conflict divorced families
There are competing theories regarding how contact with the parent who has less parenting time predicts child adjustment in high-conflict divorces. Because this parent is usually the father, we refer to this parent as the father in this article. The conflict hypothesis posits that there is an interaction between conflict and parenting time, 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 creates more opportunities for children to be exposed to IPC (e.g., Johnston, Kline, & Tschann, 1989) and thus have more adjustment problems (see Nielsen, 2017, for a review of evidence concerning this theory). A competing theory 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 (Fabricius et al., 2012; Lamb, 2012). We refer to this as the benefits hypothesis. A further 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 children receive high-quality parenting (Lamb, 2012; Sandler, Wheeler, & Braver, 2013).
Research designs to test the various theories
Several analytic approaches have been used to test the question of whether the benefits of time or quality of parenting persist even when there is a high level of conflict between the parents following the divorce. One approach compares the relations between parenting time (or parenting quality) of the father and child adjustment, taking into account (or statistically controlling for) the level of IPC. Studies using this approach generally find better adjustment outcomes (mental health and academic) in children with shared parenting or more time with the father (e.g., Buchanan, Maccoby, & Dornbusch, 1996; Gunnoe & Braver, 2001; see Nielsen, 2017, for review). These findings indicate that children benefit from more time with their fathers, even when accounting for the negative effects of IPC. A second approach compares the effect of IPC on child adjustment with the effects of father parenting time or quality of father parenting on child adjustment to determine whether conflict has a stronger negative effect on child adjustment compared to the positive effect of parenting time or quality of parenting. Some studies have found that parenting quality is a stronger predictor of positive child adjustment relative to IPC (e.g., Fauber, Forehand, Thomas, & Wierson, 1990). However, neither of these approaches directly addresses the question of how parenting time or quality of parenting is positively or negatively related to child adjustment when there is high IPC.
We propose that researchers design studies that consider the two-way interaction between IPC and parenting time or quality of parenting in predicting child adjustment. This would help to determine whether more father parenting time or a high-quality relationship with the father is likely to help or hurt child adjustment in families with high IPC. A positive relation
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6 N. E. MAHRER ET AL.
between father parenting time and child adjustment problems under condi- tions of high conflict would support the conflict hypothesis. A negative relation would support the benefit hypothesis. In high-conflict samples (e.g., families court ordered to high-conflict classes), a test of the simple effects of parenting time on child outcomes would be sufficient to test the conflict and benefit hypotheses. These interaction models could also answer more complicated, and as yet unanswered questions, such as whether the effect of father parenting time on child adjustment in high-conflict families depends on the quality of his parenting. That is, shared parenting time might be related to better child adjustment for high-conflict families when there is high-quality parenting, but not when there is low-quality parenting. These models can be tested as triple interaction effects, among IPC, parenting time, and parenting quality, although adequate power to detect complex interactive effects requires large sample sizes.
Another approach is to assess the levels of child adjustment problems in families that are characterized by different combinations of parenting time, parenting quality, and IPC. An advantage of this approach is that it starts by identifying the different patterns (or profiles) of parenting time, parenting quality, and IPC that best characterize the sample being studied and the percentage of families that represent each pattern. For example, although it might be of theoretical interest to understand children’s adjustment in families characterized by high father parenting time, low-quality parenting, and high IPC, the policy implications of that pattern would differ greatly depending on what percentage of families are characterized as having that pattern. A limitation of this approach is that the profiles of most interest to policymakers (e.g., high conflict, shared parenting, high quality parenting) might not be the ones that best characterize the samples that are studied. Common examples of this approach are latent profile analysis (LPA) and latent class analysis (LCA), both of which allow for inclusion of many variables in the model and create profiles based on common patterns among the participants.
Current empirical evidence of the joint effects of IPC, parenting time, and parenting quality on child adjustment
We have found 11 studies that examined the joint relations among parenting time, parenting quality, and IPC and child adjustment following divorce using the analytic approaches described earlier (see Table 1 for an overview of these studies). We discuss findings from these studies to systematically address the joint effects of conflict, parenting time, and parenting quality on children’s postdivorce adjustment. We first review findings from all studies that report on the associations of parenting time with child adjustment under conditions of high conflict. We then review findings from studies that report


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Table 1 Overview of Studies Examining the Relations among Parenting Time (PT), Parenting Quality (PQ), Interparental Conflict (IPC), and Youth Adjustment (YA)
Study
Participants
Measures (reporter):
Questions, Data analysis approach, Control Variables, Study Design Questions Addressed:
Q2: Interaction effect of IPC and PT on YA.
Findings:
Interaction effects
Simple effects within high conflict Interaction effect(s):
IPC moderated the positive relationship between PT (joint custody) and youth adjustment (life satisfaction).
Vanassche et al. (2013)
Sample:
Interparental Conflict:
youth reporter – “conflict awareness”
Amato & Rezac (1994)
Sample:
Interparental Conflict:
parent reporter – “conflict across areas”
Questions Addressed:
- Joint custody predicted more feelings of depression in girls. Interaction effect(s):
No interaction effect for PT X IPC and behavior problems in the full sample (approached significance for young boys – p<.07).
1570 adolescents & young adults
ages 11 – 23
(m = 15.2, SD = 1.9)
youth reporter - categorical (mother, father, joint versus sole custody)
Time since divorce/separation: 0 -20 years
(m = 7.8; SD = 4.3)
Parenting Quality:
youth reporter - “parent-child relationship”, mother and father
Control Variables, age, financial situation, parent educational level; years since divorce; parent partner status
For girls, IPC moderated the negative relation between PT (joint custody) and youth feelings of depression.
1,285 biological parents of children in single-parent families 725 in divorced sample
Q2: Interaction effect of IPC and PT on YA.
ages 5-18
parent reporter - “frequency of contact” Parenting Quality: NOT MEASURED
IPC moderated the relationship between PT and behavior problems for boys in the divorced subsample (effect was in predicted direction for girls, but not significant).
Time since divorce/separation: not reported
parent reporter - “behavior problems”
Parenting Time:
Data Analysis Approach: multivariate regression
Adjustment:
Design: cross-sectional
Under the conditions of high conflict: - Joint custody predicted lower youth life satisfaction in boys and girls.
youth reporter - “life satisfaction”; “feelings of depression”
Parenting Time:
Data Analysis Approach: multiple regression (for full sample and divorced subsample)
Adjustment:
Covariates: mother residence, parent age, education, income, race/ethnicity, current marital status, divorce (vs. never married)
Design: cross-sectional
Simple effects:
Simple effects:
Under conditions of high conflict,
PT predicted behavior problems in boys from divorced families.
(Continued )

8 N. E. MAHRER ET AL.

Table 1 (Continued). Study
Participants
Measures (reporter):
Questions, Data analysis approach, Control Variables, Study Design Questions Addressed:
Q2: Interaction effect of IPC and PT on YA.
Findings:
Interaction effects
Simple effects within high conflict Interaction effect(s): n/a
Simple effects:
In this high conflict sample, PT (frequency of access) predicted total behavior problems, depression, withdrawn/uncommunicative behavior, and somatic complaints.
Johnston et al. (1989)
Sample:
Interparental Conflict:
parent reporter - “child witnessed conflict” clinician reporter - “child caught or used in conflict”
Healy et al. (1990)
Sample:
Interparental Conflict: court files - “legal conflict”
Questions Addressed:
Interaction effect(s):
IPC moderated the relations between: - PT (regularity) and youth self-esteem at T1
- PT (frequency) and youth self-esteem at T1 and T2
- PT (frequency and regularity) and youth behavior problems at T1
- PQ and behavior problems at T2
100 parents referred for counseling or mediation
Data Analysis Approach: multivariate regression
T2: ages 4-15
parent reporter - “physical custody type”; joint, sole mother, sole father
“frequency of access”
“time-sharing schedule”
Covariates: gender
Time since divorce/separation:
T2: m = 4.42 years; SD = 2.33
Parenting Quality: NOT MEASURED
Design: longitudinal
T1: referral to court
T2: mean of 29.09 (SD = 7.85) months later
Greater PT explained a significant amount of the variance in girls’ behavior problem, but not in boys’ behavior problems. The boys who had greater PT, had lower social competence scores.
121 children and mothers
Q1: Interaction effect of IPC and PQ on YA. Q2: Interaction effect of IPC and PT on YA.
ages 6-12 (m=8.6; SD=1.99)
mother reporter – “frequency & regularity of visitation with father”
Data Analysis Approach: regression analyses
Time since divorce/separation: <8 months before T1
Parenting Quality:
youth reporter - “closeness of father and child”
Adjustment:
youth reporter - “self-esteem”
mother reporter - “total behavior problems”
Covariates: gender, age
Design: longitudinal (T2 – 12 mo follow/up)
Parenting Time:
Adjustment:
parent reporter - “total problems, depression, withdrawn, somatic, aggression, social”
Parenting Time:
IPC at T2 moderated the relation between PQ at T1 and self-esteem at T2.
Simple effects:
Under high legal conflict
(Continued )

JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 9

Table 1 (Continued). Study
Participants
Measures (reporter):
Questions, Data analysis approach, Control Variables, Study Design
Findings:
Interaction effects
Simple effects within high conflict
(within 8 months of separation):
- Greater PT at T1 (frequency and
regularity) predicted low self-esteem
at T1
- PQ at T1 was not related to self-esteem at T1 - Lower PT at T1 predicted more
behavior problems at T1
Fabricius & Luecken (2007)
Sample:
Interparental Conflict: youth reporter - “frequency”
Questions Addressed:
Interaction effect(s):
Gunnoe & Braver (2001)
Sample:
Interparental Conflict:
parent reporter - “general conflict”
Questions Addressed:
Interaction effect(s):
266 young adults
Q2: Interaction effect of IPC and PT on YA.
PT did not moderate the positive relation between IPC and divorce-related distress.
ages 16-36 (m=19)
Parenting Time:
Data Analysis Approach: SEM; alternative mediation models
Time since divorce/separation: 40%: age 0-5
33%: age 6-10
27%: age 11-15
youth reporter - “living arrangement” (range from full time with mother to full time with father)
Simple effects: n/a
78 families (mothers and fathers)
Q2: Interaction effect of IPC and PT on YA.
IPC did not moderate the negative relation between PT (joint custody) and child impulsivity.
age: m=7.7; range not reported
parent reporter – “legal custody”; sole maternal or joint
Parenting Quality:
youth reporter - “father caring”
Control Variables: gender Design: cross-sectional
Adjustment:
youth reporter - “divorce-related distress”
Parenting Time:
Data Analysis Approach: series of MANCOVA analyses
Under continued high legal conflict (12-month follow-up): PQ at T1 did not predict self-esteem or behavior problems at T2.
Simple effects: n/a
(Continued )

10 N. E. MAHRER ET AL.

Table 1 (Continued). Study
Participants
Measures (reporter):
Questions, Data analysis approach, Control Variables, Study Design
Findings:
Interaction effects
Simple effects within high conflict
Kaspiew et al. (2009)
Sample: national sample of 10,000 parents (at least one child under 18)2
Interparental Conflict:
mother & father reporter (separate models) – “perceived quality of interparental relationship – friendly/cooperative/distant vs. conflictual/fearful”
Questions Addressed:
Interaction effect(s):
Sandler, Miles, Crookston, & Braver (2008)
Sample:
Interparental Conflict:
mother, father, youth reporters (standardized composite)– “frequency, intensity, degree of resolution”
Questions Addressed:
Interaction effect(s):
IPC moderated the effects of mother PQ and father PQ on internalizing problems (3-way interaction).
Time since divorce/separation: W1: 2.5 months post-filing for divorce current study
W2: 3 years after W1
Parenting Quality:
parent reporter - “paternal parenting” (involvement, visitation during separation, commitment, conflict with child, irresponsibility/incompetence);
“maternal parenting” (acceptance of child, rejection of child; irresponsibility/incompetence)
Covariates: 20 pre-divorce variables identified in previous analysis as predictive of outcomes.
Time since divorce/separation: m = 15 months since
separation; range = 0-26 months
Data Analysis Approach: multiple regression models
182 families (father, mother, & child)
Q1: Interaction effect of IPC and PQ on YA. Data Analysis Approach: multiple regression
ages 5-12 (m = 9.97)
Parenting Time: NOT COLLECTED
Covariates: gender, age
IPC did not moderate the negative
Adjustment:
parent reporter - “behavior problems – total, antisocial, impulsive, depressed”
Parenting Time:
mother & father reporter (separate models) – “shared care” or “primary maternal”
Control Variables: parent age, educational attainment, employment status, relationship status, indigenous status, whether born overseas, whether living with partner, presence of mental health or substance
Simple effects: n/a
Parenting Quality: NOT COLLECTED
Adjustment:
misuse issues pre-separation, child age and gender
mother & father reporter (separate models) - “health”; “learning”; “peer relationships”; “conduct problems”; “emotional symptoms”; “behavioral problems”; “overall progress compared to other children”
Design: cross-sectional
Design: longitudinal
Q2: Interaction effect of IPC and PT on YA.
There was no clear pattern of significant interactions between PT and IPC (fearful/conflictual or friendly/cooperative/distant) on child outcomes.
(Continued )

JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 11

Table 1 (Continued). Study
Participants
Measures (reporter):
Questions, Data analysis approach, Control Variables, Study Design Design: cross-sectional
Findings:
Interaction effects
Simple effects within high conflict relation between mother and father PQ and externalizing problems.
Sandler et al. (2013)
Sample:
problems” Interparental Conflict:
Questions Addressed:
Interaction effect(s)
:
Time since divorce/ separation: 4-10 months
Parenting Quality:
youth reporter - “father/mother warmth”
141 children
ages 9-18
(m = 13, SD = 2.63)
youth reporter – “intensity”
Q1: Interaction effect of IPC and PQ on YA. Q3: Three-way interaction effect (PQ, IPC, and PT) on YA.
In this high conflict sample:
- QP of the opposite
parent moderated the negative relation between mother/father PQ and child mental health problems.
- PT moderated the negative relations between mother/ father PQ and child mental health problems.
- IPC did not moderate negative relations between mother/ father PQ
and child mental health problems.
Time since divorce/ separation:
youth reporter – “# of overnights with father” Parenting Quality:
youth reporter - “positive parenting”; mother
Data Analysis Approach: multivariate regression
m= 5 years
87% post decree
and father
Control Variables: gender Design: cross-sectional
mother report (months): m=59.46; SD = 51.42
Adjustment:
father report (months): m=63.77, SD = 48.97
In this high conflict sample:
- high paternal PQ predicted low child MH problems - only under low, medium maternal PQ
- high maternal PQ predicted low child MH problems - only under low, medium paternal PQ
Adjustment:
Under the conditions of high conflict: - high maternal or paternal PQ predicted fewer internalizing problems when PQ from the other parent was low
mother, father, youth reporters (composite) - “internalizing problems”; “externalizing
Parenting Time:
youth reporter - “child mental health problems”
Simple effects:
Simple effects:
(Continued )

12 N. E. MAHRER ET AL.

Table 1 (Continued). Study
Participants
Measures (reporter):
Questions, Data analysis approach, Control Variables, Study Design
Findings:
Interaction effects
Simple effects within high conflict
- high paternal PQ predicted low child mental health problems - only under high, medium PT
- high maternal PQ predicted low child mental health problems - only under low, medium PT
Modecki et al. (2015)
Sample:
Interparental Conflict:
youth reporter – “frequency & intensity”
Questions Addressed:
Latent Profiles:
LOW involvement/MOD conflict MOD involvement/LOW conflict
Elam et al. (2016)
Sample:
Interparental Conflict:
youth reporter – “frequency & intensity”
- person-centered
- longitudinal:
T1: 6-8 years post-divorce
T2: 15-17 years post-divorce
Questions Addressed:
Q3: Three-way interaction effect (PQ, IPC, and PT) on YA.
Latent Profiles:
156 adolescents T1: ages 15-19
Q3: Three-way interaction effect (PQ, IPC, and PT) on YA.
(m=16.84, SD=1.10)
Parenting Time:
Data Analysis Approach: latent profile analysis
HIGH involvement/HIGH conflict
Time since divorce/ separation:
youth reporter - “paternal psychosocial support”
Compared to profiles with higher conflict, MOD involvement/LOW
T1: 6-8 years (m=7.18, SD=0.56)
Profile Indicators: PT (in-person father contact), PT (phone/email father contact), IPC, QP (paternal support), QP (father remarriage), QP (father relocation)
conflict predicted:
- higher academic achievement - fewer externalizing problems
240 (T1) and 218 (T2) children, mothers ages:
T1: 9-12
Parenting Time:
LOW conflict/ MOD contact/MOD support
MOD conflict/HIGH contact/ MOD support
(m=10.76; SD=1.11)
mother reporter – “# of telephone/in-person contacts with father”
Data Analysis Approach: latent profile analysis
youth reporter - “contact with father” Parenting Quality:
Effects on Adjustment:
Adjustment:
youth reporter - “internalizing problems”; “externalizing problems”; “academic achievement”
Control Variables: gender, age, intervention status, income, maternal remarriage, quality of mother-adolescent relationship, GPA
MOD involvement/LOW conflict predicted marginally fewer externalizing problems, compared to
HIGH involvement/HIGH conflict.
Design:
(Continued )

JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 13

Table 1 (Continued).
Study Participants
Measures (reporter):
Questions, Data analysis approach, Control Variables, Study Design
Findings:
Interaction effects
Simple effects within high conflict
T2: 15-19 (m=16.91, SD=1.11)
Time since divorce/separation:
youth/mother reporter (composite) - “internalizing problems”; “externalizing problems”
T1: age, gender, mother’s gross income, mother-child relationship quality
T2: age, gender, child support payments, mother-child relationship quality, baseline internalizing and externalizing problems, intervention condition, mother’s remarriage
Effect on Adjustment:
T1: 0-2 years (m=12.23 mo; SD=6.41)
HIGH conflict/MOD contact/ MOD support predicted higher problems, compared to others at T1
T2: 6-8 years (m=7.19 yr; SD=0.55)
Design:
MOD conflict/LOW contact/ LOW support predicted higher problems, compared to HIGH conflict/MOD contact/ MOD support at T2
Parenting Quality:
youth reporter – “father support”
Profile Indicators: PT-phone/email, PT-in-person, IPC, QP
MOD conflict/LOW contact/ LOW support
HIGH conflict/MOD contact/ MOD support
Adjustment:
Control Variables:
1Hetherington, Cox, & Cox (1982) report an interaction between frequency of visitation and conflict in their sample of noncustodial fathers, however, there was not enough detail provided regarding measures and analyses to understand the models that were tested.
2Descriptive statistics for child age were not reported. The number of observations vary by child outcome, as some measures had restricted age ranges (n=3578-9772). 3It is unclear if “conflictual” versus “fearful” relationship types were analyzed separately or as a single variable.
- person-centered
- longitudinal
T1: 0-2 years post-divorce T2: 6-8 years post-divorce
MOD conflict/LOW contact/ LOW support predicted higher internalizing problems, compared to LOW conflict/ MOD contact/MOD support at T2

14 N. E. MAHRER ET AL.
on the associations between parenting quality and child adjustment under conditions of high conflict. Finally, we review studies that report on the joint effects of parenting time and parenting quality under conditions of high conflict.
Question 1: IPC and parenting time
Seven studies analyzed the interactions between father parenting time and IPC in regard to children’s adjustment. Significant IPC × Parenting Time interactions were found in four of the seven studies. In three of these studies, the interaction between parenting time and conflict differed by gender of the child (Amato & Rezac, 1994; Johnston et al., 1989; Vanassche, Sodermans, Matthijs, & Swicegood, 2013). Three other studies did not find a significant interaction between conflict and parenting time (Fabricius & Luecken, 2007; Gunnoe & Braver, 2001; Kaspiew et al., 2009).
Vanassche and colleagues (2013) studied mother and father parenting time and IPC in a large representative sample of adolescents of divorced families in Belgium (mean time since divorce = 7.8 years). The children in the joint custody families were living at least one third of the time with each parent, whereas those in primary maternal custody lived more than two thirds of the time with the mother.2 When girls reported high levels of IPC, those in joint custody had significantly higher feelings of depression and marginally lower life satisfaction than girls in primary maternal custody. There was no similar interaction for boys.
A second study also found differences between boys’ and girls’ outcomes when considering the interaction between IPC and father parenting time (Amato & Rezac, 1994). There were 725 children between the ages of 5 and 18 in the subsample with divorced parents. Contact was broadly defined as anything from phone calls and letters to spending in-person time with the father. In the high-conflict families, boys who had the most contact with their fathers had more behavioral problems than boys who had less father contact. Boys had the fewest behavioral problems when father contact was high and parent conflict was low. There was no significant Father Contact × Conflict effect for the girls.
The third study finding differences between boys and girls was conducted roughly 4.5 years after the parents’ separation (Johnston et al., 1989). In this study of 100 children ages 1 to 12, all of the parents were considered “high” conflict because they had been court referred for counseling or mediation services. Children who were in the clinically disturbed range using the Total
2The authors also studied sole custody versus all other parenting time. We are not including those analyses in this article because they do not study the minimum criteria for shared parenting.


Behavior Problem Score clinical criterion (above 90%; Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1983) had higher levels of access to the less seen parent. Also, more transitions between parents were associated with clinically low levels of social competence (lower 10%). Probing indicated a gender difference in the relations between contact and children’s behavior problems. For boys (but not girls), more access to the less seen parent was associated with lower social competence. For girls (but not boys), greater access to the less seen parent was related to higher behavior problems.
Healy, Malley, and Stewart (1990) studied 121 recently separated families (children ages 6–12) with primary maternal custody immediately following the divorce and again 1 year later. There was a significant interaction between legal conflict and father parenting time (i.e., visitation regularity and frequency) in predicting mothers’ reports of children’s behavior problems and children’s reports of self-esteem measured con- currently. Regular and frequent visits with the father were related to fewer behavior problems for children in families with high legal conflict. When predicting self-esteem, higher regularity of visits was associated with lower self-esteem when legal conflict was high, but with higher self-esteem when legal conflict was low.3 In their prospective longitudinal analysis the interaction effects between conflict and father visitation frequency and regularity were not significant in predicting children’s self-esteem or behavior problems 1 year later.
Three studies did not find significant interaction effects between IPC and parenting time in predicting child adjustment. Fabricius and Luecken (2007), in a retrospective longitudinal study of 266 college students with a wide range of time since divorce, found that although higher IPC was related to higher distress about the divorce, this relationship did not differ across levels of father parenting time. The effects of father parenting time and IPC did not depend on levels of the other factor. Gunnoe and Braver (2001) studied 78 parents of younger children (mean age of approximately 8 years) 2 years after divorce. They found that children in joint legal custody arrangements had fewer impulsive behavior problems than children in sole maternal custody. This positive effect of father parenting time was not dependent on predecree level of IPC. Kaspiew and colleagues (2009) explored the interaction between IPC and parenting time on child adjustment using data from the Longitudinal Study of Separated Families, a large national sample from Australia of 10,000 parents within 26 months of separation. Interparental relationship quality was defined as a categorical vari- able that delineated friendly and cooperative, distant, and conflictual and fearful parents; several care-time arrangements were examined, including father min- ority, shared care, mother minority, and no father contact. These researchers
3Although the authors did find Gender × Parenting Time interactions in the overall sample, they did not test whether these effects were present for the high-conflict divorces.
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16 N. E. MAHRER ET AL.
found no consistent pattern of significant interaction effects of Interparental Relationship × Care Arrangements in predicting child adjustment.
Question 2: IPC and parenting quality
To assess the interactions between conflict and parenting quality, Sandler and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study with 182 recently divorced families with children between 5 and 12 years old who participated in the “Dads for Life” intervention study (Sandler, Miles, Cookston, & Braver, 2008). The researchers defined parenting quality as the warmth of children’s self-reported relationship separately for mothers and fathers. There was no significant interaction between IPC and either mother warmth or father warmth in predicting children’s internalizing or externalizing problems. However, there was a significant three-way interaction in predicting chil- dren’s internalizing problems. When IPC was high, higher warmth from either the mother or father was associated with lower child internalizing problems when warmth from the other parent was low. Children had the highest levels of internalizing problems when both maternal warmth and paternal warmth were low.
Sandler et al. (2013) investigated the relations between mother and father parenting quality and child mental health problems in a sample of 141 divorced and separating families who were court ordered to attend a class for families with high conflict. The average length of time since separation was 5 years. Consistent with the effect found by Sandler et al. (2008) for high- conflict families, the quality of both father and mother relationships with the children predicted lower child mental health problems when quality of parenting by the other parent was either moderate or low, but not when parenting quality of the other parent was high.
Examining the interaction between father parenting quality (i.e., children’s report of closeness) and legal conflict, Healy et al. (1990) found that closeness with the father was not related to child problems when legal conflict was high, but was related to lower child problems when legal conflict was low. This study only assessed the quality of relationship with the father, so they were not able to test whether this effect was further moderated by quality of relationship with the mother.
Question 3: IPC, parenting quality, and parenting time
Sandler and colleagues (2013) examined the interaction between father parenting time (i.e., overnights) and parenting quality in predicting child mental health problems in a sample of high-conflict divorces. They found a significant interaction between number of overnights and quality of parent- ing in predicting children’s mental health problems, such that higher quality of parenting was only related to lower problems when there was a higher level of time with the child (approximately 30% time). This effect was found for both mother and father parenting time.
In two longitudinal studies, Sandler and colleagues examined the interac- tions among parental conflict, father parenting time, quality of the father– child relationship, and young adults’ adjustment across a period of 17 years after the parents’ divorce in a sample of 240 families who participated in an intervention for divorced mothers (Elam, Sandler, Wolchik, & Tein, 2016; Modecki, Hagan, Sandler, & Wolchik, 2015). In these studies, contact with the father included the father writing to or phoning the children, in addition to spending time together in person. Parents in these studies divorced in the early 1990s when a father’s typical parenting time after divorce was much lower than in more recent studies. Modecki et al. (2015) examined how patterns of IPC, father’s parenting quality (i.e., psychosocial support), and father’s parenting time (i.e., contact) 6 to 8 years after the divorce (when youth were 15–18 years old) predicted adjustment 9 years later (15–17 years after the divorce, when youth were 24–27 years old). The authors found three distinct profiles of families: (a) moderate contact, moderate support, and low IPC; (b) low contact, low support, and moderate IPC; and (c) high contact, high support, and high IPC. Young adults whose fathers had moderate contact, moderate support, and low IPC had significantly higher academic achievement and marginally lower externalizing problems compared to young adults whose fathers had either the highest or lowest levels of involve- ment and where there was higher IPC. However, there were no significant differences among the three profiles in how they predicted internalizing problems. These results were interpreted to demonstrate the benefit of a low level of conflict, regardless of the levels of contact or support.
Elam and colleagues (2016) conducted a similar analysis with the same sample of 240 families 6 years earlier. They examined how patterns of IPC, father’s parenting quality (i.e., psychosocial support), and father’s parenting time (i.e., contact) were associated with children’s adjustment problems concurrently (an average of 12 months following the divorce, when children were 9–12 years old) and predicted child adjustment problems 6 years later. LPAs revealed four profiles: (a) high contact, moderate conflict, moderate support; (b) low contact, moderate conflict, low support; (c) moderate con- tact, high conflict, moderate support, and (d) moderate contact, low conflict, moderate support. The relations between the various profiles and youth mental health outcomes concurrently and 6 years later differed. In the concurrent analyses, children in the moderate contact, high conflict, and moderate support group had higher levels of internalizing and externalizing problems compared to children in the other profiles. However, in predicting child behavior problems 6 years after the divorce, contact appeared to be the more salient variable, with children in the low contact, low support, and
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18 N. E. MAHRER ET AL.
moderate conflict group demonstrating higher levels of internalizing and externalizing problems compared to the moderate contact, moderate support, and high conflict group, and greater internalizing problems compared to the moderate contact, moderate support, and low conflict group.  
Limitations of current evidence
Differences among the samples on key variables such as time since separation or divorce, parenting or custody arrangement, measurement of constructs (e.g., conflict, parenting time, parenting quality), and whether the study was cross-sectional or prospective longitudinal impose limitations on our ability to compare the findings. For example, there is high variability in how parenting time is measured, with some studies dichotomizing samples into full versus shared arrangements, and others measuring any type of father contact (e.g., phone calls, etc.). Thus, it is unclear whether differences across the studies are due to inconsistency in actual effects versus methodological differences. Further, secular trends in the acceptance of shared parenting (Smart, 2004) might explain differences in findings from studies conducted in the 1980s and those conducted in the 2000s, which inherently have a different distribution of parenting time between mothers and fathers. Another significant limitation is that most samples consist of predominantly non-Hispanic White families. Implications of the findings might not be generalizable to ethnic minority families with different arrangements of family structure and traditions after divorce (Foster & Kalil, 2007). Also, the reviewed studies do not include infants and toddlers, who might require different parenting time arrangements depending on levels of IPC. Finally, there was not a sufficient sample size of studies to conduct a quantitative analysis to examine the heterogeneity of effect sizes across key variables such as child age or gender, or time since divorce.
Summary of findings from empirical studies
Despite the limited number and heterogeneity of the studies, some tenta- tive conclusions based on the findings can be discerned. First, in the four studies that found that higher father contact was associated with more child problems for high-conflict divorced families, conflict was assessed several years after the divorce, and this effect depended on the child’s gender in three of the four studies (Amato & Rezac, 1994; Johnston et al., 1989; Modecki, Hagan, Sandler, & Wolchik, 2015; Vanassche et al., 2013). However, the studies that assessed the interaction between parenting time and IPC more proximally to divorce (either during the divorce or within the first years following) had mixed results. Elam and colleagues (2016) found that the high IPC, high father contact group had higher child problems concurrently, but in contrast, the moderate IPC, low father contact group had more problems 6 years later. Healy and colleagues (1990) reported that in high IPC families, father parenting time related to lower child behavior problems, but also related to lower self-esteem. Three additional studies did not find a significant interaction between father parenting time and IPC (Fabricius & Luecken, 2007; Gunnoe & Braver, 2001; Kaspiew et al., 2009). Taken together, these nine studies suggest that the positive or negative effects of higher levels of father parenting time in high-conflict divorces might depend on whether conflict is assessed more proximally to the divorce (within the first several years) or reflects conflict that persists over a more prolonged period of time.
There is also suggestive evidence that both mother’s and father’s parenting quality can be protective in the context of high IPC. Two studies found that in high-conflict divorces, higher quality of parenting by either the mother or father was related to lower child adjustment problems when the relationship with the other parent was either poor or moderate, but not when the relationship with the other parent was very good (Sandler et al., 2008; Sandler et al., 2013). The one study that found that closeness with the father was not significantly related to child problems (i.e., was not protective) when legal conflict was high did not examine the effect of closeness with the mother (Healy et al., 1990). It is likely, therefore, that the effect of parenting quality on child adjustment in high-conflict families is best understood when considering the parenting by both the mother and father.
Most studies included gender of the child as a control variable, with only three studies including an interaction term to test gender differences in the context of IPC. Gender moderated the effects such that more father parent- ing time in high-conflict families affected boys and girls differently. One study found that when there was high IPC, joint physical custody was associated with higher depressive symptoms for girls, but not for boys (Vanassche et al., 2013). Another found a negative effect of more father contact on behavior problems for boys when there was high IPC, but not for girls (Amato & Rezac, 1994). The third study with high-conflict families found that boys who had more frequent access with the less seen parent exhibited lower social competence scores, but for girls, more frequent access was related to more behavior problems (Johnston et al., 1989). Given the lack of consistency across findings, it is unclear as to which gender might be more negatively affected.
Implications for court policy and practice concerning postdivorce parenting time
Some tentative implications can be drawn concerning policy and practice issues facing the family courts. Although four studies found that more
JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 19


20 N. E. MAHRER ET AL.
contact with the father was associated with more child adjustment problems when there were high levels of chronic, persistent IPC, these studies do not provide guidance for decisions made at the time of the divorce. There is no consistent set of findings that support a policy against shared parenting based on having a conflictual relationship at the time of divorce. Many parents have conflictual relationships when they are separating and in the year that follows, but conflict typically decreases over time, with rates of high conflict dropping from over 50% of families in the initial period after the divorce to about 25% of families several years later (Fischer, De Graaf, & Kalmijn, 2005; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002). Because IPC 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.
Although chronic conflict has more serious implications for parenting time arrangements than conflict early in the divorce process, the findings are mute about strategies to promote children’s positive adjustment when high conflict persists over time. Given the clear negative implications of chronic IPC for children’s adjustment, arrangements that might decrease conflict or children’s exposure to conflict would be in the best interest of the children. This might be accomplished by arrangements that minimize the situations where children are most likely to be exposed to the conflict (e.g, exchanges between the parents). If one parent is primarily driving the con- flict, reductions in the opportunities for that parent to expose the child to conflict might be considered (e.g., reduced parenting time). In addition, given the association between quality of parenting by either parent and children’s adjustment in high-conflict divorces, efforts to strengthen and support a high quality of parenting could help promote child adjustment.
The current evidence provides guidance as to the factors that should be considered in making decisions about parenting time for high-conflict divorces. It is critical to consider the nature of the IPC in terms of severity, frequency, child exposure, and the role each parent plays in maintaining the conflict. It is also critical to assess the potential of both parents to provide moderate- to high-quality parenting in terms of a warm and close relation- ship with the child. Both fathers and mothers can provide high-quality parenting even if there is high-conflict, and high-quality parenting by either parent can protect children from the deleterious effects of IPC. However, high-quality parenting is most likely to be beneficial if children have ade- quate time with that parent (Sandler et al., 2013).
It is important to emphasize that these implications are based on current evidence and that the research and practice landscapes are rapidly changing. As more jurisdictions are promoting shared parenting arrangements, there will be more opportunities to learn about the conditions under which these arrangements work well or poorly for children in high-conflict divorces. To help inform policy and practice recommendations for parenting time in cases with high IPC, researchers should give priority to three issues. First, given that parenting time decisions are typically made early in the process of divorce, more studies are needed to assess the relations between different patterns of contact and child adjustment in families with high IPC close to the separation and divorce and how this changes over time. Second, studies are needed to identify factors that lead to chronic and persistent conflict several or more years after the divorce. Third, although there are multiple programs that have benefits for divorced families, including mediation (Holtzworth-Munroe, Beck, & Applegate, 2010), parenting programs (e.g., Wolchik et al., 2013), conflict reduction (Braver, Sandler, Cohen Hita, & Wheeler, 2016), child coping (Boring, Sandler, Tein, Horan, & Velez, 2015; Pedro-Carroll & Cowen, 1985), and alternative approaches to obtaining a divorce (Pruett, Insabella, & Gustafson, 2005), more research is needed to identify the best approaches to promote the long-term positive adjustment of children in high-conflict divorced families. Assessing whether they have positive effects on child adjustment in families with high IPC has clear implications for promoting the well-being of children in divorced families with high IPC.
Acknowledgments
The second author’s work on this paper was supported in part by a postdoctoral fellowship provide by the National Institute for Drug Abuse (T32DA039772-03) through the Psychology Department and the Research and Education to Advance Children’s Health Institute at Arizona State University.
ORCID
Nicole E. Mahrer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6677-3263 Karey L. O’Hara http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7429-1021
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Journal of Divorce & Remarriage
ISSN: 1050-2556 (Print) 1540-4811 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjdr20
What Can We Say Regarding Shared Parenting Arrangements for Swedish Children?
Emma Fransson, Anders Hjern & Malin Bergström
To cite this article: Emma Fransson, Anders Hjern & Malin Bergström (2018): What Can We Say Regarding Shared Parenting Arrangements for Swedish Children?, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, DOI: 10.1080/10502556.2018.1454198
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454198
Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC © 2018 [Emma Fransson, Anders Hjern, and Malin Bergström]
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JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE
https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454198
What Can We Say Regarding Shared Parenting Arrangements for Swedish Children?
Emma Fransson a, Anders Hjerna,b, and Malin Bergströma,b
aCentre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS), Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden;
bClinical Epidemiology, Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden


ABSTRACT
Joint physical custody (JPC) refers to children living alterna- tively and about equally with both parents after a parental separation or divorce. The practice has been debated in rela- tion to child well-being because of the frequent moves imposed on children and the potential stress from living in 2 homes. This study describes the background to the high fre- quency of Swedish children in JPC and the results from research on Swedish children’s well-being in this living arrangement. Children in JPC report better well-being and mental health than children who live mostly or only with 1 parent. No Swedish studies have found children’s health to be worse in JPC than in sole parental care from child age of 3 years and beyond. The existing literature cannot, however, inform us about the mechanisms behind the findings. The risks of selection effects into living arrangements are plausible. For this purpose, longitudinal studies are warranted.
When parents separate, many wonder what solution is best for their children. Do they benefit most from living in sole physical custody (SPC) with one parent or from living about half the time with each parent in a joint physical custody (JPC) or shared parenting arrangement? In the debate over custody arrangements, JPC has been framed as coupled with potential health risks, such as the stress of living in two homes and in two different family cultures (Gilmore, 2006; McIntosh, Smyth, Kelaher, Wells, & Long, 2011), and difficulties in maintaining friendships when moving between two neighborhoods (Prazen, Wolfinger, Cahill, & Kowaleski- Jones, 2011). For the very youngest children, the debate has mostly regarded the potential risk of being separated from the mother (McIntosh et al., 2011). In contrast, others have emphasized the importance of JPC for the continued invol- vement of both parents on an everyday basis (Lamb & Kelly, 2010; Nielsen, 2013a; Warshak, 2014). Sweden provides a unique situation for addressing these ques- tions because Swedish parents are much more likely than parents in other advanced nations to share physical custody of their children after they separate.
CONTACT Emma Fransson [email protected] Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS), Stockholm
University/Karolinska Institutet, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.
Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC © 2018 [Emma Fransson, Anders Hjern, and Malin Bergström]
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The moral rights of the named author(s) have been asserted.


2 E. FRANSSON ET AL.
In Sweden, JPC has become as common as living mostly with the mother after parents separate. The proportion of Swedish children in JPC was about 1% of children with separated parents in the mid-1980s, but is now between 35% and 40%. Of all children between 12 and 15 years of age, 1 in 10 are in JPC (Bergström et al., 2013; Swedish Government Official Report, 2011). Indeed, for 3-year-old children, JPC is nearly twice as common as SPC, at least among Swedish-born and well-educated parents (Bergström et al., 2018). When Swedish parents separate, they also tend to live in nearby neighborhoods so that the distance between their homes is relatively short (Turunen, 2017).
Sweden and the presumptions for joint physical custody
The share of children in JPC is around 30% in parts of the United States (Cancian, Meyer, Brown, & Cook, 2014; Melli & Brown, 2008), 25% in Norway and Denmark (Kitterod & Wiik, 2017; Ottosen et al., 2014), and under 20% in the United Kingdom (Peacey & Hunt, 2008). A large part of the reason why JPC is so much more common in Sweden lies in the attitudes and policies about shared parenting for married and for separated parents. Swedish family policy has had a gender-neutral focus since the early 1970s. When gender- neutral parental leave was launched in Sweden in 1974, the advertisements showed fathers interacting with their infants, and the policy was promoted as “involved fatherhood” (Barclay & Lupton, 1999; Draper, 2003).
Most of Sweden’s political parties have parental equality as a stated goal in their policy programs (Wells & Bergnehr, 2014), encouraging both parents to engage in paid work as well as in household work and child care (Daly, 2011). By 1974 Sweden offered both mothers and fathers paid parental leave, and since the early 2000s, parents have been encouraged to share the parental leave equally (Daly, 2011; Klinth, 2008). In 2012, fathers used 24% of the Swedish parental leave (Swedish Social Insurance Agency, 2013). Of children born in 2010, about 13% had parents who shared the parental leave days equally for the first 2 years of their child’s life (Swedish Social Insurance Agency, 2013).
Sweden’s goals for gender equality in parenting are also expressed in other policies applied equally to mothers and fathers. For example, both parents have the same number of days with pay to stay home with a sick child up until the age of 12. The government also provides subsidized child care for children 1 to 5 years old and 84% of these children participate. In line with these policies, Sweden has the largest proportion of women in the labor force among the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, at 80.7% in 2013 (OECD, 2014). Furthermore, Swedish family policies generally support the dual earner model, aiming at financial self-reliance for both mothers and fathers. Also, when parents separate, there are fewer financial disputes involving custody (Haas, 1996). After they separate or divorce, most Swedish parents share the legal custody of their children (Swedish Government Official Report, 2011). Most also mutually agree on living arrangements without any professional or judicial involve- ment (Swedish Government Official Report, 2011). An estimated 14% of separating parents seek advice about how to tackle their disagreements over physical custody arrangements (Swedish Board of Health and Welfare, 2011). About 9% of parents resolve their custody disputes in court (Swedish Government Official Report (2017), which is comparable to the number in the United Kingdom (Rešetar & Emery, 2008).
Swedish studies on joint physical custody
Shared parenting for young children
In a series of studies known as the Elvis Project (from the Swedish word växelvis, which means alternate), we have been investigating the situation for JPC families. In a first study we interviewed Swedish parents regarding their experiences of shared parenting for children under 4 years of age (Bergström, Sarkadi, Hjern, & Fransson, in press; Fransson, Sarkadi, Hjern, & Bergström, 2016). Telephone interviews were conducted with 18 fathers and 28 mothers whose 50 children were, on average, 21 months old when the parents separated. Most participants had mutually agreed to share the parenting, but 24% of the parents agreed to JPC after mediation or had JPC as a result of a court decision (Fransson et al., 2016). Even parents who reported having been hesitant about JPC at the start most often found ways to make JPC work. Some parents did not trust the other parent’s abilities to take care of the young child. A majority of these parents, however, found individual solutions and resolved their concerns. They ended up being satisfied with JPC and feeling that their young children benefited from the arrangement. In many cases, schedules were changed either to let the child live longer periods with each parent (e.g., a whole week at a time) or to move more frequently between the homes so the children would not miss the other parent. Parents reported “tricks” to make the children’s adjustment easier. For example, they would leave the child’s toys in the same place where they were before going to the other parent’s home or they would have specific routines the first night together after having been apart. In sum, shared parenting worked well for these families with children ages 1 to 4.
Three epidemiological studies on mental health in children in the youngest age groups have been conducted in the Elvis Project. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) was used to measure the well-being of children in intact, JPC, and SPC families. One study was published in September 2017 (Bergström et al., 2018) and the subsequent two studies will be finalized during late 2017 or early 2018. In the recently published
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study, we investigated psychological symptoms for 136 children in JPC, 3,369 children in intact families, 79 children living “mostly” with one parent, and 72 children living only with one parent (Bergström et al., 2018). The pre- school teachers and the parents reported that children living mostly or only with one parent had more emotional and behavioral problems than those living in JPC or in intact families. According to the parents’ reports, there were no significant differences between children in intact families and JPC children. The preschool teachers, however, reported fewer problems for children in intact than in JPC families.
In the second Elvis Project study, the SDQ scores of children from five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) were compared according to family types. There were 152 children in JPC, 303 in SPC, and 3,207 in intact families (Bergström, Fransson, Wells, Köhler, & Hjern, 2018). The children were all between the ages of 2 and 9. As with the first study, the children in SPC had more psychological and behavioral problems than those in JPC and those in intact families had the fewest problems.
In the most recent study, we are gathering data on more than 6,000 Swedish 3-year-olds. More than 200 live in a JPC arrangement. In this study we are exploring how the quality of the coparenting relationship is linked to the children’s outcomes in the various types of families. We suspect that coparenting quality might be one explanatory factor behind the better health reported in children with JPC.
Epidemiological studies on children’s health in school-age children
As is true in the studies with preschoolers, the Swedish studies on school-age children and adolescents also show that children in JPC have better mental health and fewer behavioral problems than children in SPC families, who most often live in sole mother care, as well as children who live mostly with one parent (Bergström, 2012; Bergström et al., 2015; Bergström et al., 2013; Brolin Låftman, Bergström, Modin, & Östberg, 2014; Brolin Låftman, Fransson, Modin, & Östberg, 2017; Fransson, Brolin Låftman, Östberg, Hjern, & Bergström, 2017; Fransson, Turunen, Hjern, Östberg, & Bergström, 2015; Turunen, Fransson, & Bergström, 2017). Regarding health-related behaviors, two Swedish studies from other research groups show that adolescents in JPC are more likely to smoke or drink alcohol than those in intact families, but the JPC adolescents’ risk was lower (Carlsund, Eriksson, Lofstedt, & Sellstrom, 2012) or similar (Jablonska & Lindberg, 2007) to that of their counterparts in SPC families. Reviews of the research from other countries also show equal or better physical health in JPC than in SPC (Nielsen, 2013a, 2013b, 2014; Vanassche, Sodermans, Matthijs, & Swicegood, 2013; Westphal & Monden, 2015).


In many Swedish studies, children in intact families reported better health than those with separated parents (Bergström, Fransson, Hjern, Köhler, & Wallby, 2014; Bergström et al., 2015; Bergström et al., 2013; Brolin Låftman et al., 2014; Carlsund, Eriksson, & Sellström, 2013). These results might not be surprising, as the parental separation can be difficult for children (Ängarne-Lindberg & Wadsby, 2009; Bjarnason et al., 2012). More surprising results from several Swedish studies are that there are no differences between children in JPC and nuclear families in regard to emotional or behavioral outcomes (Bergström, 2012; Fransson, Folkesson, Bergström, Östberg, & Lindfors, 2014; Fransson et al., 2017; Fransson et al., 2015; Turunen et al., 2017; Wadsby, Priebe, & Svedin, 2014).
Discussion
Since the 1970s Swedish family policies have encouraged fathers to be involved in their children’s lives from infancy onward. Given this, it is not surprising that Swedish parents generally consider JPC to be the most desir- able option after they separate, even for very young children. Swedish studies on health and well-being in younger children and adolescents have shown that those in JPC report better well-being and mental health than children who live mostly or only with one parent after a separation or divorce. In regard to the controversial issue of shared parenting for very young children, no studies on children from 3 years of age and older have found children’s health to be worse in JPC than in single care. Sometimes the children’s health has been reported to be similar in in JPC arrangements and nuclear families.
The better outcomes for JPC children might be partly explained by socio- economic differences between sole and shared custody families. However, in the international literature, even after the parents’ incomes and conflict were considered, children in the JPC studies still had better outcomes (Nielsen, 2017, this issue). Moreover, most of the Swedish studies have adjusted for economic factors. Even if conflict and income cannot fully explain the differ- ences between JPC and SPC children’s health and well-being, these two factors might still be influential. An additional explanation could be that JPC children benefit more than SPC children from support and a close relationship with both parents, which might resemble the parenting in an intact family. Involved fathering has been shown to be important for children’s school achievements, health, and general development, and JPC gives fathers the opportunity to stay involved (Sarkadi, Kristiansson, Oberklaid, & Bremberg, 2008).
The Swedish studies described in this article have all had a cross-sectional design, which means that child health or well-being is measured at one point in time. This design does not allow us to draw conclusions about whether JPC is the “cause” of the children’s better outcomes. It is possible that factors existing before the parents’ separation can directly influence the choice of
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living arrangements, thus causing important selection bias. Poor health or stress in both the custodial and noncustodial parent in SPC families might also contribute negatively to the well-being of the child. Furthermore, it seems likely that parental conflict and paternal engagement before the separation influence the choice of living arrangements, and thus influence the well-being of the child both before and after the separation. For instance, if one parent suffers from mental or physical problems or from drug or alcohol addictions, this would decrease the likelihood of JPC. Also children with physical, behavioral or emotional problems might be less likely to be in JPC families. Differences in well-being between children in JPC and SPC arrangements could hence be related to family factors unaccounted for in the studies. A longitudinal study design with repeated measurement before and after separation would be the most desirable design for future studies.
Factors that benefit or hinder children from thriving in JPC, such as being caught in the middle of high ongoing conflict, family violence, and families with child and parental psychiatric morbidity, have not been sufficiently studied. The Swedish family law, in accordance with the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child, states that children have the right to know and be cared for by their parents. At the same time, though, a child also has the right to be protected against all forms of neglect, cruelty, and exploitation. Few studies have explored situations or family factors that indicate that JPC is unsuitable. For example, a recent doctoral thesis showed that children who were victimized by domestic violence by an abusive father did not fare well under the imposed visitations or in a JPC arrangement (Forssell, 2016). When the father–child relationship was positive, children were, however, eager to keep the close relationship with their father despite the experiences of violence between the parents. In line with this, a review of international studies shows that even in high-conflict families, the quality of the parent– child relationship is more closely correlated with child well-being than conflict or the quality of the coparenting relationship (Nielsen, 2017). The same review, as well as a recent longitudinal study (Fabricius & Suh, 2017) states that JPC is linked to stronger parent–child relationships, which helps to mitigate the negative impact of conflict. More studies are needed, though, to determine those circumstances where children should be protected from an abusive parent by not living in a JPC family.
Other factors that are insufficiently studied in relation to JPC are child temperament, the well-being of children 0 to 2 years old, and children with special needs. Another area that needs more attention is what type of parenting plans are most suitable for children in different ages. Especially for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, such guidance should be welcome. In the international literature on young children in JPC, the authors have stressed that sensitive parenting and flexible schedules seem more important for children’s well-being than the amount of overnights, but how such flexibility and sensitivity should be executed concretely remains to be described (Pruett, McIntosh, & Kelly, 2014). Moreover, the assumption that young children need frequent transitions between their parents’ homes due to their immature perception of time and limited memory capacity has not been empirically tested. In one of the Elvis Project studies, however, some parents felt that the frequent moves ruined the young child’s sense of stability. Longer periods of time in each home worked better for some young children, whereas shorter intervals of time worked better for others (Fransson et al., 2016).
The increase in JPC arrangements is one of the most important societal changes that has occurred in the last 20 years. It is thus important that high- quality studies are prioritized to fill the knowledge gaps and provide sound guidance for separating and divorcing parents as well as for policymakers.
Acknowledgments
Our warm gratitude goes to the participants in the studies.
Funding
This work was supported by the Länsförsäkringsbolagens forskningsfond; Forte: DNR 2014- 0843.
ORCID
Emma Fransson http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9010-8522
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Journal of Divorce & Remarriage
ISSN: 1050-2556 (Print) 1540-4811 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjdr20
Children’s Relationships With Grandparents in Married and in Shared and Sole Physical Custody Families
Maaike Jappens
To cite this article: Maaike Jappens (2018): Children’s Relationships With Grandparents in Married and in Shared and Sole Physical Custody Families, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, DOI: 10.1080/10502556.2018.1454199
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454199
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JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE
https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454199
Children’s Relationships With Grandparents in Married and in Shared and Sole Physical Custody Families


Maaike Jappens
Interface Demography, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
ABSTRACT
Grandparents can be an important source of support for their grandchildren in the often difficult time during and after par- ents’ divorce or separation. Grandchild–grandparent relation- ships can be hampered or even totally lost when parents separate, however. What happens with grandparent relation- ships when parents break up is closely linked to postdivorce physical custody arrangements. This article focuses on the beneficial role that grandparent relationships can play after parents separate and examines how grandparent–grandchild relationships differ in shared and sole physical custody arrangements.
Grandparents and grandchildren often play an important role in each other’s lives. These days, grandparents are potentially also more available because increased life expectancy helps them survive into their grandchildren’s adult years. In addition, declining family size has led to fewer grandchildren so that grandparents have more time and attention for each grandchild (Arber & Timonen, 2012). This might be particularly valuable given the widespread rise in divorce rates and consequent risks for children (Bengtson, 2001; Thompson, 1999).
The parents’ separation and its aftermath can have a major impact on children, but during these difficult times grandparents can be a vital source of support and stability (Silverstein, Giarusso, & Bengtson, 2003). Although relatively little is known about how important grandparents actually are for grandchildren, the existing evidence seems to confirm that strong relation- ships with grandparents are beneficial and help to buffer the negative con- sequences of the parents’ separation (e.g., Jappens & Van Bavel, 2016b).
Parental separation also raises the risk of extended family ties being weakened or even severed (Attias-Donfut & Segalen, 2007). Grandparents and grandchildren, particularly those on the father’s side of the family, have less frequent contact after the parents stop living together when compared to
CONTACT Maaike Jappens [email protected] Interface Demography Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Pleinlaan 5 1050, Brussels, Belgium.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/wjdr. © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
KEYWORDS
divorce; grandchildren; grandparents; joint physical custody; shared parenting


2 M. JAPPENS
intact families (e.g., Oppelaar & Dykstra, 2004). The differential impact of separation on contacts with maternal and paternal grandparents is largely due to the physical custody arrangements of grandchildren. As the majority of children reside with a custodial parent (usually the mother) after separa- tion, grandparents on the side of the nonresidential parent in particular, usually the father, get fewer chances to see their grandchildren (Jappens & Van Bavel, 2016b; Johnson, 1998; Schutter, Scherman, & Carroll, 1997).
Now that shared physical custody arrangements are becoming more pop- ular, the question arises as to what happens with grandparent–grandchild relationships when grandchildren live alternating between both separated parents. Pressure groups campaigning for grandparents’ rights have claimed that shared parenting is beneficial for grandparent–grandchild contact, as it prevents paternal grandparents from being excluded (Kaganas, 2007). Only recently, though, has this claim been tested empirically (Jappens & Van Bavel, 2016b; Westphal, Poortman, & Van Der Lippe, 2015).
This article summarizes the results of studies that my colleague Jan Van Bavel and I have conducted on grandchild–grandparent relationships after parental separation, and also reports on the findings of other research on this topic. The first part looks into the role grandparent relationships can play in the well-being of grandchildren after parents separate. Next, the focus is on grandchild–grandparent relationships in married, sole custody, and shared residence arrangements. To start, I situate the data used for our studies.
Data and physical custody arrangements in flanders
Our studies use data from the survey Divorce in Flanders (DiF; Mortelmans et al., 2011). In this survey, married and divorced partners, one of their children, and one of their parents were interviewed in 2009 or 2010. Marriages that had ended in divorce were oversampled. In total, 6,470 (ex-) partners, 1,257 children and 2,203 grandparents participated. The graphs presented in this article are based on a selection of participating children between 10 and 21 years old. About one third of the children came from intact families; two-thirds had divorced parents.
Flanders is the northern, Dutch-speaking region of Belgium, and pro- vides a particularly interesting context to study questions about children and parents in sole and shared physical custody families. Belgium has one of the highest divorce rates in Europe (Eurostat, 2016). As in most Western countries, the majority of children live with their mother after a parental separation, spending varying amounts of time with their father. Living with the father is rather uncommon. Shared physical custody arrangements, with children living about half of the time with each parent, are on the rise, stimulated by recent policy changes. In 1995, joint parental authority was legally established; and in 2006, joint physical custody (shared residence) became the default arrangement after parental separation. About one fifth of Flemish children with divorced parents now live about equal time with the mother and the father. Considering only the children whose parents divorced after the introduction of the 2006 law, more than 25% live in these shared parenting families (Sodermans, Matthijs, & Swicegood, 2013).
Are grandparents beneficial to children in divorced families?
As suggested by the holistic perspective of family systems theory, the well- being of children and adolescents is not only affected by the relationships with their parents, but by experiences and relationships across the whole family (Cox & Paley, 1997). Grandparents can be important members of family systems and can contribute highly to the family’s functioning (Miller & Sandberg, 1998). Often grandparents also become valuable attachment figures for grandchildren (Bretherton, Ridgeway, & Cassidy, 1990). Therefore, grandparents are likely to play a prominent role in grandchildren’s lives and well-being. Relatively few empirical studies, how- ever, have actually examined the link between grandparents and children’s well-being. Although some found no associations (e.g., Dunifon & Bajracharya, 2012), the majority of these studies did find that grandpar- ents’ involvement with grandchildren and the quality of their relationships is positively related to the children’s well-being (Coall & Hertwig, 2010; Griggs, Tan, Buchanan, Attar-Swartz, & Flouri, 2010; Moorman & Stokes, 2016; Sear & Coall, 2011).
Moreover, grandparents are often considered latent resources in families. They usually play a relatively minor and noninterfering role in their chil- dren’s and grandchildren’s lives. They are, so to speak, waiting on the side- lines. In times of family crisis, though, such as a divorce or separation, they are prompted to step in to take on more active roles (Cherlin & Furstenberg, 1986; Johnson, 1988).
When parents separate, this can create numerous stressors that have short-term as well as long-term negative effects on children (Amato, 2000; Bernardi et al., 2013). In the difficult times following parental break-up, therefore, grandparents can be an important source of support and stability for their grandchildren, acting as “shock absorbers” or buffers who reduce the risk of negative consequences for children (Silverstein, Giarusso, & Bengtson, 2003). Many grandparents provide their divorcing children and grandchildren with advice and practical, emotional, and financial support. In exceptional cases, they might temporarily or even permanently take on the role of surrogate parents (Ferguson, 2004; Jappens & Van Bavel, 2015a; Timonen, Doyle, & O’Dwyer, 2009). Children often consider grandparents among the key people to trust and confide in and with whom they
JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 3


4 M. JAPPENS
can find security and attention in turbulent times after the divorce (Robinson, Scanlan, & Butler, 2009).
A handful of other studies have examined the association between grand- parent relationships and children’s well-being in divorced families. Most confirm the idea of grandparents as resources that mobilize when needed. In a small sample of 5-year-old children in England, those who reported closer relationships with their maternal grandparents had fewer adjustment problems than those with more distant relationships. This was the case in married and in divorced families (Lussier, Deater-Deckard, Dunn, & Davies, 2002). In the second wave of the same study, however, there was no sig- nificant association (Bridges, Roe, Dunn, & O’Connor, 2007). In a larger study with 1,515 secondary school students in the United Kingdom, although it did not take into account any role played by the parents, those who indicated more involvement from grandparents also reported fewer emo- tional difficulties. This was more true for children in single-parent and in stepfamilies than for those in intact families (Attar-Schwarz, Tan, Buchanan, Flouri, & Griggs, 2009). Similar results were found in two U.S. studies. One study compared 925 young adults in different family structures and found that those who had a closer relationship to their grandparents also reported fewer depressive symptoms. The effect was more powerful for those from single-parent (divorced, continuously single, or widowed) families than for those in intact families (Ruiz & Silverstein, 2007). The second study investi- gated relationships with maternal grandmothers of 324 adolescents in Texas and found that the relationship quality was positively related to their psy- chological functioning, especially among those from divorced families (Henderson, Hayslip, Sanders, & Louden, 2009).
To examine the latent function ascribed to grandparents and the protective power of close grandparent relationships for children of divorce, we have been investigating the association between the quality of these relationships and chil- dren’s well-being (Jappens & Van Bavel, 2015b, 2017). Figure 1 is based on 10- to 21-year-old children in the DiF survey who had at least one living grandparent. They were asked how good or bad their relationships were with each of their grandparents. We selected the best relationship and constructed three categories of grandchildren: (a) children not having a good relationship with a grandparent (their best grandparent relationship is bad, neither bad nor good, or there is no contact), (b) children having a “good” relationship with at least one grandparent, and (c) children having a “very good” relationship with a grandparent. Figure 1 shows children’s mean score on life satisfaction and on self-esteem according to the quality of their relationships with their grandparents.
The life satisfaction and self-esteem for the 267 children with married parents was not closely linked to the quality of the relationships they had with their grandparents. It might be that in these families the grandparents have less impact because they are “on the sidelines” as the parents are not relying on them or


Children’ s Life Satisfaction Children’ s Self-esteem
99 88 77 66 55
JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 5


Married parents (N=276)
Divorced parents (N=650)
Married parents (N=276)
Divorced parents (N=650)
No good relationship
Good relationship
Very good relationship with grandparent
No good relationship
Good relationship
Very good relationship with grandparent


Figure 1. Children’s well-being by quality of relationships with grandparents (mean score, with 95% confidence intervals).
involving them heavily in the children’s lives. A different pattern emerged for the 650 children with divorced parents. The children with good and above all very good relationships with their grandparents had clearly higher self-esteem and were more satisfied with their lives than children who did not have a good relationship with their grandparents. The children with divorced parents who had a very good relationship with a grandparent scored their self-esteem and life satisfaction about as high as children with married parents.
In the divorced families, the quality of children’s relationships with their grandparents was still linked to their life satisfaction, self-esteem, and also mastery and anxiety even after controlling for many other factors that might be linked to the children’s well-being. These factors included sociodemographic characteristics, the quality of the relationships the grandchild had with his or her mother and father, the type of custody arrangement, the time passed since the divorce, repartnering of the parents, and the level of parental conflict. There were some differences between the indicators, but overall the strength of grand- child–grandparent relationships was positively associated with children’s sub- jective well-being, above and beyond the quality of their relationships with their parents (Jappens & Van Bavel, 2015b, 2017).
In an ongoing study, we also examined whether it mattered that the children’s relationships were with the maternal or the paternal grandparents. We found that the strength of relationships with maternal as well as paternal grandparents was positively associated with children’s subjective well-being. This suggests that close relationships with either maternal or paternal grand- parents could help grandchildren to cope better with the divorce of their parents (Jappens & Van Bavel, 2016a).

Life satisfaction 0-10
Self-esteem 0-10

6 M. JAPPENS
How do grandparent relationships differ across physical custody arrangements?
Grandparents can thus be an important source of support for children when parents separate. As previous studies have shown, however, the separation can also put extended family ties under pressure and often results in less frequent contact between grandparents and grandchildren. This is especially the case for grandparents on the father’s side of the family, who are also most at risk for losing all contact (Creasey, 1993; Drew & Smith, 1999; Geurts, Poortman, Van Tilburg, & Dykstra, 2009; Jaskowski & Dellasega, 1993; Kemp, 2007; Myers & Perrin, 1993; Oppelaar & Dykstra, 2004). For contacts with maternal grandparents, some studies reported no impact (Cooney & Smith, 1996; Henderson et al., 2009) or more frequent contact after a divorce (Ehrenberg & Smith, 2003).
Only very few studies have been able to empirically explore the role of physical custody arrangements in the differential impact of parental divorce on contacts with maternal as compared to paternal grandparents. Some have studied grandparent–grandchild contact in sole mother versus sole father residence in Australia (Weston, 1992) and in the United States (Hilton & Macari, 1998). These studies did not include shared residence arrangements, but they found that contact frequency was indeed lower for grandparents on the nonresidential parent’s side. As grandparent–grandchild contacts are often mediated or even initiated by the parents, especially when grandchil- dren are younger, grandparents on the nonresidential parents’ side get fewer opportunities to see their grandchildren. Sole residential parents, on the contrary, might be in need of extra support in the care for the children. This help is often provided by their own parents, in this way adding to the frequency of contacts between children and grandparents on the residential parent’s side (Attias-Donfut & Segalen, 2002; Johnson, 1998; Kemp, 2007).
Based on DiF data, we studied grandchild–grandparent relationships in married and in sole and shared physical custody families (Jappens & Van Bavel, 2016b). Figures 2, 3, and 4 are based on samples of 10- to 21-year-old children with the grandparent alive and not living in the same household. The children with divorced parents were grouped into three physical custody arrangements: living with the mother (67%–100% of the time), shared phy- sical custody (living minimum 33% of the time with each parent), and living with the father (67%–100% of the time). The small group of children with other or no fixed arrangements was excluded.
Figure 2 shows the percentages of children having face-to-face contact with grandparents at least once a month. Compared to children living with their married parents, grandchildren whose parents were divorced saw their grandparents less often, especially grandparents on the nonresidential par- ents’ side of the family. When considering maternal grandparents, the very


100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0%
JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 7


Grandmother (N=760) Maternal
Married parents Mother residence
Shared residence Father residence
Grandfather (N=577)
Grandmother (N=689) Paternal
Grandfather (N=514)


Figure 2. Children with monthly face-to-face contact with grandparents in intact, shared, and sole physical custody families (percentage, with 95% confidence intervals).
60%
40%
20%
0%


Grandmother (N=759) Grandfather (N=577)
Maternal
Married parents Mother residence
Grandmother (N=689) Grandfather (N=514)
Paternal Shared residence Father residence


Figure 3. Children with “very good” relationships with grandparents in intact, shared, and sole physical custody families (percentage, with 95% confidence intervals).
40% 30% 20% 10%
0%


Grandmother (N=760) Maternal
Grandfather (N=577) Married parents Mother residence
Grandmother (N=689) Paternal
Grandfather (N=514) Shared residence Father residence


Figure 4. Children with no face-to-face contact with grandparents in intact, shared, and sole physical custody families (percentage, with 95% confidence intervals).


8 M. JAPPENS
small group of children who lived primarily with their father had remarkably less frequent contact with them than did children in all other family types. Children in a mother residence and in shared residence were equally likely to see their maternal grandparents at least once a month. However, children living with their divorced mother were far less likely than other children to have monthly contact with their paternal grandparents. Children who were living in shared residence or primarily with their father were equally likely or even slightly more likely than children in intact families to have monthly contact with their paternal grandparents.
Figure 3 presents children who indicated having a very good relationship with their grandparents. The patterns are very similar to those in Figure 2. Particularly relationships with grandparents on the side of nonresidential parents are less likely to be very close after divorce. For children in shared residence, equal or even higher percentages reported having a very good relationship with both sets of grandparents when compared to grandchildren with married parents.
The children who resided with one parent only were also those having a greater risk of losing all contact with grandparents on the side of the nonresidential parent. This is illustrated in Figure 4, showing the percentages of grandchildren who never met their grandparents in the year before the DiF survey. For children in shared residence families, the proportion of those not having contact with grandparents was low and did not significantly differ from those in married families.
Multivariate analyses covering different age categories of children and controlling for a range of other determinants of grandchild–grandparent contact (including sociodemographic characteristics, traveling distance between grandchild and grandparent, and the quality of the parent–grand- parent relationship) have confirmed these results. Compared to those with married parents, grandchildren whose parents were divorced had especially less frequent contact with grandparents on the side of a parent they never or not often resided with (Jappens & Van Bavel, 2016b).
In shared parenting families, contact opportunities for grandparents on both sides of the family are less than in married families, but both parents can still facilitate meetings between their parents and children. The parents might also have an increased need for grandparents’ support during the time the children are residing with them. In fact, we found that children in shared parenting families had as much or only slightly less contact with their maternal grandparents as children in married families or in mother resi- dence. Contacts with paternal grandparents were also equal or even more frequent among children in shared residence when compared to children with married parents. These paternal grandparents possibly play an impor- tant role in the care for the children when their divorced son becomes a shared residential father. Or, it might also be that grandparents play a more
active role and that fathers are more inclined to take up a shared residence responsibility when their parents are willing to be involved and help with child care at the outset (Jappens & Van Bavel, 2016b).
One other study compared the frequency of grandparent–grandchild con- tact after recent parental divorce in three custody arrangements. The study was conducted in the Netherlands, a neighboring country to Belgium, where shared residence arrangements also have become more popular in recent years. Their results are in line with ours. They concluded that contact with maternal grandparents was most frequent in mother residence and least frequent in father residence, with shared residence holding an intermediate position. The frequency of contact with paternal grandparents was highest for children in father residence and shared residence, and lowest in mother residence (Westphal et al., 2015).
Discussion
The impact of a separation and custody arrangements clearly reaches beyond the parents and their children, where it has been studied most so far. Grandparents are impacted, too.
Consistent with other research, our findings show that children with better relationships with their grandparents are more satisfied with their lives, have higher self-esteem and mastery, and are less likely to be anxious. This holds true even when the quality of the children’s relationships with their parents is taken into account. Having a close grandparent relationship matters parti- cularly for grandchildren whose parents have divorced. Grandparents from both sides of the family could be important resources for children, and good relationships with grandparents might help them to cope better with the divorce or separation of their parents.
When parents separate, this also affects relationships between children and their grandparents. For some grandparents, contact with grandchildren is hampered or even totally lost after the separation, but in other cases grand- parents see their grandchildren more often and take on a more important role. Children’s custody arrangements play a major intermediating role between parental separation and grandparent relationships afterward. Compared to grandchildren with married parents, grandchildren have espe- cially less contact and less close relationships with the grandparents on the side of the parent with whom they do not (or do not usually) reside. Because most children live mainly with their mothers after separation, it is most often the relationships with paternal grandparents that are affected. In shared residence arrangements, our research showed that contact with grandparents on the father’s side is significantly higher when compared to mother resi- dence, without considerable loss of contact with maternal grandparents. These results support the claim that shared residence is beneficial for
JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 9


10 M. JAPPENS
children’s relationships with their grandparents--especially the grandparents on their father’s side of the family (Kaganas, 2007).
Grandparents are too often neglected in divorce and child custody policies. Therefore, it is important for policymakers, practitioners, and parents to be aware of the role grandparents can play in the well-being of grandchildren. For example, the importance of grandparents could be emphasized in mediation and parenting programs for separated parents. It should, of course, not be forgotten that grandparents also derive joy from contact with their grandchildren. Severing these relationships has an adverse impact on the grandparents’ emotional well-being (Doyle, O’Dywer, & Timonen, 2010; Drew & Silverstein, 2007). Arrangements of shared physical custody have pros and cons (Sodermans, 2013), but when considering what is in the best interest of children after their parents separate, the benefits from close contacts with grandparents on both sides of the family are worth taking into account.
Funding
This research has been funded by the Flemish agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT grant agreement no. 140069 for the project Families in Transition, Transitions in Families.
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Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 
ISSN: 1050-2556 (Print) 1540-4811 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjdr20 
Shared Parenting After Parental Separation: The Views of 12 Experts 
Sanford L. Braver & Michael E. Lamb 
To cite this article: Sanford L. Braver & Michael E. Lamb (2018): Shared Parenting After Parental Separation: The Views of 12 Experts, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, DOI: 10.1080/10502556.2018.1454195 
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JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 
https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454195 
Shared Parenting After Parental Separation: The Views of 12 Experts 
Sanford L. Bravera and Michael E. Lamb b
aDepartment of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA; bDepartment of 


Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK 
ABSTRACT 
This article summarizes panel discussions that took place at an international conference on shared parenting (SP) held in May 2017. The panelists were internationally recognized experts on the legal and psychological implications of cus- tody arrangements and parenting plans. Seven broad themes dominated the discussions: whether or not there was persuasive evidence that SP provides real benefits to children whose parents separate; what specific factors make SP beneficial; what symbolic value SP might have; whether there should be a legal presumption in favor of SP, and if so, what factors should make for exceptions; whether high parental conflict, parents’ failure to agree on the parenting plan, or dynamics of parental alienation should preclude SP; and what should happen when a parent wants to relocate away from the other parent. 
A rather extraordinary event happened in Boston in late May 2017. Expert researchers and scholars of child custody and divorce family law around the world gathered together for 2 days at a conference jointly sponsored by the National Parents Organization (NPO) and the International Council of Shared Parenting (ICSP) to discuss and explore possible consensus regarding the benefits of shared parenting (SP; also called joint physical custody, shared care, shared custody, etc.). The program included the usual lectures and presentations (46 in all), but, rather uniquely, the organizers also staged two 2-hour panel discussions. These videotaped sessions were moderated by a skilled facilitator, Professor Donald Hubin, who encouraged all the participants to express their views on a series of topics and to answer questions from the audience. We first introduce the 12 panelists and then summarize the panel discussions on the seven interrelated topics on which they concentrated. 
CONTACT Sanford L. Braver [email protected] Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, PO Box 871104, Tempe, AZ 85287-1104, USA.
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC 
KEYWORDS 
divorce conflict; joint custody; shared parenting; shared physical custody 


2 S. L. BRAVER AND M. E. LAMB 
Panelists 
Dr. Kari Adamsons is Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Connecticut, and has published many peer-reviewed articles and chapters on fathering, coparenting, and divorce. She is particularly known for her work on nonresident father involvement and father identity, and is considered one of the leaders of the next genera- tion of fatherhood scholars. She is Associate Editor of Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. 
Dr. William Austin is a nationally recognized expert on child custody evaluations who has published numerous professional articles and book chapters on this topic and cochaired the task force that developed the Model Standards of Practice for Child Custody Evaluation for the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC). 
Dr. Malin Bergström of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has written several books about child development, attachment theory, and parenting. Dr. Bergström’s research focuses on children’s health and welfare in shared parenting arrangements and she has led rigorous research projects evaluating the Swedish experience with shared parenting. 
Dr. Sanford L. Braver is Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University, where he served in the Psychology Department for 41 years and was the recipient of 18 competitively reviewed, primarily federal research grants, totaling over $28 million. His work has been published in nearly 135 peer- reviewed professional articles and chapters, and he is author of three books including Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths. 
Dr. Jennifer Harman is Associate Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University. She specializes in the study of intimate partner relation- ships and has published many peer-reviewed articles and books on this topic. Her 2016 TEDx talk on parental alienation showcased several ideas from her most recent coauthored and well-received book, Parents Acting Badly. 
Dr. Michael Lamb is Professor of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. He has focused his scholarship on father–child and mother– child relationships over the last 40 years, writing more than 500 professional articles and 50 books, including five editions of The Role of the Father in Child Development. He is currently President of the American Psychological Association’s Division of Developmental Psychology. 
Dr. Pamela Ludolph is a clinical and forensic psychologist in the Psychology Department at the University of Michigan and in the Child Advocacy Law Clinic at the University’s Law School. She is a published author who conducts complex child custody evaluations and frequently lectures to family court and mental health professionals in the United States and abroad. 


Dr. Linda Nielsen is Professor of Adolescent and Educational Psychology at Wake Forest University. She is an internationally recognized expert on shared physical custody research and father–daughter relationships. She has written three books on father–daughter relationships and three editions of the college textbook, Adolescence: A Contemporary View, as well as numerous articles on shared parenting. . 
Professor Patrick Parkinson is Professor of Law at the University of Sydney, Australia, and is a Past President of the International Society of Family Law. He played a major role in the development of legislation and practice in family law and child protection in Australia, and helped in persuading the Australian government to invest in a national network of Family Relationship Centers, offering mediation and other services to parents going through separation. He has written six books and authored approxi- mately 100 journal articles and book chapters. 
Dr. Irwin Sandler, Regents’ Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Arizona State University, directed for more than 25 years a national research center on the development and evaluation of programs to improve outcomes for children following parental divorce by focusing on postdivorce parenting. He is the author of more than 200 scientific papers, and has served on several scientific advisory boards and committees. 
Professor Hildegund Sünderhauf has been Professor of Family Law and Youth Welfare Law at the Lutheran University of Applied Sciences in Nuremberg, Germany, for 17 years. She initiated the Resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that calls on member states to provide for shared parenting following a separation, wrote the only monograph about SP in Germany, and cofounded the ICSP. 
Dr. Richard Warshak is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and is one of the world’s most respected authorities on divorce, child custody, and parental alienation. He has written 14 books and more than 75 articles in 18 languages that have had a broad impact on family law. His book Divorce Poison: How to Protect Your Family from Bad-Mouthing and Brainwashing has been particularly influential. 
Themes 
Theme 1: Is There Persuasive Evidence That Shared Parenting Provides Real Benefit to Children of Divorce? 
This question was the implicit focus of every presentation and discussion during the conference and there was a remarkable degree of consensus. The empirical evidence currently available supports the view that children of divorce, on average, benefit substantially from SP arrangements in which 
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4 S. L. BRAVER AND M. E. LAMB 
they live with each parent at least 35% of the time. Findings from well over 50 individual studies indicate that children whose parents have SP fare better than those with sole physical custody (see reviews by Bauserman, 2002; Nielsen, 2015, 2017). The beneficial effects are evident across a wide range of measures of children’s well-being, including (a) lower levels of depression, anxiety, and dissatisfaction; (b) lower aggression, and reduced alcohol and substance abuse; (c) better school performance and cognitive development; (d) better physical health; (e) lower smoking rates; and (f) better relationships with fathers, mothers, stepparents, and grandparents. Of course, some studies have failed to show such benefits, but almost none show that SP harms children. At worst, there are no significant differences between children with different custody arrangements. The 12 experts agreed that a tipping point had been reached in the research, and that the benefits of SP for most children could no longer be doubted. 
One of the conference papers addressed the question of whether the better outcomes for SP children are actually “caused” by the shared parenting arrangement (Braver & Votruba, 2018). Because most of the published studies are cross-sectional or static group comparisons (Campbell & Stanley, 1963) between two or more preexisting groups, and “correlation does not equal causation,” it becomes questionable to assert that SP is the cause of children’s outcomes. Because SP was generally not granted if either or both parents declared that they are unalterably opposed to such an arrangement, whatever factors led them to agree could also explain their children’s superior outcomes. Thus, the better outcomes could plausibly be attributed instead to self-selection. 
However, after a thorough review of the literature, Braver and Votruba (2018) ruled out this self-selection explanation and concluded that a causal role for SP was indeed the only viable interpretation. For example, even when parental conflict, cooperation, and income are factored in, SP children still have better outcomes than sole custody children (Nielsen, 2017). Moreover, findings in jurisdictions such as Sweden, where 50–50 SP is now the norm, imply that SP will benefit children even when one of the parents initially opposes the plan (Bergstrom et al., 2015). 
Most panelists argued that SP benefited children largely because having two parents involved in their daily lives was more beneficial than having only one. Moreover, SP enables “weak” parenting by one parent to be offset by “strong” parenting from the other parent. For example, when children received good parenting from either their mother or their father, they had fewer emotional and behavioral problems even when the other parent had weak parenting skills (Elam, Sandler, Wolchik, & Tein, 2016; Sandler, Wheeler, & Braver, 2013). Put another way, a good father can “cover” for a less skilled mother, and vice versa. In SP arrangements, children have two chances of receiving good parenting, whereas if a sole parent has deficient parenting skills, the child is deprived of having a second parent who can fully step in and “come to the rescue.” 
In the language of attachment theory, children are disadvantaged if they lack secure attachments to adult caregivers or protectors (Bowlby, 1969; Lamb, 2002). Children can be--and usually are--attached to more than one of their parents (Lamb & Lewis, 2005). Thus, ensuring that the deficien- cies or unavailability of one parent are readily compensated for by the other attachment figure provides a key advantage for SP (Braver & Lamb, 2012).
Children in SP families might also benefit because they have more access to “social capital” from two parents (Austin, 2011; Coleman, 1990; Hetherington, 1999). Social capital describes the array of social resources and mechanisms that promote individuals’ well-being and chances of success. The greater the number and effectiveness of these resources, the better off individuals will be. Children in sole custody families are less likely than SP children to receive the benefits of social capital from both parents. 
SP might also be more beneficial than sole custody because parents’ strengths or weakness are not static over time. Adults’ abilities to parent effectively are affected by whatever else is going on in their lives. As the children are growing up, at various times, each parent’s attention could be diverted by other events that affect their parenting skills due to stress, other demands, and, perhaps, impatience with the child. These are the very times when the second parent can pick up the slack, which helps explain why children in two-parent households are better adjusted, on average, than children in one-parent households (Clarke-Stewart & Brentano, 2006; McLanahan & Teitler, 1999; Simons, Lin, Gordon, Conger, & Lorenz, 1999). Analogously, in SP families--but not in sole parenting situations— the second parent is available to step in. Accordingly, Fransson, Låftman, Östberg, Hjern, and Bergström (2017) found that in SP, children’s living conditions were “on par with children who live with two custodial parents in the same household,” especially with regard to economic and material con- ditions, relations with parents, and health-related outcomes, whereas those in sole parenting situations had poorer living conditions. Many divorce decrees capture this sense through right of first refusal provisions, which stipulate that one parent must first offer the other parent the opportunity to look after the child before asking another adult to do so (Meyer, 2016) . 
According to the panelists, children need opportunities to build and maintain relationships with both parents, which requires spending adequate amounts of time with both in a variety of circumstances and contexts. These 12 experts concur with the consensus of 18 experts two decades ago: 
To maintain high-quality relationships with their children, parents need to have sufficiently extensive and regular interactions with them, but the amount of time involved is usually less important than the quality of the interaction that it fosters. 
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Time distribution arrangements that ensure the involvement of both parents in important aspects of their children’s everyday lives and routines ... are likely to keep nonresidential parents playing psychologically important and central roles in the lives of their children. (Lamb, Sternberg, & Thompson, 1997, p. 400) 
As one expert pithily put it, “Would you want to build and enrich and nurture a relationship with a new spouse based on being together only alternating weekends?” 
Many recent studies show that attachment relationships, too, are not static and fixed in the first year or so of the child’s life, as was earlier thought (see review by Thompson, 1998). Instead, attachments grow and change in quality over time, throughout childhood and adolescence and even into adulthood (Lamb & Lewis, 2005). Parenting time arrangements that are flexible and subject to change as the children mature thus become necessary. SP arrange- ments are generally more conducive to this flexibility than sole parenting. 
Children with SP also have better outcomes, it was opined, because these arrangements are preferred by the children themselves. There is convincing evidence that, on average, children would prefer to spend substantial--even equal--time with both parents (Fabricius & Hall, 2000; Parkinson, Cashmore, & Single, 2005; Warshak, 2003). Fabricius and Hall (2000), for example, found that 48% of college-age children whose parents had divorced would have preferred to spend almost equal or equal time with both parents, although most had themselves been in sole maternal custody. In some states, in fact, decision makers are required to consider children’s preferences when they are over a certain age. 
Theme 2: What Are the “Active Ingredients” That Account for the Better Outcomes of SP Children?
There are many aspects to SP, including more time with the second parent, higher quality time with each parent, shared decision making, and so on. It is plausible that any or all of them is the active ingredient that accounts for the benefits of SP. Because any of these factors might alone plausibly explain the advantages and benefits of SP, researchers have been attempting to “unpack” or “unravel” these various elements to determine which are critical for the improved outcomes. This effort has both theoretical and practical impor- tance, the latter because it might allow courts and custody evaluators to consider the relevant factors while ignoring the irrelevant ones. 
In fact, the panelists identified research supporting the importance of every one of the preceding factors. For example, the benefits of more time, although not necessarily equal time, with both parents in SP families were documented by Nielsen (2017) and by Adamsons and Johnson (2013). The benefit of high-quality interactions between children and their fathers was documented, for example, by Amato and Gilbreth (1999), and Coley and Medeiros (2007). 
A consensus has appeared in the literature that around 35% of the child’s time is required as a platform on which such high-quality time rests to allow these high-quality interactions and promote the development and mainte- nance of meaningful parent–child relationships (Braver & O’Connell, 1998; Fabricius, Braver, Diaz, & Velez, 2010; Lamb, 2004). This figure is also the one that many states designate that triggers the shared care guideline for child support calculation purposes (Fabricius & Braver, 2003). Most SP research also uses this 35% figure to distinguish SP from sole parenting (Kelly, 2007; Nielsen, 2017). Overnight time, including midweek overnight time when school is in session is beneficial because it makes possible the parents’ involvement in a variety of activities (help with bedtime routines, help with morning getting-ready-for-school routines, homework discipline; Braver & Lamb, 2012; Finley & Schwartz, 2007) . 
Joint physical custody is almost always accompanied by joint legal custody, but the reverse is not the case (Maccoby & Mnookin, 1992). Joint legal custody, in which parents share legal authority to make med- ical, educational, and religious decisions for the child, has been found to have independent positive effects on children’s welfare, even when it is not accompanied by shared physical parenting (Gunnoe & Braver, 2001; Seltzer, 1998). To some, this latter finding is surprising, because the relevant major decisions are rare and it is hard to enforce joint decision making. Indeed, Albiston, Maccoby, and Mnookin (1990) found that fathers with joint legal custody were no more involved in everyday decisions than those who did not have legal custody. However, shared decision making carries very substantial symbolic benefits, if not actual, pragmatic ones. The legal authority to make or share in important life decisions communicates to the child, the other parent, the school, and medical authorities--to the world--that both parents have responsibility for shaping the child into a functioning adult. 
Theme 3: The Symbolic Value of Shared Parenting, Societal Norms, Public Opinion, and Dissemination of Information
As noted earlier, the panelists agreed that SP arrangements have symbolic weight. This underscored the importance of cultural norms and attitudes of professionals from whom separating parents might get advice. For example, when a lawyer tells a divorcing parent that SP is good for children, and that SP is likely to be awarded in court, this changes not only parents’ negotiation strategy, but also the way they think about the other parent. Many separating parents attend “divorce education” classes, often court ordered and mandatory (Blaisure & Geasler, 2000; Pollet & 
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Lambreglia, 2008), where they are exposed to the message that both parents matter, and that the courts will honor and vindicate the value of both parents (DeLuse & Braver, 2015). Not all parents receive these messages about the benefits of SP, though. 
SP arrangements signal that both parents matter, that both retain their parental roles and responsibilities, that both are necessary to the child’s well-being, and that neither should be discarded or reduced to a sec- ondary or purely financial role. This more or less public announcement likely affects the child as well as both of the parents. Knowing that they matter to each parent powerfully affects the emotional functioning of adolescents (Schenck et al., 2009). Velez, Braver, Cookston, Fabricius, and Parke (in press) also found that mattering to the father after divorce had a greater impact on adjustment than mattering to the mother. 
The fact that fathers play an important nurturing role is gaining public acceptance. For example, the content of commercials featuring fathers and children has shifted noticeably from older ones depicting fathers simply as bunglers (Tropp & Kelly, 2015). Indeed, Nielsen has recently been hired as a consultant by advertisers trying to bring their commercials more into line with contemporary understandings of how fathers interact with their young daughters (Huffman, 2017). The recognition that fathers are necessary and important, not useless or destructive, can and has made for change in both practical and legal domains. 
Accordingly, there is evidence that SP has great support among the public at large. For example, in a survey experiment using potential jury members, almost 70% favored SP over sole custody (Braver, Ellman, Votruba, & Fabricius, 2011), a sign that public attitudes about SP have already changed, probably faster than those of courts. One of the panelists, Professor Sunderhauf, told a story illustrating how analogous societal changes proceed through stages. In Austria, corporal punishment by parents was legally banned 20 years ago. Two years later, research showed that parents still spanked, but felt guilty about doing so. Five years later, however, rates of corporal punishment had also declined, underscoring the fact that society’s beliefs about appropriate parenting practices need to precede actual changes in behavior. 
The slow but unmistakable shift toward insisting on substantial parent- ing roles for fathers after divorce has become evident, with many U.S. states and European and Australasian societies having turned the corner. Tracing patterns of change over the last 20 to 30 years, it was suggested that “the effort to allow divorced fathers a greatly enhanced role in their children’s lives is on the right side of history. The completion of the effort seems inevitable. It appears just a matter of time until it predominates.” 


Theme 4: Should Shared Parenting Be a Legal Presumption, and if So, What Factors Should Make for Exceptions?
A presumption in law is an assumption made by a court as the basis on which decisions can be made. Generally, presumptions in family law are considered rebuttable and are accepted by the court until and unless disproved. Thus, to make SP the presumption would make it the default arrangement. Naturally, such a default could be overridden when evidence convinces the court that application of the presumption would be inappropriate. Only one U.S. state (Arizona) and a few European nations (Belgium, Sweden) currently make SP the presumptive arrangement. In Australia, a 2006 law requires courts to “consider” equal time, or at least “substantial and significant” time, when establishing postseparation parenting plans. Many participants at the con- ference believed that more jurisdictions will embrace this presumption in the future. 
Most, but not all, of the panelists believed that the research evidence sup- ported making SP a presumption. As Braver and Votruba (2018) noted: 
The evidence is now sufficiently deep and consistent to permit social scientists to provisionally recommend presumptive SP to policy-makers ... these statements are explicitly made guardedly ... [We] expect researchers will keep studying the matter ... consumers of this research need to be alert to new findings that continue to affirm the conclusions here--or perhaps that oppose it. We might aptly char- acterize the current state of the evidence as “the preponderance of the evidence” (i.e., substantially more evidence for the presumption than against it). A great many studies, with various inferential strengths, suggest that SP will bestow benefits on children on average, and few if any studies show that it harms them. 
All panelists were, however, appropriately wary of a one-size-fits-all stan- dard, cautioning that exceptions to an SP presumption need to be recognized as appropriate bases for rebuttal. Among the factors that should lead to such exceptions are credible risk to the child of abuse or neglect, too great a distance between the parents’ homes, threat of abduction by a parent, and unreasonable or excessive gate-keeping. Furthermore, some children with special needs might require the care of a single parent. 
An additional potential rebuttal factor was the topic of more extended discussion: the mere existence of intimate partner violence (IPV). It was noted that there is increasingly sophisticated understanding of IPV, due primarily to the writing of Johnson (2010). He distinguished among four distinct patterns of IPV, only one of which, coercive controlling violence (the stereotypical male battering pattern), should preclude SP (Kelly & Johnson, 2008). Researchers, custody evaluators, and courts must explore not simply whether there is evidence of IPV, but also its nature, when considering implications for parenting plans. 
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Theme 5: Should High Parental Conflict or One Parent’s Opposition to Shared Parenting Be Grounds for an Exception?
Another potential rebuttal factor was extensively discussed: whether SP should be precluded in the presence of high interparental conflict. Many courts and custody evaluators seem currently to take the position that it should be precluded. For example, in his guide for professional custody evaluators, Stahl (1999) opined that “high conflict parents cannot share parenting” (p. 99). In the same vein, Emery (2009) argued that “joint physical custody is the worst arrangement for children when [it] leaves [them] in the middle of a war zone. ... In high conflict divorces, children do worse in joint physical custody than in other arrangements.” 
However, most members of the panel eschewed this opinion, in view of the plethora of recent evidence to the contrary. In particular, Nielsen (2017) had reviewed 27 distinct studies showing that children benefited significantly from SP even when the parents had high levels of conflict. 
Several other cautions were raised as well. One was that not all conflict was toxic to children, either in intact or separated families. Indeed, exposure to some degree of disagreement between parents can actually promote chil- dren’s adjustment (Cummings & Davies, 1994; Grych, Seid, & Fincham, 1992). Further, various strategies (e.g., dropping off and picking up children at school instead of at the parents’ homes) can limit children’s exposure to conflict. This could lead to more parallel rather than cooperative parenting, which can be useful in many cases (Birnbaum & Bala, 2010). 
Panelists also noted the need for a more sophisticated view of parent conflict. Although conflict is often viewed simplistically as a couple-level construct (“it takes two to tango”), more detailed analyses show that, in perhaps one third of cases, only one of the parents might be fomenting hostility, while the other has “moved on” and is (fruitlessly) pursuing relative harmony (Kelly, 2003). Professionals thus need to determine whether the conflict is unilaterally instigated and make parenting plan decisions accord- ingly (Braver et al., 2011).
Finally, conflict is not static and fixed, but rather malleable and dynamic, subject to change as a result of numerous factors, including simply the passage of time. Interventions can also mitigate the degree of conflict between the parents, even when only one of the parents participates (Cookston, Braver, Griffin, DeLusé, & Miles, 2007). Indeed, the court envir- onment itself often foments conflict, which diminishes after litigation ends (Kelly, 2007; Pruett & Jackson, 1999). Moreover, the stance that proclaiming high levels of conflict might preclude SP provides an incentive both for exaggeration about and proliferation of conflict. 
It has also sometimes been argued that SP is only appropriate and will benefit children when both parents voluntarily agree to it at the outset. This idea, too, was strongly opposed by most of the panelists. First, the evidence disputes it: In particular, Nielsen (2017) reviewed six distinct studies showing that children benefited significantly from SP even when one parent initially opposed the SP plan. Second, as a strategic matter, it unwisely gives veto power to the less cooperative parent. Third, agreement to SP arrangement is not fixed, but is highly dependent on context, especially court-related factors (Fabricius et al., 2010). Accordingly, when parents are educated by courts and lawyers and other professionals that SP is beneficial and normative, their opposition often dissipates. 
Theme 6: Should Parental Alienation Dynamics Preclude Shared Parenting?
Although the concepts of conflict and violence are often related and are commonly confused--by researchers, by courts, and by separating parents— links between both constructs and parental alienation are often overlooked. Panelists, especially those who conduct custody evaluations, noted that par- ents might foment discord in children’s relationships with their other parent to reduce or to end contact between them (Warshak, 2010). These actions sometimes have the desired effect, disrupting children’s relationships with an otherwise worthy and blameless parent. SP arrangements can successfully counter these attempts at alienation because they ensure that children can directly evaluate the behavior of both parents, recognizing for themselves discrepancies between the parent’s actual characteristics and those described by the alienating parent. 
Thus, far from the stance that the existence of alienation precludes SP, the experts felt the opposite: SP tends to prevent alienation, and when it is found to be present, efforts at unification with the rejected parent are important to promote the child’s welfare (Darnall & Steinberg, 2008; Warshak, 2002). 
Theme 7: What Should Happen When One Parent Wants to Relocate?
As mentioned earlier, too great a distance between the parents’ homes is typically seen as a rebuttal factor to imposing SP, for obvious reasons. However, what should happen if, after SP is initially adopted, one of the parents needs--or simply wants--to relocate, which would thereby effectively end the SP arrangement? Increases in the numbers of children whose involved parents live apart have resulted in a growing number of cases in which courts must decide whether one of those parents can be allowed to relocate with the children, thereby attenuating the children’s relationships with the nonmoving parents. In eras dominated by single-parent custody arrangements, custodial parents (typically mothers) faced very few restric- tions on their ability to move as and where they chose, but that situation has changed. 
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Jurisdictions approach these disputes differently, with some placing the burden of proof on the party who wishes to relocate and others on the nonmoving party to show why the move should not be allowed. The panelists mostly opined that these decisions should be individualized, without pre- sumptions either favoring or eschewing relocation, but with attention paid to the moving parent’s reason for wishing to move and the possibility that both parents might move, and the projected impact on the parent–child relation- ships and the children’s adjustment. Although many relocations threaten to have negative effects on the latter, panelists also noted that decisions needed to take into account the history of involvement by the nonmoving parent when adjudicating these cases (Kelly & Lamb, 2003; Parkinson & Cashmore, 2015). Where children have meaningful relationships with both parents, but the relocation of one parent is deemed appropriate, it is important that courts and parents establish new parenting plans that take the changed circum- stances into account when ensuring that children are able to maintain significant relationships with both parents. 
Conclusions
The discussions by these eminent international authorities disclosed a large degree of consensus taking positions somewhat at odds with much current practice. For example, these 12 experts largely agreed that SP should now be a legal presumption, that a minimum of 35% of the child’s time should be allocated to each parent for the child to reap the benefits of SP, and that the existence of interparental conflict or opposition to SP by one parent should no longer be grounds to preclude or rebut SP.
It might be surprising to some that the experts’ views were so out of step with much current practice. In point of fact, however, the experts were simply reaching conclusions that were ahead of current practice. The landscape for parenting after divorce is rapidly changing. Fathers are recently being depicted in cultural portrayals as nurturant and beneficial to children as opposed to the previous image as bumbling, inept, unin- terested, and perhaps dangerous. U.S. states and European countries are rapidly adopting SP-friendly policies and none are going in the opposite direction. The public now endorses SP arrangements by overwhelming majorities and is critical of current court policies to the contrary (Braver et al., 2011).
Indeed, experts have been taking comparable positions for some time. The expert panel assembled two decades ago made similar recommendations (Lamb et al., 1997). Bauserman’s (2002) meta-analysis documenting the benefits to children of SP summarized research from the 1990s. Warshak’s (2014) stance that the literature favored overnight visits for young children of divorce was endorsed by fully 112 experts.


These experts knew about and were citing the research findings that will undoubtedly form the basis and empirical foundation for the statutes, poli- cies, and cultural norms of the near future. The panel was summarizing today what will be the normative practice of tomorrow, to the benefit of tomor- row’s families and children.
ORCID
Michael E. Lamb http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6792-3526
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Journal of Divorce & Remarriage
ISSN: 1050-2556 (Print) 1540-4811 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjdr20
Arguments Against a Presumption of Shared Physical Custody in Family Law
Edward Kruk
To cite this article: Edward Kruk (2018): Arguments Against a Presumption of Shared Physical
Custody in Family Law, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, DOI: 10.1080/10502556.2018.1454201
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454201
Published online: 03 Apr 2018.
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JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE
https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454201
Arguments Against a Presumption of Shared Physical Custody in Family Law
Edward Kruk
School of Social Work, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
KEYWORDS
Shared physical custody; family law


ABSTRACT
The introduction of the “best interests of the child” standard as a legal presumption in family law in the 1970s signaled an important transition away from a maternal preference standard in child custody disputes, toward a recognition of the centrality and importance of both parents in the lives of children after parental separation. Paradoxically, this reform resulted in an increase rather than decrease in court-determined maternal sole custody. Despite robust empirical evidence in support of shared parenting, a gender convergence in child care roles, and increasing public support for shared parenting, the idea of shared parenting as a legal presumption has been met with skepticism and resistance among some legal and mental health professionals. This article traces the evolution of argu- ments against shared parenting since the concept was first introduced, from the early 1970s until the present day.
Despite strong public support and mounting empirical evidence in its favor, shared parenting as presumption in family law has been met with skepticism among legal and mental health professionals. As research evidence on child and family outcomes supportive of shared parenting as a foundation of family law has proliferated, counterarguments to shared parenting have likewise evolved. Since the 1970s, after the introduction of the “best interests of the child standard” in family law internationally, a gender-neutral criterion replaced maternal preference statutes. This was intended to encourage greater sharing of parental responsibility of children after parental separa- tion. Yet, three distinct “waves” of arguments against shared parenting have placed researchers and shared parenting advocates on the defensive. These arguments place the burden of proof on proponents of dual residence as a viable legal alternative. As Kelly (1991) wrote, “It is ironic, and of some interest, that we have subjected joint custody to a level and intensity of scrutiny that was never directed toward the traditional post-divorce arrange- ment (sole legal and physical custody to the mother and two weekends each month of visiting to the father)” (p. 55), despite mounting evidence that
CONTACT Edward Kruk [email protected] School of Social Work, University of British Columbia, 2080 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2, Canada.
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC


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traditional sole custody arrangements were less nurturing and stabilizing for children and families.
These “waves” of arguments against shared parenting as a family law pre- sumption were, first, an outright dismissal of shared parenting as an unwork- able and preposterous notion; second, more concentrated and in-depth rebuttals; and third, a cautious but increasing recognition that the idea might have some merit. Today we find ourselves at a watershed moment in regard to recognizing and establishing shared parenting as in the best interests of most children of divorce, and as beneficial for parents as well.
In the first of these waves, an important early argument against joint legal custody was that it would disempower mothers, allowing fathers control over their children and ex-wives without any demonstration of responsibility for child care on their part (Polikoff, 1982; Weitzman, 1985). It was argued that “the search for symbolic equality has led to a sacrifice of equity” (Fineman, 1988, p. 4). A number of feminist scholars argued that when joint custody dispositions continue to resemble de facto sole maternal custody, the social role and functions of custodial mothers are maintained in practice but their legal rights and control over their children’s lives are diminished. The negative consequence of this, it was argued, was that the assumption of parental rights in the absence of shared child care responsibility has the potential for serious abuse, and from children’s point of view, “joint custody” is meaningless. Despite evidence that joint custody fathers were in fact significantly more involved in parenting than fathers without legal custody, it was further argued that the potential for abuse and inequity remains in those cases where parental rights are granted without any corresponding requirement for active responsibility for child care.
Another concern about the granting of joint custody to fathers was the assumption that the primary motivation of divorced fathers seeking joint custody and shared parenting arrangements was to avoid child support obliga- tions (Polikoff, 1982). Fatherhood researchers (Ambrose, Harper, & Pemberton, 1983; Greif, 1979; Hetherington, Cox, & Cox, 1976; Jacobs, 1986; Kruk, 1992; Lamb, 1981; Lund, 1987) thus examined this question. This research concluded that although fathers envisioned the concept of shared parenting as encompassing a sharing of both parental rights and responsibil- ities, their primary motivation was to maintain meaningful day-to-day rela- tionships with their children. Fathers experienced a profound grief reaction related to the absence of their children and saw themselves at high risk of becoming alienated from their children within traditional custody and access arrangements. (Kruk, 1992) Once it was established that fathers’ motives to maintain meaningful relationships with their children were genuine, with shared physical caregiving arrangements their desired goal, the three waves of arguments against shared parenting began to unfold in earnest. The first wave was based on an outdated form of attachment theory that focused on
children’s need for maintaining attachments with their primary caregiver, and the mother’s supposedly natural position as the primary parent. The second wave focused on children’s exposure to high conflict and family violence in shared parenting arrangements; these arguments persisted despite an initial lack of research on the link between the two. Finally, the third wave of arguments acknowledged that shared parenting might be beneficial for most children, but cautioned against the idea of presumptions in family law, focus- ing on subgroups of children and families such as children in high-conflict families, or infants and the very young. Again, these arguments persisted despite new research supportive of shared parenting that challenged outdated assumptions about these populations.
It should be noted that arguments against a legal presumption of shared parenting have not followed a straightforward progression. Further, each of the waves of objections, although challenged by current research, persists in some quarters. The emergence of more robust research on children’s outcomes in shared parenting families in a wide variety of circumstances, however, has now led to a watershed moment in which a consensus is emerging with respect to shared parenting as optimal to children’s best interests and commensurate with their well-being.
The first wave: Arguments against shared parenting
Once it was established that fathers were less interested in seeking joint legal decision-making authority than with actively parenting their children, argu- ments against shared parenting gained full force. The first wave of objections to a legal shared parenting presumption was largely based on outdated versions of attachment theory that focused on children’s need for maintaining attachments with their mothers as primary caregivers (Bowlby, 1969). These arguments failed to take into account new research-based reformulations of attachment theory that emphasized children’s primary attachment to both parents, and the increas- ing popularity of shared caregiving in two-parent families.
The first line of attack against shared parenting was the “yo-yo” argument. This argument suggested that shared parenting was inherently unstable for children, who would be “yanked around like a yo-yo.” Recurring transfers between homes, according to this view, would tax children’s adjustment and create a feeling of instability and insecurity (Goldstein, Freud, & Solnit, 1973). Aside from logistical problems, repeatedly moving from one home to another, having to follow two sets of rules and cope with potentially differing parental expectations would, it was contended, result in stress and confusion. Children might have difficulty adjusting to frequent moves and need a secure base. It was seen to be disruptive and confusing for children to have two homes where they encounter two different lifestyles and value systems. A child “bounced” from parent to parent could deal with different child-rearing styles, and could
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encounter loyalty conflicts. Critics of shared parenting thus emphasized the child’s vulnerability and need for a consistent and predictable lifestyle.
First-wave proponents also warned against problems caused by children’s continual separations from their primary attachment figure, which in most families, it was argued, is the mother. Separations could, in this view, prevent younger children in particular from developing secure attachments to their mother, thereby generating difficulties in later life. The early works of Bowlby (1969) and Goldstein et al. (1973) were invoked to illustrate the central importance of children maintaining bonds with their primary attachment figure, which would be compromised within a shared parenting arrangement. Bowlby’s now abandoned concept of monotropy, the idea that infants form attachment relationships with a single caregiver and that this first relation- ship serves as a foundation and template for all subsequent attachment bonds, was the basis for the proposition that infants and young children have one psychological parent who should be granted sole decision-making authority, including the authority to determine whether and to what degree the children have a relationship with the other parent (Goldstein et al., 1973).
Evidence refuting the first-wave arguments
In rebuttal to the first wave of arguments against shared parenting, attach- ment theory has been amended to accommodate evidence that children form strong attachment bonds and relationships with both parents and show remarkable tenacity in continuing these under a variety of conditions (Lamb & Kelly, 2009). A number of studies were undertaken in the 1970s to determine whether two homes undermine stability. Greif (1979) con- cluded that the concern over the disruption of having two homes is rarely a concern of members of joint custody families themselves. Abarbanel (1979) observed shared custody families in California and found that children feel “at home” in both environments and saw themselves as living in two homes. Stack (1976) argued that sole custody deprives children of being exposed to another worldview from the noncustodial parent, which might better equip them for life in a pluralistic society. Emphasizing the child’s resilience and need for stimulation from diverse sources, she also noted that sole custody can sever a child’s ties with an entire set of relatives, whereas joint custody allows the child’s support group to expand, including not only both parents and their relatives but also each parent’s new friends. It is now well estab- lished that children’s level of stress is reduced and adaptation to parental separation is enhanced in shared parenting, as opposed to sole custody, arrangements. In regard to both divorce-specific and general adjustment measures of physical, psychological, emotional, and social well-being, chil- dren in shared care homes fare significantly better than children in other arrangements (Bergstrom et al., 2013; Fransson, Låftman, Östberg, Hjern, & Bergström, 2017; Nielsen, 2014; Turunen, 2017).
The major flaw of the primary parent or attachment figure argument is that it is based on outdated research and attachment theory formulations. As far back as 1972, Rutter concluded, “the chief bond need not be with the biological parent, it need not be with the chief caretaker, and it need not be with a female, as a less exclusive focus on the mother is required. Children also have fathers” (Rutter, 1972, p. 125). Bowlby (1973)himself eventually acknowledged that children are no more likely to be securely attached to mothers than fathers.
It is now well established that children form primary attachment bonds with both of their parents at the same stage in their development (Lamb & Kelly, 2009). Relationships spanning a range of activities and contexts, with minimal separations, are vital to preserving these attachments to both par- ents. According to current attachment research, after parents separate, eve- nings and overnights provide opportunities for crucial interactions and nurturing activities that daytime “visits” cannot provide, including bathing, soothing hurts and anxieties, bedtime rituals, comforting in the middle of the night, and the reassurance and security of snuggling in the morning after awakening (Warshak, 2014, this issue). These everyday activities create and maintain children’s trust and confidence in their parents, while deepening and strengthening parent–child bonds. Infants and very young children cannot tolerate lengthy separations from their attachment figures, and rela- tionships with both their mothers and fathers profoundly affect their adjust- ment. The richer, deeper, and more secure the parent–child relationships, the better the child’s adjustment to family transitions, whether or not the parents live together. When both parents have been actively involved as caregivers in infants’ lives, continued frequent opportunities for routine interaction with both parents are crucial to children’s well-being after parental separation (Lamb & Kelly, 2009). More recently, Fabricius and Suh (2017) found that young adults who had overnight parenting time with their fathers before the age of 3 had better relationships with both parents than those who had not overnighted. These benefits held even after controlling for parental conflict and children’s sex and age at separation. The benefits also held for parents who initially disagreed about overnights where the overnight parenting plan was imposed over one parent’s objections.
There is an emerging consensus that shared residential arrangements for infants and very young children are a protective factor (Warshak, 2014). Especially when children are young, their interactions with both of their parents need to be regular and routine and need to include overnights and shared parenting. (see Warshak, this issue)
Beyond infancy, preschool children remain highly vulnerable. Decades of research have documented young children’s vulnerability to depression after
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parental divorce, confusion about the nature of families and interpersonal relationships, a tendency to blame themselves for their parents’ conflict and divorce, regression in behavior and general development, a fear of being sent away or replaced, joyless play, a preoccupation with trying to fit objects together, and a yearning for the absent parent. Maintaining relationships with both parents within a coparenting living arrangement is protective of children in regard to these symptoms (Lamb & Kelly, 2009).
The debunking of the primary parent argument has not deterred those who oppose shared parenting. Although acknowledging that children might form attachments with both parents, opponents still argue that mothers should retain their role as the primary day-to-day caregivers of children, and that it is harmful to children’s well-being to disrupt the caregiving status quo (Boyd, 2003). From this perspective, postseparation sole custody arrangements were merely the continuation of existing child caregiving arrangements, vital to maintaining children’s sense of stability and predictability of caregiving rou- tines and relationships. In seeking shared parenting and disrupting the car- egiving status quo, it was argued, breadwinner fathers were only seeking to avoid their child support obligations, invoking the “deadbeat dad” stereotype. This argument, however, fails to acknowledge the gender convergence of child care roles in contemporary families (Bianchi, 2000; Marshall, 2006). Current analyses report that employed mothers and fathers spend a comparable amount of time caring for their children. On average, employed mothers devote 11.1 hours to direct child care each week and fathers devote 10.5 hours, a 515 to 49% split (Higgins & Duxbury, 2002, 2012) Although they work more hours outside the home than mothers, young fathers spend an average of 4.3 hours a day with their children, only 45 minutes less than mothers (Galinsky, Aumann, & Bond, 2009).
Bianchi (2000) attributed the gender convergence in child care to six factors: (a) the reallocation of mothers’ time to market work outside the home (child care time declines as work time has increased); (b) overestimations of maternal time with children in previous research (it was assumed that all time at home was invested in child care when in reality a large amount was given to household chores not involving children); (c) smaller families have reduced total time with young children; (d) more preschool children spend time in day care and play group settings, regardless of the mother’s employment status; (e) women’s reallo- cation of their time has facilitated a relative increase in fathers’ involvement in child care; and (f) technology such as cell phones has allowed parents to be “on call” without being physically present with children. Given these realities in contemporary families, shared parenting more closely reflects child caregiving arrangements before divorce than does sole physical custody, if one accepts the assertion that postdivorce roles should be determined by roles prior to divorce. In sum, the claim that mothers are the primary caregivers of children before divorce are, for most families, outdated.


The second wave: Arguments against shared parenting
The second wave of arguments contends that shared parenting exacerbates conflict and can lead to violence between parents who are already in conflict over child custody arrangements. Here it is argued that shared parenting will increase interparental conflict, and that parents already in conflict will increase their animosity because shared parenting presumably calls for a high degree of parental cooperation. The need to cooperate and coordinate will, according to this line of reasoning, perpetuate the conflicts that con- tributed to the couple’s breakup. Thus shared parenting is only suitable for parents with little or no conflict who get along relatively well as coparents. Further, children in shared parenting arrangements are, it is argued, at greater risk of experiencing conflicting loyalties and becoming triangulated. Families in litigation who have shared parenting imposed on them presum- ably will then place their children in the middle of their conflicts.
These views have had a profound effect in the field of child custody, as courts have ruled under the assumption that shared parenting is unworkable in situations where parents are in conflict and are therefore incapable of cooperation. Primary residence orders are thus routinely imposed in court-determined arrangements, unless parents are able to demonstrate their capacity to cooperate.
Evidence refuting the second-wave arguments
How strongly does the empirical evidence support these second-wave argu- ments against shared parenting? Earlier research (Johnston, Kline, & Tschann, 1989) found more negative outcomes for daughters, but not for sons, from high-conflict than from low-conflict families when the children had frequent “visits” with their fathers. Kelly (2007), however, noted that the amount of shared parenting time might not be as problematic for children as frequent “visits” in high-conflict families. She suggested limiting the fre- quency of exchanges between homes and arranging the transitions so that parents did not have direct contact with one another. It is also possible that conflict might decline more quickly when parents share the physical custody of their children, as one parent will not feel marginalized.
It has also been argued that shared parenting exposes women and children to family violence and child abuse. Feminist legal scholars (Berg, 2011; Meier & Dickson, 2017) in particular have argued that shared parenting is routinely ordered in families where there has been a history of violence. Jaffe, Crooks, and Poisson (2003) estimated that in roughly 75% of contested custody cases, the father has physically abused the mother: “Joint custody is an attempt of males to continue dominance over females ... an essential principle in the high conflict divorce arena is that joint custody and shared parenting plans are not viable resolutions” (p. 213).
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Domestic violence and child abuse are issues that proponents of shared parent- ing take very seriously. This is why a legally rebuttable presumption of shared parenting would exclude cases of violence and child abuse and differentiate high conflict from violence. Witnessing violence is a form of emotional child abuse, and all children under a rebuttable presumption would be afforded this protection.
Another important point in refuting the second-wave arguments is that “win- ner-take-all” sole custody plans could exacerbate interparental conflict, and might lead to violence. Fully half of first-time family violence occurs at the time the parents are separating, often in the midst of adversarial “winner-take-all” custody disputes (Ellis & Wight-Peasley, 1986; Hotton, 2003). Johnston, Roseby, and Kuehnle (2009) discussed the high occurrence of “separation-related violence” during adversarial child custody proceedings. When neither parent is threatened by the loss of his or her children, conflict or violence are likely to diminish. The animosity that can be created by sole custody arrangements seems tailor-made to produce the worst possible outcomes when two loving, competent parents cannot agree on a parenting plan, and the conflict and violence escalate.
For many years the position that shared parenting in situations of high conflict was harmful to children was popular. There is now strong empirical evidence, however, that children can benefit from shared parenting even when their parents do not have low-conflict, cooperative relationships (Fabricius, Sokol, Diaz, & Braver, 2016; Nielsen, 2017). Shared parenting might create an incentive for parental cooperation.
More recent research has also found that shared parenting can ameliorate the harmful effects of high conflict: A warm relationship with both parents is a protective factor for children (Nielsen, 2017; Warshak, 2014). The benefits of shared parenting exist independent of parental conflict. Shared parenting is beneficial for children in both low- and high-conflict situations. Except in situations where children are at risk of physical harm or negligent parent- ing, parenting time should not be limited in cases of high conflict, and high conflict should not be used to justify restrictions on children’s contact with either of their parents.
Rather than depriving children of time with one of their parents in high- conflict families, reduction of conflict to which children are exposed is impor- tant. A number of specialized interventions to help parents reduce conflict have been developed, including parallel parenting, therapeutic family media- tion, parent education programs, and parenting coordination (Kruk, 2013). A key strategy is keeping parents focused on their children’s needs, and enhan- cing parents’ attunement to their children’s needs. The main therapeutic task in high-conflict families is to help parents separate their previous marital hostilities from their ongoing parenting responsibilities.
Finally, second-wave arguments fail to distinguish among different levels of conflict. Conflict is a normal part of everyday life, and to completely shield children from normal day-to-day conflict could in fact be doing them a disservice. Conflict presents an opportunity for resolution of disputes, heal- ing, and reconciliation. Conflict is not inherently bad for children. It is persistent, unresolved conflict that drags children into the middle that is harmful for children, and children need to be shielded from violence and abuse. In the majority of high-conflict divorces, however, violence and abuse are not a factor. Children’s safety in the majority of divorces is best assured when both parents are actively and responsibly involved in their lives, and when social institutions support them in fulfilling their parental responsibil- ities (Kruk, 2013).
The third wave: Arguments against shared parenting
The third wave of arguments against shared parenting acknowledges that shared parenting might be beneficial for most children, but cautions against the idea of presumptions in family law, emphasizing that the current discre- tionary best interests of the child standard must be retained. The third wave of arguments is specifically aimed against establishing a legal presumption of shared parenting in family law. Currently, the best interests of the child remains the sole or primary criterion on which legal determinations of parent- ing after divorce are based in most legal jurisdictions. It is argued that children’s “best interests” will be different in each individual case, given the unique circumstances of each individual child and family. Hence in this view, it is vital that the court retain its discretionary power in making decisions based on particular circumstances; assessing each case on its own merits should remain the cornerstone of family law. A legal presumption of shared parenting, it is argued, would prioritize parental rights over the well-being of children.
The best interests of the child standard is touted as gender-neutral, flexible, and simple to apply. It is claimed that the standard provides a safety net to ensure that children’s safety and well-being are protected to the maximum degree possible, especially in violent or abusive families. In addi- tion, it is argued that, in allowing judges to exercise their discretion, the best interests standard provides for individual justice. Moreover it is contended that social science research has not established the amount of time that parents need to maintain a meaningful relationship.
Evidence refuting the third-wave arguments
The third-wave arguments are problematic in many regards. First, the best interests of the child standard is vague and indeterminate, as children’s best interests are largely undefined, lack legal consensus, and are based on spec- ulation about future conduct. The absence of a clear definition of best interests renders the standard unworkable. Second, the standard gives judges unfettered discretion in decision making, based on their idiosyncratic biases, in an area
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around which they have little or no training or expertise, and is thus subject to judicial error. This discretion can result in unpredictable and inconsistent outcomes. Third, decisions based on the best interests of the child reflect a sole custody presumption and judicial bias; judges might hold stereotyped or outdated ideas about fathers’ and mothers’ roles that bias their decisions. Fourth, the discretionary best interests of the child standard sustains, intensi- fies, and creates conflict, and fuels litigation because of the incentive of a winner-takes-all context where such an undefined standard provides a context of anything goes. Fifth, the best interests of the child standard makes the court dependent on custody evaluations lacking an empirical foundation, as the scientific basis for child custody evaluation is hotly contested and the qualifi- cations for becoming an expert are nebulous at best. Sixth, the views of children and parents regarding the best interests of the child, which focus on children’s needs and parents’ responsibilities to those needs, are radically different to the views of the judiciary, which are deficit-based. Seventh, with two adequate parents, the court has no basis in law or psychology for distin- guishing one parent as “primary” over the other. Finally, despite the rhetoric of children’s best interests, children’s interests are largely unrepresented in the court proceedings, as a custody contest instead pits the rights of mothers against the rights of fathers (Brown, 2014; Kruk, 2013).
A legal presumption of shared parenting based on a firm foundation of research evidence defining children’s needs and interests in the divorce transition provides a clear and consistent guideline for judicial decision making. This presumption provides a clear-cut default rule, removes spec- ulation about future conduct as a basis for making custody decisions, limits judicial discretion, enhances determinacy and predictability of outcome, and reduces litigation and ongoing conflict between parents.
The way forward
A true legal presumption of shared parental responsibility would grant both parents equal decision-making authority and equal or nearly equal parenting time as their shared child care responsibility. In keeping with current research, a shared parenting presumption maximizes the involvement of both parents. A legal presumption of shared parenting establishes an expec- tation that the former partners are of equal status before the law in regard to their parental rights and responsibilities, and conveys to children the message that their parents are of equal value as parents. Shared parenting replaces the discretionary best interests standard with a child-focused, evidence-based best interests of the child from the perspective of the child approach.
Have we reached a watershed in understanding the best interests of children in situations of family separation and divorce? This question was placed front and center as the theme of the Third International Conference on Shared Parenting in May 2017. Specifically, have we reached the point where we can conclude with confidence that the best interests of children are commensurate with a legal presumption of shared parenting responsibility, rebuttable in cases of family violence, negligence, child abuse, or other situations where children needed protection from a parent while the parents were still together. Are we at a point where the scientific evidence points in the direction of mandating that shared parenting becomes the foundation of family law?
The answer to these questions was distilled by Sanford Braver at the conclusion of the conference: “To my mind, we’re over the hump. we’ve reached the watershed. On the basis of this evidence, social scientists can now cautiously recommend presumptive shared parenting to policymakers.” He further added, “I think shared parenting now has enough evidence [that] the burden of proof should now fall to those who oppose it rather than those who promote it” (Braver & Lamb, this issue). It was also noted that a number of jurisdictions have now moved in the direction of establishing a rebuttable legal presumption of shared parenting. A recent Council of Europe resolu- tion (Council of Europe, 2014), for example, encourages member states to adopt shared parenting as the foundation of family law, as an outgrowth of the emerging consensus in the scientific community on the benefits of shared parenting.
With an emerging consensus regarding the viability and importance of shared parenting, the wind is finally being taken out of the sails of shared parenting opponents. The three waves of arguments against presumptive shared parenting have been addressed in the research literature, and found wanting. A paradigm shift toward a more evidence-based and child-focused legal standard of shared parenting has finally emerged.
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Journal of Divorce & Remarriage
ISSN: 1050-2556 (Print) 1540-4811 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjdr20
What Happens When There Is Presumptive 50/50 Parenting Time? An Evaluation of Arizona’s New Child Custody Statute
William V. Fabricius, Michael Aaron, Faren R. Akins, John J. Assini & Tracy McElroy

To cite this article: William V. Fabricius, Michael Aaron, Faren R. Akins, John J. Assini & Tracy McElroy (2018): What Happens When There Is Presumptive 50/50 Parenting Time? An Evaluation of Arizona’s New Child Custody Statute, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, DOI: 10.1080/10502556.2018.1454196
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454196
Published online: 03 Apr 2018.
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JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE
https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454196
What Happens When There Is Presumptive 50/50 Parenting Time? An Evaluation of Arizona’s New Child Custody Statute
William V. Fabriciusa, Michael Aaronb, Faren R. Akinsc, John J. Assinid, and Tracy McElroye
aDepartment of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA; bAaron & Rogers, Tucson, Arizona, USA; cLicensed Psychologist and Practicing Attorney, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA; dSuperior Court of Pima County, Tucson, Arizona, USA; eFamily Services of the Conciliation Court of Pinal County, Coolidge, Arizona, USA
KEYWORD
Divorce; equal parenting time; parent conflict; parenting time; public policy


ABSTRACT
The current study presents the findings of an evaluation of Arizona’s 2013 revisions to the child custody statutes that directed courts to “maximize” the child’s parenting time with both parents. A state-wide survey of the four family law pro- fessions (i.e., conciliation court staff, judges, mental health providers, and attorneys) assessed their perceptions of the law 4 years after implementation. We averaged the ratings across the four professions to obtain a comprehensive perspec- tive that gave equal weight to each profession. Results revealed that the law functions as a rebuttable presumption of equal parenting time; that it is evaluated positively overall and in terms of children’s best interests; that it is has a neutral impact on legal and interparental conflict; and that it has led to small increases in allegations of domestic violence, child abuse, and substance abuse.
In January 2013, Arizona became the first state to order that, “Consistent with the child’s best interests . . . the court shall adopt a parenting plan that maximizes [both parents’] respective parenting time” (Arizona Revised Statutes 25-403.02). The Governor’s signing statement released to the media said, “The ultimate goal is to limit one-sided custody decisions and to encourage as much shared parent– child time as possible for the positive development of the child.”
The background of this legislation began 10 years prior to its passage, during which time Arizona family law professionals were kept informed about the research findings regarding parenting time by means of presentations at the Domestic Relations Committee (DRC) of the Arizona legislature, at the meetings of the Arizona Chapter of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), and at various state-wide continuing education sessions. In the interests of full disclosure, author Fabricius presented this research. Initially, there was some skepticism about the findings of benefits to children associated with more
CONTACT William V. Fabricius [email protected] Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, PO Box 871104, Tempe, AZ 85287-1104, USA.
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC


2 W. V. FABRICIUS ET AL.
shared parenting time up to and including equal parenting time with both parents. However, as research findings accumulated favoring the benefits, there was more acceptance of shared parenting time, notably among judges. In October 2008, at a family law judicial conference in Phoenix, AZ, there were indications of strongly favorable attitudes toward equal parenting time among the 43 judges and com- missioners in attendance. In a similar conference in Tucson, AZ 1.5 years later, in April 2010, 37 judges and commissioners responded individually and anon- ymously to hypothetical parenting time cases, and they overwhelmingly endorsed awarding equal parenting time in those hypothetical cases.
The public was not generally aware of the favorable judicial attitude toward equal parenting time. A study of a representative sample of Arizona citizens conducted in 2008 (Braver, Ellman, Vortuba, & Fabricius, 2011) revealed that the public thought that only about one fourth of judges would order equal parenting time in the same hypothetical cases in which about 90% of the attendees at the judicial conference had said they would order equal parenting time.
In late 2008, Fabricius established and chaired a subcommittee, the Ad Hoc Custody Workgroup, at the DRC to consider reforms to the child custody statutes. In May 2010, the first bill to come from this committee became law (ARS 25–103 B and C) stating that, “absent evidence to the contrary, it is in a child’s best interest to have substantial, frequent, mean- ingful and continuing parenting time with both parents,” and further that, “a court shall apply the provisions of this title in a manner that is consistent with this section.” The language appeared to some lawyers to be a rebuttable presumption for shared parenting, even though the statute did not define the words “substantial, frequent, meaningful and continuing.” There was little public awareness of this change, although there were anecdotal accounts that some judges announced that they would now be ordering more shared parenting time in accordance with the new 2010 law.
After completing work on the 2010 bill, the Ad Hoc Custody Workgroup was charged with crafting a comprehensive reform of the statutes regarding parenting time and decision making (ARS 25–403). This work was highly visible to the family law community, with a Web site (http://www.dev. azcourts.gov/cscommittees/Ad-Hoc-Custody-Workgroup) and communica- tions maintained by the Administrative Office of the Courts. Membership was open to all interested stakeholders and included judges, attorneys, con- ciliation court directors, mental health providers, anti-domestic violence advocates, fathers’ rights advocates, and lay parents. The bill was completed in February 2012, was passed by both houses of the state legislature with only nine dissenting votes in May 2012, and became law in January 2013. From the beginning of this legislative journey in 2008, it had taken 42 months and 48 meetings involving 47 individuals to create both bills. The public was made aware of the impending 2013 enactment of the new law by an Arizona Republic newspaper article (Rau, 2012).
This study presents the findings of an evaluation of the 2013 law. The evaluation was conducted by means of a state-wide survey of the four family law professions: conciliation court staff, judges, mental health providers, and attorneys. The survey assessed each group’s impressions and opinions of the impact of the new law and how well it was functioning 4 years after implementation. The four professional groups have somewhat differing per- spectives stemming from the types of clients and the range of issues with which they deal. Conciliation court staff and attorneys see the most parents, followed by judges and then mental health providers, who see the fewest. In terms of the depth of their interactions with the parents, the ordering is different. Mental health providers have the most in-depth, direct contact with both parents and gain the most insight into both parents’ situations. Conciliation court staff also have direct contact with both parents while providing mediation and other services, but on a shorter term basis than mental health providers. Judges have contact with both parents, but the contact is less direct because it is constrained by the courtroom context, managed by attorneys, and sometimes filtered through the reports of mental health providers. Attorneys have direct, in-depth contact, but mostly with one parent. Thus, we reasoned that by averaging the ratings across the four professions we could obtain a comprehensive perspective on various aspects of the 2013 law that gave equal weight to each of the four overlapping but distinct professional perspectives. We also tested for differences among the groups for any additional insight that could provide.
Method
Procedures
All authors participated in and consulted with each other in developing the survey. The authors included a mental health provider, an attorney, a judge, and a conciliation court director. The survey questions were sent by e-mail to as many professionals as we could locate from each of the four areas of family law practice. E-mail contact lists came from the Arizona State Bar Association, the Arizona Chapter of the AFCC, individual county Superior Court mental health provider lists, and personal contacts. The survey was also sent to the presiding judges in all 15 county Superior Courts, with a request to forward the survey to all the judges presiding over family law cases. Survey questions were formatted using a 5-point Likert scale with a neutral midpoint. Survey questions were presented to participants through Survey Monkey, an online instrument adaptable for various types of surveys. Data were collected for several weeks in early 2017 with queries sent out on
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4 W. V. FABRICIUS ET AL.
various occasions to encourage as much participation as possible. All proce- dures were approved by the university institutional review board.
Participants
Mental health practitioners
There were 34 respondents (59% women) from 10 of the 15 counties in Arizona, representing 50% of the total number of the listed county mental health providers. The distribution of their number of years practicing in the family law system in Arizona was as follows: 1 to 4 years, 12%; 5 to 10 years, 18%; 10 to 15 years, 16%; and 15 or more years, 54%.
Mental health professionals include independently licensed psychologists, professional counselors, marriage and family therapists, and social workers. Working with high-conflict families involved in the family court system, these professionals provide court-ordered child custody evaluations, dispute resolutions, and services centered on stressful parent–child relationships, coparenting disputes, and domestic violence. Typically, these professionals have significant contact with their clients involving many hours across weeks, months, or years. Fees, type of services, estimated time needed, and other parameters are typically set by the providers. Agreement for these services is often stipulated to by the recipient and then authorized or ordered by the court. In most cases involving assessment services such as psychological evaluations, parenting time and decision-making evaluations, and limited or focused assessments, the provider might offer service updates or reports to the court. In most cases involving treatments, the information shared between the recipient and the provider remains confidential unless release is ordered by the court.
Attorneys
There were 108 respondents (72% women) from all 15 counties in Arizona, representing 11% of the total number of family law attorneys in the state. The distribution of their number of years practicing in the family law system in Arizona was as follows: 1 to 4 years, 10%; 5 to 10 years, 22%; 10 to 15 years, 12%; and 15 or more years, 56%.
Attorneys are either solo practitioners or members of small or large law firms. Attorneys can serve their clients in one or more of the following capacities: mediator, parent coordinator, child’s attorney, pro tempore settlement judge, collaborative law, and litigator. The attorneys are involved in formal and infor- mal settlement talks, and represent parents at both temporary and final hearings or trials. Some attorneys’ cases are uncontested; some are resolved through conciliation court services or mediation; and others are litigated.


Judges
There were 30 respondents from 8 of the 15 counties in Arizona, represent- ing 40% of the total number of potential respondents. Judges were not asked to report the number of years practicing family law in Arizona nor asked their sex because that information could potentially identify them in the smaller counties.
Each county in Arizona has a Superior Court division handling family law cases. Some of the smaller counties have one judge who hears all matters concerning family, civil, criminal, and probate law. The larger counties have up to 25 judges who are on a family law bench rotation (usually 3–4 years in length), during which time they hear only family law cases. Judges might or might not have practiced family law as attorneys. When parents disagree about parenting time on separation and request a hearing for “temporary orders,” judges typically spend 1 to 2 hours with both parents before making a determination about a parenting time schedule to be in place until a final decree is issued. Arizona is typical in that most parents come to a final agreement on their own or with the advice of attorneys or mediation services, and only a small percentage of cases are decided by a judge after a trial.
Conciliation court staff
There were 37 respondents (76% women) from 7 of the 15 counties in Arizona, representing 82% of the total number of staff in the state concilia- tion courts. The distribution of their number of years practicing in the family law system in Arizona was as follows: 1 to 4 years, 36%; 5 to 10 years, 22%; 10 to 15 years, 3%; and 15 or more years, 39%.
Conciliation court staff include mediators, attorneys, conciliators, counselors, and evaluators employed by the court. Most staff employed in these positions are required to have a master’s degree in a social science, a law degree, or both, as well as specific training in mediation, domestic violence, child abuse, and family dynamics. Court services are offered at low or no cost to families and are most often used by parents who are not represented by attorneys, but families with attorneys also use these services. Conciliation services might be used to address a variety of issues including not only disagreement about parenting time, but also intractable conflict between parents, Department of Child Safety involvement, and significant safety concerns such as substance abuse, domestic violence, criminal history, and mental health issues. Services such as mediation can be initiated by the parties or by the court, whereas most other services (custody evaluations, child interviews, parent education, high-conflict classes, etc.) are initiated by court order only. The elapsed time from when parties file until they are ordered for services varies by county and by the issues involved, ranging from within 2 weeks to 60 days. The amount of time spent with the parties or on a particular case also varies and depends on the service. Mediation sessions could last from 1 to 4 hours, and most offices see the parties for one or two sessions. On the other hand, in an
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6 W. V. FABRICIUS ET AL.

Table 1. Variables That Showed No Significant Differences Among Groups Variable Groupsa Mb
Adjacent scale values 3 = neutral, 4 = somewhat agree
Test of mean differences F(3, 192) = 1.64, p = .187
Rebuttable presumption of equal parenting time Effect on parenting time with fathers
“Good dad’s” chances of equal parenting time Legal conflict prior to final decree
CC, J, MH, A 3.83 CC, J, MH, A 4.04 J,A .75 CC, J, MH, A 3.17 J,A 3.36 J,A 3.76 J,A 2.73 J,A 3.06 CC, J, MH, A 4.38
4 = moderate increase, 5 = large increase .70=70%,.80=80%
3 = neutral, 4 = moderate increase
3 = neutral, 4 = moderate increase
F(3, 197) = 2.45, p = .065 t(115) = 1.40, p = .165 F(3, 198) = 1.58, p = .195 t(128) = 0.11, p = .912 t(128) = 1.59, p = .115 t(128) = 0.61, p = .546 t(128) = 0.30, p = .747 F(3, 194) = 0.04, p = .990 t(127) = 1.54, p = .126
Number of court hearings
Number of postdecree filings Amount of child support ordered Deviations from support guidelines How do fathers evaluate the law Fathers’ financial situations
3 = neutral, 4 = moderate increase
3 = neutral, 2 = moderate decrease
3 = neutral, 4 = moderate increase
4 = somewhat positive, 5 = strongly positive
J,A
aCC = conciliation court staff; J = judges; MH = mental health providers; A = family law attorneys. bUnweighted means.
3.63 3 = neutral, 4 = moderately beneficial

JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 7

Table 2. Variables That Showed Significant Differences Among Groups Variable Groupsa Mb
Adjacent scale values
3 = neutral, 4 = somewhat positive
Test of mean differences F(3, 190) = 5.29, p = .002
Overall evaluation of the law
Effect on children’s best interests Effect on parent conflict Allegations of domestic violence Allegations of child abuse Allegations of substance abuse How do mothers evaluate the law Percent of mothers feeling “forced” Mothers’ financial situations
CC, J, MH, A 3.53 CC, J, MH, A 3.40 CC, J, MH, A 2.98 CC, J, MH, A 3.35 CC, J, MH, A 3.28 CC, J, MH, A 3.31 CC, J, MH, A 2.34
3 = neutral, 4 = somewhat positive
3 = neutral, 2 = somewhat detrimental 3 = neutral, 4 = moderate increase
3 = neutral, 4 = moderate increase
3 = neutral, 4 = moderate increase
3 = neutral, 2 = somewhat negative
F(3, 195) = 7.17, p = .000 F(3, 194) = 4.93, p = .003 F(3, 195) = 2.98, p = .030 F(3, 194) = 2.72, p = .046 F(3, 192) = 3.91, p = .010 F(3, 192) = 4.86, p = .003 t(69) = 2.70, p = .010 t(126) = 2.10, p = .037
CC, MH J,A
0.52 5=50%,6=60%
2.38 3 = neutral, 2 = moderately detrimental
aCC = conciliation court staff; J = judges; MH = mental health providers; A = family law attorneys. bUnweighted means.

8 W. V. FABRICIUS ET AL.
evaluative service, the children might also be interviewed, and collateral informa- tion will be collected, which can result in multiple sessions with the family and a lengthy report with recommendations to the court, generally within 60 to 90 days of the parties’ first appointment.
Results
Not all groups were asked all questions. Some questions were appropriate for some groups but not others. Tables 1 and 2 identify in the columns labeled “Groups” which groups were asked each question.
Table 1 shows the questions on which there were no significant differ- ences among groups; thus, on these questions, the general perspective reflected a consensus. The first three questions assessed the effectiveness of the law in achieving the intended outcome of encouraging more shared parenting time. The consensus was that the law functioned as a rebuttable presumption for equal parenting time. The overall mean rating was 3.83, close to the response scale value of somewhat agree (an average of only 17% of respondents disagreed, and 12% were neutral). There was also consensus that the law had led to a moderate increase in parenting time with fathers (M = 4.04; only 2% felt it had decreased, and 15% were neutral). In response to the question, “What do you think a ‘good dad’s’ chances are of getting equal parenting time if mom wants the children to live with her?” judges and attorneys agreed that it was 75% (41% answered that he had either a 90% or a 100% chance).
The next three questions in Table 1 assessed the effects of the law on court proceedings. The consensus was that the law had neither increased nor decreased legal conflict leading up to the final decree (M = 3.13; 37% answered neutral, and the distribution was symmetrical). Judges and attorneys agreed that the effects on the number of court hearings and postdecree filings were between neutral and moderate increase (M = 3.36 and 3.76, respectively).
The next two questions asked about child support. Judges and attorneys agreed that the effect of the law on the amount of child support ordered in the final decree was between neutral and moderate decrease (M = 2.73; 52% answered neutral), and that there was no effect on deviations from the child support guidelines (M = 3.06; 84% answered neutral).
The last two questions in Table 1 related to fathers’ experiences. The consensus was that fathers evaluated the law between somewhat positive and strongly positive (M = 4.37; only 2% felt fathers evaluated it as negative, and 6% felt fathers were neutral). Judges and attorneys agreed that the effect of the law on fathers’ overall financial situations was between neutral and moderately beneficial (M = 3.63).
Table 2 shows the questions on which there were significant differences among groups. The first two questions assessed evaluation of the law, and the


5 Strongly positive
4 Somewhat positive
3 Neutral
2 Somewhat negative


1 Strongly negative
Overall Evaluation
Judges
Mental Health
Attorneys
Conciliation Court
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Children's Best Interests


Figure 1. Means and standard errors of the ratings of the four groups on overall evaluation of the law and effect on children’s best interests.
general perspective reflected positive overall evaluation (M = 3.53) and bene- ficial effects on children’s best interests (M = 3.40). Figure 1 shows the group means. Attorneys and, to a lesser degree, mental health providers were close to neutral on both question; judges were between neutral and somewhat positive; and conciliation court staff were somewhat positive. Post-hoc t tests revealed that conciliation court staff evaluated the law significantly more positively on both questions than mental health providers and attorneys, who did not differ. When we explored the distribution of responses, we discovered that very few (12% or less) of the attorneys and mental health providers answered neutral. Instead, there were two distinct subgroups within each group. On both ques- tions, about half of the attorneys answered either somewhat positive or strongly positive, and half answered either somewhat negative or strongly negative. The
5 Strongly beneficial
4 Somewhat beneficial
3 Neutral
2 Somewhat detrimental
Figure 2. Mean and standard error of the ratings of the four groups on effect on parent conflict.


1 Strongly detrimental
Conciliation Court
Attorneys
Judges Mental Health Effect on Parent Conflict


10 W. V. FABRICIUS ET AL.
split among mental health providers was closer to two-thirds positive ratings versus one-third negative ratings. The subgroups did not differ by sex of respondent. Mental health providers who had practiced family law in Arizona for more years evaluated the law significantly more positively overall (r = .371 [N = 31], p = .040) and marginally more positively in terms of children’s best interests (r = .313 [N = 31], p = .086). The subgroups of attorneys did not differ by number of years in family law in Arizona.
The next question in Table 2 referred to parent conflict. The general per- spective was that the law had neither increased nor decreased parent conflict (M = 2.98). Figure 2 shows the group means. Judges were very close to neutral (40% answered neutral); conciliation court staff were between neutral and somewhat beneficial; and mental health providers and attorneys were between neutral and somewhat detrimental. Post-hoc t tests revealed that conciliation court staff felt that the effect of the law on parent conflict was more beneficial than mental health providers and attorneys, who did not differ.
The next three questions revealed that the general perspective was that the law had led to a somewhat more than neutral but less than moderate increase in allegations of domestic violence (M = 3.35), child abuse (M = 3.28), and substance abuse (M = 3.31). Figure 3 shows the group means. On all three variables, conciliation court staff and, to a lesser degree, judges were close to neutral (70% to 80% of individuals in both groups answered neutral), whereas mental health providers and attorneys were between neutral and moderate increase (45% to 55% in both groups answered neutral). Post-hoc t tests revealed that attorneys felt that there were more allegations of all three types than conciliation court staff.
The last three questions in Table 2 referred to mothers’ experiences. The general perspective was that mothers evaluated the law between neutral and somewhat negative (M = 2.34), and post-hoc t tests revealed that attorneys
5 Large increase
4 Moderate increase
3 Neutral
2 Moderate decrease


1 Large decrease
Domestic Violence
Judges Child Abuse
Mental Health
Substance Abuse


Conciliation Court
Attorneys


Figure 3. Mean and standard errors of the ratings of the four groups on allegations of domestic violence, allegations of child abuse, and allegations of substance abuse.


felt that mothers evaluated the law more negatively (M = 1.96) than the other three groups (M = 2.47). The general perspective was that 52% of mothers felt “forced” into accepting less parenting time for themselves (62% for mental health providers and 42% for conciliation court staff). Finally, the general perspective was that the effect of the law on mothers’ financial situations was between neutral and moderately detrimental (M = 2.38), and attorneys felt it was more detrimental (M = 2.19) than judges (M = 2.56).
In addition to assessing whether the respondents’ opinions differed among the four professional groups, we explored whether their opinions differed based on the number of years they had worked in family law in Arizona, and by their sex. As noted earlier, judges were not asked these two questions to protect their anonymity. Only three questions were correlated with the number of years in practice: effect on parenting time with fathers, r = .212 (N = 166), p = .006; percent of mothers feeling “forced,” r = .160 (N = 171), p = .006; and effect on parent conflict r = .212 (N = 129), p = .006. Conciliation court staff, mental health providers, and attorneys who had been in the field longer perceived a greater increase in parenting time with fathers, more mothers feeling “forced” into accepting less parenting time for themselves, and more parent conflict than their colleagues who had come to the field more recently. Only four questions correlated with sex of respon- dent. The first was allegations of domestic violence, r = .174 (N = 164), p = .028. Female conciliation court staff, mental health providers, and attorneys perceived more allegations of domestic violence. The remaining three questions were asked of only judges and attorneys, and thus the following correlations with sex include only attorneys: number of court hearings, r = .234, N = 99, p = .020; number of postdecree filings, r = .230, N = 98, p = .002; and mothers’ financial situations, r = –.218, N = 96, p = .003. Female attorneys perceived more hearings and filings and more detrimental effect on mothers’ financial situations.
Finally, we tested whether the differences among the groups, shown in Table 2, would remain after accounting for number of years in family law in Arizona and respondent sex. We entered these three predictor variables (i.e., professional perspective, years, and sex) simultaneously into regres- sion analyses of the first eight questions in Table 2. Mothers’ financial situations could not be included in the regression analyses because it was asked of only judges and attorneys, and years and sex were not available for judges. Because the prior t tests generally showed that conciliation court staff differed from mental health providers and attorneys (with judges falling between the court staff and the private professionals), we categorized everyone into one of two groups: public professionals (includ- ing only court staff because number of years and sex were not available for judges) and private professionals (including mental health providers and attorneys). Among these three predictor variables, professional
JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 11


12 W. V. FABRICIUS ET AL.
perspective correlated significantly with number of years, r = .262, N = 171, p = .001; those in private practice tended to have been in family law in Arizona longer than conciliation court staff.
In each of the regression analyses of the first eight questions in Table 2, professional perspective emerged as a significant predictor while control- ling for number of years and sex. Consistent with the t tests in Table 2, public professionals evaluated the law more positively, perceived less parent conflict and allegations resulting from the law, and felt that mothers’ experiences with the law were more positive than private profes- sionals. In only two regression analyses (i.e., effect on parent conflict, and allegations of domestic violence) did sex of respondent also emerge as an independent predictor while controlling for professional perspective and number of years. Female public and private professionals perceived more parent conflict and allegations of domestic violence than did male profes- sionals. Number of years in family law in Arizona never emerged as an independent predictor.
Discussion
The data reported here come from a state-wide survey about Arizona’s 2013 child custody reform, which directed courts, when consistent with children’s best interests, to “maximize” children’s parenting time with both parents. We received responses from 209 family law professionals in total; these repre- sented 50% of the mental health practitioners in the state, 11% of the attorneys, 40% of the judges, and 82% of the county conciliation court staff. We combined the views of all four groups to obtain a comprehensive perspective on the 2013 statute.
The comprehensive professional perspective revealed that the new law is functioning as a rebuttable presumption of equal parenting time, that it has resulted in children having increased parenting time with fathers, and that “good dads” are now virtually assured of being awarded equal parenting time even when mothers want the children to live primarily with them. This is noteworthy because the bill that became law deliberately did not include presumption language or specific amounts of parenting time. Courts were directed only to “maximize” parenting time with both parents, and judges were free to interpret the meaning of that term. Nevertheless, most judges have chosen to begin with equal parenting time as the presumed starting point when parents disagree.
The comprehensive professional perspective also revealed that the law is evaluated positively overall and positively in terms of children’s best interests. This is noteworthy because in ongoing debates in most other state legisla- tures, arguments that a rebuttable presumption of equal parenting time would constrain judicial latitude in dealing with atypical families and thereby be averse to children’s best interests have helped prevent similar legislation from being enacted. The fact that the Arizona law is seen as beneficial to children’s best interests suggests that courts continue to exercise latitude when necessary, as intended. The 2013 reforms left largely intact the list of children’s best interest factors that courts are required to consider in deter- mining the appropriateness of a parenting time plan.
Concerns are sometimes expressed that laws favoring shared parenting time might lead to increases in parent conflict, and thus it is noteworthy that the comprehensive professional perspective is that the Arizona law has a neutral impact on parent conflict and on legal conflict. This suggests that parents are not litigating more over equal parenting time now than they did before. The number of court hearings and postdecree filings are seen to have increased somewhat, which suggests that some parents have returned to court to seek modifications of their parenting plans under the new law. Allegations of domestic violence, child abuse, and substance abuse have also increased somewhat. These increases are small, about one-half step in the response scale above neutral in each case. The perceived increase in allegations is consistent with the findings of an evaluation of Oregon’s 1997 law that legislated child custody and mediation change (Allen & Brinig, 2011).
Another concern is that revising custody laws in ways that encourage more shared parenting time might dramatically reduce child support payments and leave children in worse financial situations. According to the comprehensive profes​sional perspective, child support has decreased somewhat after the 2013 law, but deviations from the child support guidelines have not been affected by the law. Deviations occur when the guidelines do not fit indivi- dual families’ situations, and Arizona’s guidelines already included adjust- ments for equal parenting time. It is expected that child support should have decreased somewhat, because Arizona adjusts child support awards incre- mentally in line with parenting time so that even small increases in parenting time result in comparable decreases in child support. Consistent with the fact that most child support is paid by fathers to mothers, the law is seen as somewhat beneficial to fathers’ financial situations and as somewhat detri- mental to mothers’ financial situations.
Finally, the comprehensive professional perspective is that fathers evaluate the law more positively, mothers evaluate it more negatively, and about 50% of mothers feel “forced” to accept less parenting time so that the children can spend more time with their fathers. This view of mothers appears to be at odds with public opinion findings in 2008 in Arizona that showed wide- spread support for equal parenting time (Braver et al., 2011). This discre- pancy between mothers’ attitudes expressed in surveys and the judgements of professionals working with them could reflect difficulties that become appar- ent to mothers when facing the prospect of equal parenting time in their specific family situations.
JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE 13


14 W. V. FABRICIUS ET AL.
Differences between and within the four professional groups appeared on about half of the questions we asked. Conciliation court staff viewed the law significantly more positively than those in private practice (i.e., mental health providers and attorneys), and these associations with professional perspective were independent of respondent sex and number of years in family law in Arizona. Respondent sex had independent associations with only two of these questions. Females perceived more parent conflict and allegations of domestic violence than males regardless of professional perspective and number of years in family law. This difference could reflect mothers being more comfortable discussing these issues with female professionals.
Mental health providers and attorneys were each split into two distinct sub- groups regarding how they evaluated the law. Only about half of the attorneys and only about one third of the mental health providers evaluated the law negatively. The mental health providers who evaluated the law more favorably had been in practice longer, but they were not more likely to be male or female. The attorneys who evaluated the law more favorably were neither more likely to have been in practice longer, nor were more likely to be male or female. Female attorneys did perceive more court hearings and postdecree filings, and more detrimental effects of the law on mothers’ financial situations than male attorneys. Mothers might be more comfortable discussing financial situations with female attorneys, but it is hard to understand why both male and female attorneys would not perceive the same increase in court proceedings.
Overall then, according to Arizona’s family law professionals, changing the custody laws in 2013 to be more favorable toward shared parenting increased the amount of parenting time children have with their fathers, and was not followed by an increase in legal or interpersonal conflict between parents, but was followed by small increases in allegations of domestic violence, child abuse, and substance abuse. Most professionals view the law favorably, and feel that it serves the best interests of Arizona’s children.
There are two interesting questions about how this family policy change occurred. The first involves the means by which the 2010 and 2013 bills came to be written and voted into law. These legislative processes unfolded over several years with the coordination of a few central actors. This history cannot be presented here due to space limitations, but will be the subject of a future paper.
The second interesting question involves how the law came to be interpreted and implemented as a de facto rebuttable presumption for equal parenting time. There was deliberately no mention in the new law of either “equal” parenting time or any percentages of parenting time. Likewise, there was no mention of a “presumption” regarding parenting time. This was done to allay concerns that the law would constrain judicial latitude in dealing with atypical families. Nevertheless, since the law change in 2013, most judges have chosen to begin with equal parenting time as the presumed starting point when parents disagree. By 2008, however, at the very beginning of the legislature reform process, judges already held favorable attitudes toward equal parenting time, and their attitudes coincided with broader public opinion favoring equal parenting time not only in Arizona but elsewhere (Fabricius, Sokol, Diaz, & Braver, 2012). This underlying cultural endorsement of equal parenting has not led, as far as we can tell, to similar widespread judicial behavior in other states. Arizona judges’ implementation of the law as a rebuttable presumption might have been at least partly due to the extensive training they received about the research on parenting time. Awareness that the research showed benefits to children associated with increased parenting time with fathers up to and including equal parenting time with both parents might have given them the reassurance they needed to act on their positive attitudes toward equal parenting time.
An important limitation of this evaluation of the 2013 Arizona law is that it did not include direct assessments of children and parents. The perceptions of professionals who work with these families are not substitutes for data obtained from children about their adjustment, and from parents about parenting time, conflict, violence, abuse, and financial stress. Ideally, such direct assessments should be obtained from randomly selected families who passed through the system before and after the law change. Such a study could provide strong evidence of the causal impact of the law change, but it would be costly. Repeated efforts to obtain funding for such a study of the Arizona law have been unsuccessful, but a similar effort should be made in the next state that passes similar legislation.
A second limitation is that we cannot estimate the degree to which self- selection bias might have influenced the results. This is a concern primarily in the case of the attorneys, because we received responses from only 11% of them. The response rates among the other groups, especially conciliation court staff, were substantially higher and so potential self-selection bias is less of a concern for them.
References
Allen, D. W., & Brinig, M. F. (2011). Do joint parenting laws make any difference? Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 8, 304–324. doi:10.1111/jels.2011.8.issue-2
Braver, S. L., Ellman, I., Vortuba, A., & Fabricius, W. V. (2011). Lay judgments about child custody after divorce. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 17, 212–240. doi:10.1037/a0023194 Fabricius, W. V., Sokol, K. R., Diaz, P., & Braver, S. L. (2012). Parenting time, parent conflict, parent–child relationships, and children’s physical health. In K. Kuehnle & L. Drozd (Eds.), Parenting plan evaluations: Applied research for the family court (pp. 188–213). New York, NY:
Oxford University Press.
Rau, A. B. (2012, June 16). Arizona dad fights for rights of divorced fathers. Arizona Republic.
Retrieved from http://archive.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/2012/05/22/20120522child- custody-fathers-rights-battle.html 

Shared Residential Custody:
Review of the Research (Part II of II)
​
DR. LINDA NIELSEN 

Part I of this two-part article, which appeared in the Spring 2013 issue of the American Journal of Family Law, focused on major concerns relating to shared residential custody, the children’s perspective, parental conflict, and cooperation and income. Part II discusses characteristics of fathers, outcomes for children (e.g., academic and behavioral), and stability of shared parenting. The studies referenced appear at the end of the article. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF SHARED PARENTING FATHERS 

An issue raised in regard to shared parenting is that these fathers are somehow “better” than other fathers to begin with. If this is true, then what- ever benefits are associated with shared parent- ing might have accrued even if these children had lived mainly with their mothers. To my knowledge, no study has compared the quality of father-child relationships before and after divorce to the type of parenting plan the parents chose. However, there are at least three reasons not to assume that the majority of shared parenting fathers are far “better” parents than fathers who only see their children every other weekend. 
First, many “weekend” fathers say they wanted shared residential custody. For some, their work schedules or their low incomes made it unfea- sible for their children to live with them. For oth- ers, they could not afford or did not believe that they could win a legal battle for shared parenting. Consequently, these fathers yielded to the mothers’ wishes that the children live with her (70–72). In the Stanford Custody project, for example, only 30% of the fathers who wanted joint residential custody 
were awarded it (62). And, according to 320 college students who lived with their mothers after their parents’ divorce, half of their fathers had wanted equal parenting time (34). We have no reliable way of determining how many fathers have wanted, but were denied or never pursued, shared residential custody. Whether or not a father has a shared par- enting plan is not the most reliable way to assess how much he may have wanted to share the par- enting, however. 
It is not the aim of this article to assess how accurate fathers are in their assumptions about bias against them in family court. Some evidence suggests that the fathers might be wrong. For example, in a survey of 345 divorcing couples in North Carolina, 20% of the fathers were awarded shared parenting by a judge, versus only 5% who 
Linda Nielsen, Ed.D. is a professor of Adolescent and Educational Psychology at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem North Carolina. Her areas of expertise are father-daughter relationships and shared parenting after divorce. Her work on fathers and daughters, with an emphasis on divorced fathers, has been featured on PBS, NPR and in numerous magazines and newspapers internationally. In addition to numerous journal articles, she has written four books on father-daughter relation- ships and a college textbook on adolescent psychology. A member of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and the Southeastern Psychological Association, she has made numerous presentations on shared par- enting and divorced fathers and has served as an expert witness on shared parenting research. More information about her work is available on her website www.wfu. edu/~nielsen or through email [email protected]. 


123 

124 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FAMILY LAW 
had reached their shared parenting agreement with a mediator and 10% with a lawyer (73). On the other hand, lawyers and judges in several surveys have stated that there is a bias against fathers in the fam- ily courts (74–78). Likewise, in a recent study of 367 people who had been summoned for jury duty, nearly 70% said that children should live equal time with each parent. However, only 28% believed that a judge would make that decision (79). The important point is that a father who believes that a judge or his state’s custody laws are biased against fathers is less likely to try to negotiate a shared par- enting agreement than a father who believes that there is no bias. This situation is acknowledged in the legal profession as “bargaining in the shadow of the law” – meaning that even though only 10% of divorced couples have their case decided by a judge, 100% of them are nonetheless influenced by their state’s custody laws in regard to shared resi- dential parenting (80). Given this circumstance, it is overly simplistic to assume that those fathers who have a shared residential parenting agreement are always more dedicated or somehow “superior” to fathers whose children live with their mother. 

OUTCOMES FOR CHILDREN: ACADEMIC, BEHAVIORAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL, PHYSICAL 

How well do most children fare in shared par- enting families? Compared to children who live with their mother, are they significantly better or worse off on measures of academic, social, psy- chological or physical well-being? The twenty five studies presented in Tables 1 and 2 address these questions. 

Beginning with the oldest studies, the most meth- odologically impressive is the Stanford Custody 
Project, where data were collected over a four year period (1984–1988) from 1100 divorced families with 1386 children. Four years after the divorce, the dual residence adolescents were better off academically, emotionally, and psychologically than the sole resi- dence children. These children were less likely to be stressed by feeling the need to take care of their mother. On the other hand, when their parents were not getting along well, these teenagers were more likely than those in sole residence to feel caught in the middle of the disagreements.

Fortunately, their parents were not more likely than other divorced parents to drag them into their conflicts. Moreover, having a closer relationship with both parents gen- erally offset the negative impact of the parents’ con- flicts. Children in both types of families were more stressed, anxious, and depressed when there were large discrepancies in their parents’ parenting styles. But the impact was the worst on the children who rarely got to spend time with their father, and not on those in dual residence. What is especially notewor- thy about this longitudinal study is that even after controlling for parents’ educations, incomes, and levels of conflict, the shared residential children had the better outcomes (47;62). 
Overnight time provides a more natural familial setting. 

A number of smaller studies conducted at around the same time as the Stanford Study also found equal or better outcomes for children in shared parenting families. Four years after their parents divorce, the 11 children in dual residence were not significantly different from the 89 children in dual residence in regard to stress, confusion, or insecurity (54). In a larger study, three years after the divorce, the 62 dual residence children were less depressed, stressed, and agitated than the 459 children in sole residence. What is especially note- worthy is that all of these children had similar scores on these measures at the time their parents divorced (55). In a much smaller study by the same researchers, there were no differences on these measures between the nine children in dual resi- dence and the 144 children in maternal or paternal residence. Given the very small number of shared parenting families, it is not surprising that family income, conflict, and domestic violence accounted for half of the differences in children’s well-being 


Table 1 Dual Residence Families: Changes in Parenting Plans over Time 

Years Separated 
Unchanged 

Brotsky 
1.5 
80% 

Cashmore 
2–4 
55% 

Kaspiew 
3–4 
70% 

Kline 
2 
80% 

Lodge 
2–3 
67% 

Maccoby 
3.5 
50% 

McIntosh 
4 
65% 

Melli 
3 
90% 





​

SHARED RESIDENTIAL CUSTODY: REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH (PART II OF II) 125 

Table 2 Outcomes for Children 

Shared Residence (35–50% Overnight time Share) or Sole Residence 

Shared/Sole 
Cognitive Academic 
Psychological & Emotional 
Delinquency Drug/ Alcohol Aggression 
Physical Health 
Relation- ship with Parents 

Bjarnason 
2200 
25,578 
better 
better 

Breivik 
41 
409 
equal 
better 
better 

Brotsky 
26 
13 
better 
better 

Buchannan 
97 
150 
better 
better 
better 
better 
better 

Cashmore 

*CSA 
440 
148 
better 
better 
better 

* LSAC 
84 
473 
better 
better 
better 

Campana 
207 
272 
better 
better 

Fabricius 
30 
201 
better 

Fabricius 
337 
686 
better 

Fabricius 
130 
136 
better 
better 

Frank 
16 
90 
better 

Jablonska 
443 
2920 
better 

Janning 
5 
17 
better 

Kaspiew* 
645 
7118 
better 
better 

Kline 
35 
58 
better 
equal 
better 

Lee 
20 
39 
better 

Lodge 
105 
518 
equal 
equal 
better 

Luepnitz* 
11 
89 
equal 
equal 

Melli* 
597 
600 
better 
better 

McIntosh # 
17-70 
14-624 
mixed 
mixed 
equal 

McIntosh 
42 
44 
better 
equal 
better 

Neoh 
27 
37 
better 

Pearson* 
62 
459 
better 
better 

* 
9 
83 
equal 
equal 

Spruijt 
135 
350 
better 
* number of families, not number of children
# The number of children measured on each variable varied considerably 
in all families. In a San Francisco study where par- ents were receiving free counseling for their ongo- ing conflicts, the children in the 26 dual residence families were better off in regard to stress, anxiety, behavioral problems, and adjustment to moving between homes than the children in the 13 sole residence families. It is important to note that the children whose parents needed the most counsel- ing initially to make shared parenting work ended up as well off as children whose parents initially were getting along fairly well (53). Similarly in a 
Canadian study, 85% of the shared parenting cou- ples said that they felt close to their children and that the children had adapted well to living in two homes (52). 

SIMILAR CONCLUSIONS IN MOST AMERICAN STUDIES 

More recent American studies reach simi- lar conclusions. In the Wisconsin study with 
126 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FAMILY LAW 
590 shared parenting families, these children were less depressed, had fewer health problems and stress- related illnesses, and were more satisfied with their living arrangement than the children in the 590 sole residence families (Melli & Brown, 2008). The children were 30% less likely to have been left with babysitters or in daycare. Nearly 90% of their fathers attended school events, as compared to only 60% of the other fathers. Almost 60% of the moth- ers said that the fathers were very involved in mak- ing everyday decisions about their children’s lives. In fact, 13% of the mothers wished that the fathers were less involved. Likewise, 80 college students from shared parenting families had fewer health problems and fewer stress-related illnesses than the 320 students who had lived in sole residence (81). For middle and high school students, children were less depressed, less aggressive, and had higher self- esteem when their divorced parents had an authori- tative rather than a permissive parenting style. But, because the 207 children in shared residence were more likely than the 272 in sole residence to have two authoritative parents, their outcomes were bet- ter (82). With younger children aged six to ten, the 20 children in shared parenting families were less aggressive and had fewer behavioral problems than the 39 children sole residence (83). In a very small convenience study with only eleven elemen- tary school children in shared parenting families, the parents and the children agreed that making friends and maintaining their contact with friends was not a problem even though the parents’ homes were in different neighborhoods (84). 

International Studies 

International studies have also found children in shared parenting families doing equally as well or better than other children of divorce. In a large Swedish study, the 443 children in shared parent- ing families had more close friends and had fewer problems making friends. They were no more likely than the 2920 children in sole residence to be aggressive, violent, or abuse drugs and alco- hol (85). A Norwegian study also found that 41 shared parenting adolescents were no more likely to drink or use drugs than the 409 in sole residence. However, they were less likely to smoke, to be depressed, to engage in antisocial behavior, and to have low self esteem (86). In a small Norwegian study where all 15 adolescents had lived in dual residence from three to ten years, all but one was satisfied with shared parenting – mainly because 
it enabled them to maintain close relationships with both parents (87). Likewise, in a Dutch study with 135 adolescents in shared parenting, the girls were less depressed, less fearful, and less aggres- sive that the daughters in the 250 sole residence families (5). 
Because Australia revised its custody laws in 2006 in ways that were more favorable to shared residential custody, this research has attracted considerable attention. The largest is a random national survey of 645 dual residence parents and 7118 sole residence parents one to two years after separation (57). Despite the fact that the shared par- enting couples were just as likely as others to report domestic violence before their separation, there was no evidence to suggest that this had any more negative effect on the dual residence children than those living in sole residence. Even after accounting for parents’ levels of education and violence, the shared parenting children had marginally better outcomes on the behavioral and emotional mea- sures than those in sole residence. As expected, regardless of their living arrangement, children whose parents had a history of violence had more behavioral and emotional problems.
 
Daughters were more than 2.2 times as likely to have difficulty talking with their fathers. 
The other large Australian government report presents data from two separate studies (59). The first was a longitudinal study of 84 dual residence and 473 sole residence families with children who were first assessed at ages four to five and again two years later – the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) survey. The second was a survey of 440 parents with dual residence and 419 with sole residence (CSA). In the CSA survey, accord- ing to the fathers, the children in shared care were doing better socially, emotionally, and academi- cally. According to the mothers, the children were no better or no worse in shared care. In the LSAC study, according to teachers’ reports, at the end of the two year period, the shared care children had fewer peer problems, fewer academic difficulties, and less hyperactive behavior than those in sole residence. Even though there was too much varia- tion in scores within each group to achieve sta- tistically significant differences, the shared care children had higher scores on socio-emotional and language development. Even though violence, fam- ily income, and parents’ educational levels were more strongly correlated with children’s outcomes than was the parenting plan, the authors conclude that, “[o]verall this research paints a positive pic- ture of shared care both in terms of parental satis- faction and children’s wellbeing.” 
These conclusions are confirmed in several smaller Australian studies. Comparing 105 ado- lescents living in shared care, 398 living with their mother and 120 living with their father, the shared care children had the best relationships with both parents, their stepparents, and their grandpar- ents two years after their parents’ separation (58). Interestingly, even though the shared care parents reported being no more cooperative than the other divorced parents, their children reported them as getting along better than did the children living with the mother or their father. The shared care children were just as well adjusted socially and academically as the other children, but they were much more likely than the children who lived with their mothers to confide in their fathers (80% versus 45%) and to say they had a close relationship with him (97% versus 65%). In small study with 27 chil- dren in shared residence, 37 in maternal residence and 24 in intact families, the children in sole resi- dence were significantly more hyperactive than the others. All children’s stress levels were in the nor- mal range, although those in shared parenting had somewhat higher scores. The children were equally satisfied in shared or sole residency. But the parents in the shared care families were more satisfied and less stressed (88). 

The largest, most recent and most internationally representative study further confirms the ben- efits associated with shared parenting (89;90). Data were gathered from 36 Western countries from nearly 200,000 children: 148,177 in intact, 25,578 in single mother, 3,125 in single father, 11,705 in mother/stepfather, 1,561 in father/stepmother, and 2,206 in shared parenting families. The chil- dren were 11, 13, and 15 years olds who were in the World Health Organization’s 2005/2006 nation- ally representative data base. The shared parent- ing children were the least likely to say they had a “difficult” or “very difficult” time talking to their fathers about things that really bothered them (29%) than the other children, including the chil- dren in intact families (32%). As Table 3 illustrates, children living with their single mother or with their mother and stepfather had the most diffi- culty communicating with their fathers (42% and 43% respectively). When asking how satisfied they were with their lives, the children in intact fami- lies were the most content. As Table 4 illustrates, the shared parenting children were more satisfied with their lives than the children in all other families, except intact families. Even when the children’s perceptions of their families’ financial situations were factored in, the children with separated par- ents were still less satisfied than those with mar- ried parents – and the shared parenting children were still the most satisfied. 

Overall then, children in shared parenting fami- lies are better off in terms of academic, psycho- logical, emotional, and social well-being, as well as their physical health. But are there relation- ships with their fathers any more meaningful or any closer and more enduring than those children who live with their mother and see their fathers periodically? 

OUTCOMES FOR CHILDREN: RELATIONSHIPS WITH PARENTS 

As previously discussed, nonresidential father- ing time is closely related to the quality and the endurance of the father-child relationship. Given this correlation, fathers and children in shared par- enting families should be expected to have better relationships than those who only see each other a few days a month. But do they? Is shared parenting 
SHARED RESIDENTIAL CUSTODY: REVIEW OF THE RESEARCH (PART II OF II) 127 
Table 3 Shared Physical Custody: Children in 36 Western Countries 

Family Type 
Percent of Children Who Find It Difficult Very Difficult to Talk to their Father About Things that Really Bother Them 
Children Ages 11, 13 & 15 

Mother & stepfather 
43% 
11,705 

Single mother 
42% 
25,578 

Father & stepmother 
39% 
1,561 

Single father 
33% 
3,125 

Intact families 
32% 
148,177 

Shared physical custody 
29% 
2,206 

Bjarnason, T. et al (2012). Joint physical custody and communication with parents: A cross national study of children in 36 western countries. Children & Society, 26. 51–62. 

128 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FAMILY LAW 
correlated with stronger or more enduring bonds between fathers and children? 
To begin, it is worth noting that even when the children live with their mother, spending overnight time in their father’s home is associated with closer relationships. For 60 adolescents, those who spent overnights at their father’s home had a closer rela- tionship with him than those who only saw him during the day. This held true even when the over- all amount of time they spent together was equal and regardless of the amount of conflict between the parents. Apparently, overnight time provides a more natural, familial setting where children and fathers can relate in more meaningful, more relaxed ways. Then too, this kind of time together may help adolescents and their fathers experience and appre- ciate their bond in more powerful ways (29). 
Amount of Time Together 
But are the number of days spent living with their father related to the quality of their relation- ship years after their parents’ divorce? Is their relationship any better if they spent more than a couple of weekends a month together and are greater amounts of time associated with better rela- tionships? In answering this question, the most methodologically sophisticated study is based on 1030 young adults whose parents divorced before they were sixteen (91). Nearly 400 of them had lived in shared parenting families. The number of days they lived with their fathers each month and the present quality of their relationship was highly correlated. The more days they had lived together each month, the better their relationship. The researchers also addressed the complicated question: was spending time together associated with any better relationship for those who did not have a particularly good one? In other words, for the worst relationships, was spending more time together still associated with a higher rating? To answer this question, the researchers separately analyzed data for the top 20% with the highest rat- ings and the 20% with the lowest ratings. In both groups, spending more time together was still associated with higher quality relationships. Those who lived together more of the time, had the bet- ter relationships – especially those who had lived together 35% to 50% of the time. Beyond 50% time, the quality of relationships was not highly corre- lated with time. 

Many other recent studies confirm these results. For 400 university students, almost all (93%) of the 
80 students who had lived in dual residence fami- lies said that this had been the best parenting plan for them, as compared to only 30% of the other stu- dents. Nearly 70% of the sole residence students felt that it would have been in their best interests to have lived more with their father. More than half (55%) said that their fathers had wanted equal resi- dential custody, but their mothers had opposed it. Even those who spent two weekends every month with their fathers said that this was not nearly enough time together. The dual residence children had closer relationships with their fathers and their mothers than the others (34). Likewise, three years after their parents’ divorce, 80% of the children in the 597 shared parenting Wisconsin families were spending just as much time with their father and were more satisfied with their relationship with him. In contrast, more than half of the children in sole residence families were spending far less time with their fathers and were unhappy about this loss. A number of their relationships had ended altogether (56). In a much smaller study, the five young adults from shared parenting families had better relationships with their fathers and were more likely to feel their parents had equal author- ity than the 15 who had lived with their mother and spent varying amounts of time with their father (92). 

International Studies, Same Conclusions 

International studies reach the same conclusion. In the Netherlands, 135 children in shared parent- ing families had as close a relationship with both parents as the 2000 children from intact families. Their relationships with their fathers were closer than the relationships of children who had spent time regularly with their father, but lived with their mother (5). Likewise, 16 Canadian college students in dual residence had better relation- ships with both parents than the 90 students who had lived with their mothers (93). In an excep- tionally large international study, as Table 4 illus- trates, data were gathered from 36 countries, where 2206 children were in dual residence and 25,578 in maternal residence. The shared parenting children communicated better with their fathers than the children in all other family types, includ- ing intact families. This is especially noteworthy in regard to daughters, since the daughters were more than 2.2 times as likely as sons to have diffi- culty talking with their fathers regardless of living arrangements (89). 

Older studies reached similar conclusions. In the Stanford Custody Study, four years after their par- ents’ divorce, the dual residence adolescents had closer and more trusting relationships with their fathers than adolescents who had only spent every other weekend with their fathers (Buchanan & Maccoby, 1996). Likewise, in two smaller studies involving 110 shared parenting families one year after divorce, 90% of the mothers said that their children had good relationships with their fathers, compared to only 50% of the sole residence mothers (55). 
Most adolescents wish that they had more say in when to switch homes. 

Although not directly measuring the qual- ity of the father-child bond, several studies have compared the fathers’ stress and dissatisfaction in shared and in sole residence families. Stressed, unhappy fathers are less likely to interact with their children in ways that promote a meaningful rela- tionship (39). Given this, if fathers in shared parent- ing are less stressed and less dissatisfied than other divorced fathers, it is logical to assume that their children will probably benefit. And indeed, fathers in shared parenting feel less stressed (88) and more satisfied than fathers whose children live with their mother (4;57). 

In sum, children in shared parenting families generally have stronger, more enduring relation- ships with their fathers than children who lived with their mother. Leaving aside the other benefits associated with shared parenting, the quality and endurance of the father-child bond in and of itself is compelling data. 

SHARED PARENTING: NEGATIVE OUTCOMES 

In contrast to the majority of studies show- ing equal or better outcomes for shared parenting families, two Australian studies by one group of researchers reached more negative conclusions (68). These two studies have received considerable media coverage, for example, in an ABC news story entitled “Shared parenting hurting children” (94). They are also frequently cited in academic journals and at professional conferences for judges, lawyers, and policymakers as arguments against shared 
parenting (11;95–97) . Both studies were released in a 169-page report commissioned by the Australian government, but neither was peer-reviewed in an academic journal. Understandably, many people may only read the 20-page synopsis of this lengthy report. Unfortunately, this can lead to misunder- standings or misinterpretations of the actual data, especially if readers are not aware of the method- ological shortcomings of the studies. 

First and foremost, these parents and children were not representative of most divorced families. In the first study, “the data are from a small nonran- dom select group of cases – high conflict families seeking help from community mediation” (p. 15). “The small high conflict nature of the sample means that care should be taken not to generalize this find- ing” (p. 14). A number of these parents had never been married to each other, and the children were more than twice as likely as children of divorce in other studies to test in the borderline or high cate- gory for psychological problems (p. 58). In the sec- ond study, 90% of the infants’ parents had never been married and 30% had never lived together – neither had 57% of the parents of the two to three year olds and 49% of the four to five year olds.
 
Limitations in the Australian Studies 

Other methodological problems have also been pointed out by several renowned scholars (99,100). First, the sample sizes were extremely small for many of the comparisons. For instance, there were fewer than 20 mothers in several of the groups pro- viding data on children’s wheezing, irritability, visual monitoring, or persistence; and no more than 25 two to three year olds in shared care on any of the seven factors being measured. Second, for children under the age of two, shared care meant anywhere from 4 to 10 overnights a month – a very broad defi- nition that did not distinguish between parents who were providing a great deal of overnight care and those who were not. Third, “visual monitoring” was measured and interpreted in ways that have no established validity or reliability. The authors devised their own measure and then interpreted the results from their perspectives on attachment theory. They chose three questions from the Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales and asked the moth- ers to answer “yes” or “no” to each question: “When this child plays with toys, does he/she look at you to see if you are watching? When you are not paying attention, does the child try to get your attention? Does the child try to get you to notice interesting 

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130 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FAMILY LAW 
objects – just to get you to look at the objects, not to get you to do anything with them?” On the basis of these three questions, the researchers concluded that shared care children were worse off because these mothers said their infants and toddlers were more likely to visually monitor them. 
A fourth limitation is that the authors drew con- clusions about children’s stress and parent-child attachment based on how frequently their moth- ers said that they wheezed – which is of question- able reliability and validity. Despite acknowledging that the differences were not statistically sig- nificant until they added socio-economic status (p. 135), the authors nonetheless concluded that: “[h]igher rates of wheezing in the shared group are congruent with the attachment/stress hypoth- esis. Several studies confirm a link between nega- tive emotional family environment and the onset of asthma and wheezing in infancy.” (p. 147). The authors have made a remarkable leap of logic by implying that the stress of shared care was respon- sible for the wheezing – and that this wheezing was caused by stress, rather than by physical problems such as bronchitis and asthma, which most com- monly cause wheezing in the general population of children this age. Indeed, from infancy on, boys are nearly twice as likely as girls to have asthma. Consequently boys wheeze more than girls, with 25%–30% of infants having at least one episode of wheezing before the age of one, increasing to 40% by age four (98,101). Because there were more boys in shared care than in primary care families, espe- cially for the four to five year olds, the shared care “children” (boys) would predictably have more wheezing – as would any group of children who had more boys. Second, wheezing is correlated with many environmental factors having nothing to do with stress – allergens in the child’s food, in the home (including cockroach feces, mold, and dust mites), and in the air. As for the connection between stress and wheezing, asthmatic children who wheeze the most are also the most likely to have mothers who are more anxious, depressed, stressed, and demoralized (102,103). However, this correlational data should never be used to suggest that these mothers “caused” their children’s wheez- ing. It could very well be that having an extremely asthmatic child who wheezes frequently causes mothers to become more stressed and depressed. The point is that wheezing, in and of itself, is not a valid or reliable measure of stress, and should not be used to make assumptions about stress or par- ent-child attachment in shared care families. 
As is true for any lengthy report, merely read- ing the synopsis might lead to overly simplis- tic and overly negative conclusions about shared care. For example, according to the synopsis, “not surprisingly” shared care families “tended” to revert to primary mother residence and were more than twice as likely to fail if the plan came about through mediation (p. 12). Looking closely at the data, we see that 53% of the 131 families started out with shared care, decreasing to only 43% four years later. Over four years, 18% of shared care families changed to primary and 14% of primary care changed to shared, so, apparently, both types of families were about equally likely to revert to a different plan (p. 35–36). In the “more than twice as like to fail” group, there were only 23 couples – couples who had a number of factors working against them that may have had an equal or greater impact on their failure than having a mediated parenting plan. Compared to the 46 couples who maintained shared care, these 23 couples started out with more conflict, more children, worse father- child relationships, and less income and education. 

Reading Reports in their Entirety 

A few other examples highlight the importance of reading reports in their entirety. The synop- sis states that shared care children were the least satisfied of all care groups and reported the most conflict. Later in the report, we see that 13 of the 44 children in continuous primary care and 20 of the 42 in continuous shared care were dissatis- fied with their arrangement – a difference of only 7 dissatisfied children. The least satisfied chil- dren were those in “rigid” shared care. But these were the families where the parents’ high ongo- ing conflicts were creating the most distress for the children. What readers may also overlook in the synopsis is that, overall, the shared care chil- dren were not more distressed by their parents’ conflicts than primary care children. Moreover, we might have concluded that being in shared care somehow increased children’s problems with inat- tentiveness and hyperactivity, since the synopsis states that they had “greater difficulties in atten- tion, concentration, and task completion by the fourth year of this study” (p. 14). As it turns out, the shared and the primary care group means were within the normal range on the test for hyperactiv- ity and inattention. The only children who were in the “borderline” range (borderline x = 5.0 − 6.0 for boys) for hyperactivity/inattention were the 
10 boys in “rigid” shared care whose score (x = 5.2) was much higher than the general popula- tion mean (x = 3.1) (p. 63). Then, too, the synop- sis states that amounts of overnight time were not associated with children feeling that their father was more emotionally available. This might easily confuse readers who do not read later in the report, “[g]reater amounts of overnight time with a father confident in his own parenting ability from the out- set was important to children’s perceptions of their fathers’ capacity to understand, be interested, and responsive to their needs” (p. 54). 
Changing parenting plans over the years is not necessarily a bad thing. 
Other misunderstandings might occur in regard to the synopsis statements about children under the age of three. “Infants under two years of age living with their non-resident parent for only one or more nights a week were more irritable and more watchful and wary of separation than young chil- dren primarily in the care of one parent” (p. 9 ). The shared care children “showed significantly lower lev- els of persistence with routine tasks, learning, and play than children in the other two groups” (p. 17). “Thus regardless of socio economic background, parenting or inter-parental cooperation, shared overnight care of children under four years of age had an independent and deleterious impact on several emotional and behavioral regulation out- comes” and was associated with “severely distressed behaviors in their relationship with the primary parent” (p. 9). What is not stated until Appendix 1 is that the shared care infants had exactly the same irritability score as the 3851 infants from intact families (x = 2.50) and had almost the same score on visual monitoring as the 4041 infants from intact families, x = 2.48 and 2.41, respectively. Moreover, the authors later acknowledge that the differ- ences in the ratings for infant irritability and visual monitoring became significant only after parenting warmth, conflict and SES were added to the model (p. 132–133). (Italics are mine) 

More Nuanced Conclusion 

In sum, the limitations of this study call for a more nuanced and less negative conclusion than what is offered at the end of the synopsis: 
“[b]y implication shared care should not normally be the starting point for discussions about parent- ing arrangements for very young children” (p. 10). These two Australian studies are certainly not alone in having shortcomings and limitations. Indeed, all studies have their flaws and limitations. What is troubling, however, is that they are so widely disseminated and so often cited as evidence that shared parenting is “bad” for young children. Moreover, putting so much emphasis on these two studies may lead to overlooking the more positive outcomes in the other 25 international studies: chil- dren in shared parenting families generally have equal or better outcomes on measures of emotional, behavioral, psychological, physical, and academic well-being. Above all, they generally have far better relationships with both parents than children who live with only one of their parents. 

CHILDREN’S PERSPECTIVES ON SHARED PARENTING 

Leaving aside the academic, behavioral, or psy- chological benefits, how do the children themselves feel about shared parenting? Most researchers have not asked the children how they feel about liv- ing with both parents. However, those that have are remarkably consistent in their results. So how happy or satisfied are most of these children? Do they feel that the stress and hassle is worth it? Or do they feel like “suitcase kids” who are “bounced around” and “homeless”? 

Fortunately, most children feel the benefits out- weigh the hassles and inconveniences of living in two homes. In a survey with 136 Australian chil- dren, most of those in shared care liked living with both parents – mainly because they appreciated the importance of having a close relationship with both parents. Although many said it was inconvenient keeping up with their things in two homes, this was also true for children who only spent week- ends with their fathers (59). In another Australian study with 105 adolescents in dual residence, most agreed and were satisfied with their parents’ deci- sion (58). Similar results emerged from a British study with 73 shared parenting children. Despite having to adjust to different household rules and to make the emotional shift when changing from one home to the other, most preferred living with both parents to living with only one. Given their busy social lives, adolescents felt more inconvenienced than younger children. Some children wished they 

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132 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF FAMILY LAW 
could live in one home because they found the other parent boring, because that parent had fewer creature comforts to offer, or because they disliked a stepparent or stepsiblings. Still, most felt that having a close relationship with both parents out- weighed the hassles – and many enjoyed having a break from each parent from time to time (104). Likewise, in depth interviews with 15 Norwegian children ages nine to 18 who had lived three to 10 years in shared families found that only one of the children would have preferred to live in one home. Although some said that it would be more con- venient to live in one home, they felt dual residence was the best choice because they loved both par- ents equally (87). Similarly, in the Swedish national health and welfare study, most dual residence chil- dren said that they were glad to have the chance to develop close relationships with both parents. Although some wanted to live in only one home, they did not want to hurt their parents’ feelings by suggesting a change (8). For another 31 American adolescents living in dual residence four years after their parents’ divorce, most felt that this was the best arrangement for them (47). Likewise, 80 American college students at the University of Arizona reported that living with both parents had been in their best interests, in contrast to 70% of the other 330 students who wished that their divorced parents had allowed the children to live in both homes (34). 
Overall then, most children feel that living with both parents is a sacrifice, a compromise, and a trade-off. But it is one they generally feel is worth making for the payoff: a better relationship with both parents. Not surprisingly, most children – especially adolescents – wish that they had more say in when to switch homes and how long to stay with each parent. Understandably though, the kind of ever-changing “flexibility” that children would ideally like to have would be difficult, if not impos- sible, for most parents to provide, given their own demanding schedules at work and at home. 

STABILITY OF SHARED PARENTING FAMILIES 

A final concern about shared parenting is that these children may have a less “stable” lifestyle, meaning that these families cannot maintain this lifestyle. Consequently, these children will have to undergo the stressful ordeal of moving back to live with their mother – a move that results primarily from the stress and unhappiness of “experimenting 
with” shared parenting. Several studies from 25 to 30 years ago found that many children who started out living in both homes moved back to live full- time with their mothers in a relatively short period of time. Most of these studies, however, were based on small, non-representative samples of extremely high-conflict couples, many of whom were still in the midst of legal battles over custody (105). This kind of instability appears to be far less common today, as Table 4 illustrates. 
Beginning with the oldest studies, in the Stanford Custody Study, roughly 50% of the chil- dren moved from dual to sole residence, but another 20% moved from sole to dual residence. Moreover, the moves took place over the course of four years. Most children who moved back to live with their mother full time did not move because of family stress and unhappiness. Most moved for economic reasons. Either their fathers could no longer afford to maintain housing suit- able for the children or he had to move out of town to find a job. Interestingly, too, as children approached adolescence, they were more likely to move full-time to their father’s home than to their mother’s (47,62). In smaller studies from the 1980s, most dual residence families were still functioning two years after the divorce: 65% in 48 families (53), 94% of 440 families, 80% in 110 families (55) and 80% in 38 families (61). More recently, in the Wisconsin study with 597 shared parenting families, three years after their divorce 

Table 4 Children’s Satisfaction with Life Compared to Children from Intact Families 

After Controlling for Their Perceptions of Their Family’s Economic Situation 

Intact Family 
Contrast 
Contrast 

Shared custody 
− .26 * 
− .21 * 

Mother & stepfather 
− .41 * 
− .33 * + 

Single mother 
− .44 * 
− .28 * + 

Single father 
− .58 * 
− .49 * + 

Father & stepmother 
− .63 * 
− .62 * + 

* Children are significantly less satisfied than those in intact families (p<.001) 
+ Children are significantly more satisfied after factoring in their economic situation but remain statistically less satisfied than children in intact families. 
90% of the children were still living in dual resi- dence (106). Likewise, 94% of the 440 families in a recent Australian study were still sharing the parenting two to four years after separating (59). Understandably, young, never married, low income, poorly educated ,or physically abusive couples are the least likely to succeed at maintain- ing their shared parenting family (68). 
Overall then, shared parenting families are sta- ble when the parents have formerly been married, are not physically abusive, and are not struggling with poverty. It is also worth noting, however, that changing parenting plans over the years is not necessarily a bad thing. These changes might reflect the kind of flexibility that better meets chil- dren’s needs as they age. Just because some chil- dren move from dual to sole residence or vice versa does not necessarily mean that there will be a “bad” outcome or that the family is “unstable.” “Instability” should not be confused with “flex- ibility.” Making a change in the initial parenting plan may mean that the parents are being flex- ible and responsive in ways that will benefit their child (4). 
CONCLUSION 
Given what decades of research have taught us about the importance of nonresidential fathering time, the benefits associated with shared parent- ing, the characteristics of these parents, and the over-emphasis on divorced parents’ conflict, it is unfortunate that this body of research continues to be ignored in a number of recent publications (italics are mine). For example, “Research shows that the best interests of children are not connected to any particular pattern of care or amount of time” (with their fathers) (95). “No convincing argu- ment can be made on behalf of shared care for the children’s benefit.” “The research makes clear that father presence and frequency of contact in and of itself is not a significant factor.” The message from this research should be clear: it is of crucial impor- tance in every case to try to minimize the degree of conflict between the adults, even if this leads us to the now almost heretical conclusion that to con- tinue to expose the primary career and child to continuing conflict through the promotion of con- tact with the father may be doing more harm than good. Moreover, the levels of conflict between parents show no sign of diminishing with time (97). “It is clear from recent Australian research that 
many shared care arrangements are tried out on a temporary basis but do not endure long term.” “In fact, there is little if any evidence that the mere amount or frequency of contact (with fathers) is better or worse for children” (11). Given the grow- ing popularity of shared residential parenting, pol- icymakers and professionals who work in family court, as well as parents, should find the research compelling. As demonstrated in this review, overall, these studies have reached four general conclusions: 
• First and foremost, most of these children fare as well or better than those in maternal residence – especially in terms of the quality and endurance of their relationships with their fathers. 
• Second, parents do not have to be exception- ally cooperative, without conflict, wealthy, and well educated or mutually enthusiastic about sharing the residential parenting in order for the children to benefit. 
• Third, young adults who have lived in these families say that this arrangement was in their best interest – in contrast to those who lived with their mothers after their parents’ divorce. 
• And fourth, our country, like most other industrialized countries, is undergoing a shift in custody laws, public opinion, and parents’ decisions – a shift towards more shared resi- dential parenting. 
With the research serving to inform us, we can work together more effectively and more knowl- edgeably to enhance the well-being of children whose parents are no longer living together. 
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Journal of Divorce & Remarriage
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Shared Physical Custody: What Can We Learn From Australian Law Reform?
Patrick Parkinson
To cite this article: Patrick Parkinson (2018): Shared Physical Custody: What Can We Learn From
Australian Law Reform?, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, DOI: 10.1080/10502556.2018.1454197
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JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE
https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454197
Shared Physical Custody: What Can We Learn From Australian Law Reform?


Patrick Parkinson
Sydney Law School, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
ABSTRACT
This article reviews the long battle to reform Australia’s cus- tody and access laws between 1995 and 2011. The result is a law which strongly encourages courts to consider the option of shared physical custody, while also emphasizing the need to protect children from harm, not least from being exposed to family violence. The trench warfare over the text of the legisla- tion between advocacy groups has now largely ceased. Good empirical research on the outcomes of reforms to the family law system assisted in clarifying the issues. However, the role of law in shaping parenting arrangements after separation should not be exaggerated. We can believe too much in law; and therefore, believe too much in law reform.
The law concerning parenting arrangements after separation, or custody and visitation or access, as is the familiar terminology in North America, is a site of great tension in many jurisdictions. Family law legislation in regard to revising custody laws can be a little bit like the no man’s land on a World War I battlefield. Interest groups and advocates dig deep trenches on either side of an ideological divide. Between them, the land to be won is a section here, a clause there, in regard to legislation on the issue of shared or sole physical custody of children. However, such laws, whatever their terms, ultimately leave a large amount of discretion to trial judges to make whatever decision they consider is in the best interests of the child.
Those engaged in this trench warfare over custody law revisions often claim to represent the interests of one gender, although they also claim to have children’s interests in mind. Consequently, debates about family law are often presented in terms of a gender war (Bala, 1999) in which women’s interests are pitted against those of fathers’ groups (Collier, 2009). To some advocates on either side, the world will end if territory is lost, or a new heaven and a new earth will be ushered in if the desired legislative reforms are achieved.
CONTACT Patrick Parkinson [email protected] Sydney Law School, University of Sydney, Eastern Avenue, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
KEYWORDS
Custody; access; parenting; law reform


2 P. PARKINSON
The trial judge, of course, occupies an altogether different world--one in which difficult decisions have to be made based on the evidence presented. Not infrequently, the dominant concern is trying to protect a child or one of the parents from harm. Violence, child abuse, drug or alcohol addiction, and mental illness are, for the trial judge, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse in the lives of these children. The busy trial judge might be little concerned in many cases with the detail of what the legislation says, except in terms of the issues to be canvased and the boxes to be ticked in writing the judgment.
This is not to say that the details of family law legislation are irrelevant, but rather that policymakers and family court professionals have different vantage points. Legislation that confers discretion on judges to make deci- sions about the best interests of children gives them great freedom of decision. However, judges are constrained by the need to rely on the evidence presented. The fierce arguments on the policy battlefield about the factors the court must consider might well only matter at the margins of judicial discretion.
Reflections on the Australian experience
In Australia, over many years, the policy battle has been hard fought, but has now largely ceased. The result is legislation that is far more convoluted and complicated than desirable, but that works tolerably well. The advocates on both sides have left their trenches and returned to civilian life. There are calls to simplify the law, but few argue for major changes to its substance. There are other problems. In particular, the courts hearing custody and access disputes are overloaded, but the legislation itself is not perceived as a cause of significant difficulties.
What can other countries learn from Australia’s battles over revising custody laws in ways that were more favourable toward shared parenting? How much of the legislative terrain was worth fighting over?
Australia’s Family Law Reform Act 1995
The debate about reforming custody laws began in the early 1990s. At that time, Australian law made a distinction between custody and access. Children usually lived in sole physical custody with one parent but the other parent had to be allowed reasonable access, a term that was not clearly defined. In 1995 the law was amended along the lines of the Children Act 1989 in England and Wales (Dewar, 1996). The term custody was replaced with residence and access was replaced with contact.
The reforms were not enacted without debate. Properly, women’s advocates sought much more emphasis in the legislation on domestic violence, which had not previously been given much weight in custody disputes (Parkinson, 1995). For this reason, the 1995 revisions included a history of domestic violence as a relevant factor in making custody decisions. Other than this change, the revisions in the law were unexceptional. Nothing in the 1995 revisions suggested that shared physical custody should be encouraged--or that shared parenting should be considered to be in the children’s “best interests” (Chisholm, 1996). At the most, the law supported the involvement of both parents and gave more guidance to judges in exercising their discretion.
Opposition to the 1995 custody laws
The 1995 legislation was fiercely opposed by some women’s groups, who feared that changes to contact laws would adversely affect mothers and exacerbate gender inequalities (Behrens, 1996). Similar concerns have been expressed elsewhere (Mason, 1999). As one Canadian scholar put it, “The responsibility cast upon mothers to ensure contact between children and fathers can be both a burden and a constraint on maternal autonomy” (Boyd, 2010, p. 150).
Those fears were not misplaced; for the reality of modern divorce is, as Melli (2000), once put it, that it involves not “the end of a relationship but a restructuring of a continuing relationship” (p. 638). Marriage is dissoluble, but parenthood is not (Parkinson, 2011). One consequence is that mothers must continue to deal with difficult fathers who they now dislike intensely, and vice versa. Children bond with the most inadequate parents and often miss them when they are gone from the family home (Cashmore, Parkinson, & Taylor, 2008; Gollop, Smith, & Taylor, 2000; Laumann-Billings & Emery, 2000). Children’s interests, in the great majority of cases, in having both parents involved in their lives is necessarily a constraint on parental autonomy.
Modern family law no longer traps people in unhappy marriages, but parenthood traps many in unhappy divorces--ongoing relationships in which their continuing roles as parents require communication and coopera- tion on many levels. Because it is the common experience of different countries that the great majority of disputes between parents about the postseparation parenting arrangements are resolved without requiring a judicial decision, the reality is that this might well require many women to come to a modus vivendi on parenting arrangements with another parent who was violent in the course of the relationship.
One of the main complaints against change to the law was that it would create a pro-contact culture, which would place women and children at greater risk of violence (Behrens, 1996). This concern was expressed in other countries as well (Cohen & Gershbain, 2001; Jaffe & Crooks, 2004).
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4 P. PARKINSON
The parliamentary inquiry of 2003
For the next 8 years after the 1995 reforms, opposition from women’s groups to the changes continued unabated (Armstrong, 2001). Although these views gained traction in the academic literature (Graycar, 2000), it was the con- cerns of the fathers’ groups that gained more attention within Parliament (Parkinson, 2003). These groups argued that the 1995 laws had changed too little. They pressed for a presumption that parents should share the parenting time with the children equally after separation.
Under mounting pressure for major reform, the Prime Minister, John Howard, established a Parliamentary Inquiry in June 2003 to explore the option of a rebuttable presumption of shared physical custody where chil- dren would spend equal time with each parent (Parkinson, 2006b; Rhoades & Boyd, 2004). It might be thought that such an inquiry would be conducted by a committee of lawyers. Instead, the Prime Minister gave the task to the Family and Community Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, on which there were no lawyers. Chaired by Kay Hull, the Committee conducted one of the largest inquiries ever held in Australia. It issued its report at the end of 2003 (House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs, 2003).
In the early weeks of the inquiry, Committee members seemed to be inclined toward a presumption of equal parenting time (Parkinson, 2014); but in the end, the Committee unanimously recommended against a pre- sumption of equal time (House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs, 2003). The Committee considered that a one-size-fits-all approach was inappropriate given the diversity of family situations and the changing needs of children. The Committee recommended that parents should share parental “responsibility” equally. Although not recommending a presumption of shared physical custody, the Committee made it clear that it wanted to see a shift away from any assumption that the normal pattern of contact should be every other weekend and half the school holidays. It considered that “the goal for the majority of families should be one of equality of care and responsibility along with substantially shared parenting time” (House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs, 2003, p. 30).
The Committee also focused considerable attention on the issue of family violence. It wrote:
The committee agrees that violence and abuse issues are of serious concern and is mindful of the need to ensure that any recommendations for change to family law or the family law process provide adequate protection to children and partners from abuse. (House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs, 2003, p. 26)
It made specific recommendations to strengthen the emphasis on family violence as a factor that would justify the equivalent of sole physical custody (although in Australia, the language of custody is not used). One such recommendation was a presumption against shared parental responsibility in cases of entrenched conflict, family violence, substance abuse, or child abuse (House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs, 2003, p. 41).
The eventual outcome of the 2003 report was new legislation, the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act 2006 (Parkinson, 2006a). It provided more guidance for judges than did the 1995 law. Judges were now to consider two primary factors. The first is the “benefit to the child of having a meaningful relationship with both of the child’s parents.” The second is “the need to protect the child from physical or psychological harm from being subjected to, or exposed to, abuse, neglect or family violence.” There are then a large number of other factors that are described as additional considerations.
The 2006 custody law has sometimes been misunderstood by the public (Family Law Council, 2009; Kaspiew et al., 2009, pp. 304–305). The revised law provides a presumption of equal sharing of parental “responsibility” in cases that do not involve violence or abuse. Although equal shared parental responsibility says nothing, per se, about how time is allocated between parents, courts ordering equal shared parental responsibility are at least required to consider whether shared parenting time would be practicable and in the best interests of the child. This could be either an equal parenting time arrangement, or an arrangement for substantial and significant time. The law defines substantial and significant time as time that is not limited to weekends and holidays and that allows the parent to be involved in the child’s daily routines and participate in occasions and events that are of particular significance to the child or the parent.
Reactions to the 2006 custody law revisions
As was the case after the 1995 reforms, the 2006 reforms were met with fierce resistance from women’s groups. Advocacy groups again argued that the reforms would lead to an increased risk of violence and abuse for women and children. Other critics argued that with an emphasis on reaching custody agreements through mediation rather than through litigation, past violence would be minimized (Rathus, 2007). There was also concern about one of the factors that the judge was required to take into account, “the willingness and ability of each of the child’s parents to facilitate, and encourage, a close and continuing relationship between the child and the other parent.” The fear was that this would deter women from making allegations of family violence (de Simone, 2008).
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6 P. PARKINSON
In the years after the 2006 reforms, those who feared the worst found ample evidence to support those fears, recycling many of the old arguments against the 1995 changes (Graycar, 2012). In response to the concerns about family violence, the government established another inquiry conducted by a former Family Court judge, Richard Chisholm, who sought submissions and consulted various groups. Advocacy groups strongly asserted that the reforms had led to an increased risk of violence against women and children (Chisholm, 2009). This theme was repeated by survey respondents in a major evaluation study by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS; Kaspiew et al., 2009).
The difficulty with such contentions, to the extent that they were based on anecdotal evidence, is that there were bound to be cases in which the protection of women and children from harm was, or at least appeared to be, grossly inadequate; but the anecdotes tell us little about whether there are systemic problems, and if there are, what aspects of the legislation, if any, might be responsible. Those in the trenches will find plenty of ammunition to support their policy agendas, for in family law, unhappy litigants are not difficult to find. Those who perceive a grave injustice has been done to them are likely to be the most vocal in criticism of the family law system. Individual judges vary in both empathy and expertise. The question remains whether legislation is either the problem or the solution.
Certainly, research found inappropriate shared care arrangements that were not working out well for the children involved (Campo, Fehlberg, Millward, & Carson, 2012; Fehlberg, Millward, & Campo, 2009; Parkinson & Cashmore, 2013),​ but the great majority of parenting arrangements after separation are negotiated with greater or less difficulty, and those negotia- tions might or might not be much influenced by what parents think a court would do if they went to trial. Negotiated outcomes could expose women to a risk of violence and involve children in less than optimal parenting arrange- ments whatever the statutory framework might be in a given jurisdiction.
Fortunately, at the time of enacting the 2006 reforms, the government had commissioned the AIFS, a government research body, to conduct a comprehen- sive evaluation. It had also commissioned the Chisholm Inquiry on family violence (Chisholm, 2009) discussed earlier, and other legislative reviews (Australian Law Reform Commission, 2010; Family Law Council, 2009). The government also commissioned a major study of shared care (Cashmore et al., 2010).
The report of the AIFS in particular, generated a large amount of data (Kaspiew et al., 2009). The research team found that overall the 2006 reforms to the family law system were working well, although there were some difficulties and challenges. Most parents reported that they were satisfied with the parenting arrangements. Most indicated that they communicated with each other on issues concerning their child once a week or more often. A follow-up study a year later found that most parents considered that their arrangements were flexible and worked well for each parent and the child (Qu & Weston, 2010). For parents who had separated after 2006, 16% had a shared physical custody arrangement and 7% had an equal time arrangement. The increase in shared physical custody, however, was a trend that had begun before the 2006 reforms (Cashmore et al., 2010).
What about the impact of the legislation in those families where there had been a history of violence? Generalizing is difficult, as within the category of those who report any history of violence or emotional abuse, there is such a broad spectrum of experience (Kelly & Johnson, 2008). The AIFS study reported that a history of family violence did not necessarily impede friendly or coopera- tive relationships between the parents following separation. In a survey of some 10,000 parents, 16% of mothers who reported being physically hurt by their ex- partner during the course of the relationship reported friendly relationships at the time of the interview, and a further 23.5% reported having a cooperative relationship. Others reported distant or conflictual relationships; 18.5% reported a continuing fearful relationship. Fifty-five percent of mothers and 50% of fathers who reported emotional abuse by their ex-partner in the past reported friendly or cooperative relationships by the time of interview (Kaspiew et al., 2009, pp. 31–32). It follows that a history of violence or emotional abuse does not mean, per se, that parents cannot develop cooperative relationships after separa- tion, although parents who had not experienced family violence were more likely to report friendly and cooperative relationships (Kaspiew et al., 2009, p. 31).
A majority of respondents in all professional categories in the AIFS evaluation thought that “the need to protect children and other family members from harm from family violence and abuse is given adequate priority” in the family law system. However, a substantial minority in each professional category thought otherwise (Kaspiew et al., 2009, pp. 31–32). This is not to say that people thought the system dealt adequately with cases involving family violence and child abuse. Courts must rely on evidence, which, research found, is often lacking even where serious allegations are made (Moloney et al., 2007). However, there was no reliable evidence, beyond some professional opinion, that the 2006 amendments were linked to any increase in violence or abuse. Even one of the fiercest critics of the 2006 legislation, who predicted that it would make it harder to protect children from violence and abuse, conceded that in such cases, “courts appear to be making careful, sensitive, and for the most part, protective and appropriate orders” (Alexander, 2009, p. 12).
One troubling finding was that families in which parents had safety concerns were no less likely than other parents to have shared physical custody arrange- ments (Kaspiew et al., 2009, p. 233), although there was a slight diminution in these safety concerns over time (Qu & Weston, 2010, p. 101). In the shared physical custody families, 1 in 4 fathers and 1 in 10 mothers indicated that they held “safety concerns” for themselves or the children as a result of ongoing
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8 P. PARKINSON
contact with the other parent (Kaspiew et al., 2009, p. 233). However, these statistics do not relate to judicial decisions or court orders. They come from a general population survey of 10,000 people who had separated after 2006. There was no evidence that courts were making orders for shared time after a full trial in circumstances where there was a history of significant domestic violence. Indeed, it would be most unlikely to occur given the legislative provisions on this issue (Parkinson, 2014). Nonetheless, orders might have been made by consent in these circumstances.
The 2011 reforms and their impact
Notwithstanding the paucity of evidence that the 2006 reforms were respon- sible for difficulties that had not been there before, there was a lot of pressure on the government to amend the law further to respond to the problem of family violence. Given that it had commissioned various reports (Australian Law Reform Commission, 2010; Chisholm, 2009; Family Law Council, 2009) and had various recommendations for amendments to the Act, it would have been unthinkable to do nothing.
The primary considerations were modified in 2011 so as to provide that greater weight be given to the protection of the child from harm than to a meaningful relationship with both parents. It is doubtful that this required any change in the practices of the courts. Where evidence is presented of risk to children, the courts have long given this very considerable weight. The requirement to consider equal time and substantial and significant time remains. Parliament also enacted a new, and expansive, definition of family violence (Parkinson, 2012).
Taken as a whole, the empirical evidence does not indicate any substantial change in outcomes across the population as a result of the 2011 reforms although small shifts in community perception might be discerned (Kaspiew et al., 2015).
Lessons from the Australian experience
How much did the law change postseparation parenting arrangements across the community? The relationship between the law as applied by judges in the few cases that go to trial, and the decisions parents reach without judicial determination, is a complex one. Orthodoxy would say that people “bargain in the shadow of the law” (Mnookin & Kornhauser, 1979). However, in parenting cases the relevant law in most jurisdictions around the Western world is some expression of the idea that the judge must try to reach a decision that is in the best interests of the child. The legislation could give more or less guidance about how to determine those best interests, but a lot of discretion remains.
For those who might take some notice of the law in working out a parenting agreement, the law’s influence is necessarily at an abstract and generalized level. Certainly, the 2006 amendments to the Family Law Act in Australia did provide the general public with some high-level messages, as did the 2011 amendments. The idea that normally, parental responsibility should be shared unless there has been a history of family violence or child abuse, was clearly a significant message, even if it was not new. Furthermore, the public were given the message, in statements by ministers, and through media commentary, that an equal time arrangement was one viable option that should be considered by the court. Perhaps for that reason, this became perhaps a more common option than it had been before 2006.
The 2006 reforms were most successful in shifting people away from an assumption that the most a nonresident parent could expect was to have time with the children at the weekends and in school holidays. The evaluation by the AIFS found that lawyers gave advice supporting a shared care set of norms much more frequently after the reforms than they did prior to the reforms (Kaspiew, Gray, Qu, & Weston, 2011, p. 408). The definition of “substantial and significant time,” although convoluted, could be translated into a simple message that the parents should consider how the nonresident parent could be involved in the activities of the children during the school week.
The 2011 reforms reaffirmed that a parent could not expect to have significant time with his or her children if that would expose them to an unacceptable risk of harm. If that is a statement of the obvious, then at least the 2011 amendments made it clear to those who were worried about the courts’ approach that priority would be given to protective responses over ensuring that children spent significant time with each parent.
Law and social change
For those who support the normalization of shared care after parental separation, it might be thought for these reasons that the changes to the law had positive and beneficial effects. The Parliamentary Committee that was responsible for the ideas enacted in 2006 certainly thought that changes in the custody laws could have a behavior-shifting role:
Legislation can have an educative effect on the separating population outside the context of court decisions, if its messages are clear, it is accessible to the general public and well understood by those who offer assistance under it. (House of Representatives Standing Committee on Family and Community Affairs, 2003, at 2.74)
It seems that the Australian legislation was reasonably successful in giving out messages to the general public about the desirability of considering an equal time arrangement or other means of ensuring the substantial
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involvement of both parents. It could well be that it was much less successful in educating the public about the circumstances in which shared care would not be in the best interests of children, for example, where there are sig- nificant concerns about violence, abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, or mental illness, which make it best for the children to have a sole custody arrangement, perhaps with limited contact with the other parent.
The difficulty is that this message is not of the same kind as the message about shared care. If the public are informed that it is likely to be in the best interests of children to have substantial involvement from both parents, and that subject to the constraints of travel time between the homes, an equal time arrangement or some midweek contact might work well, then they can make that arrangement for themselves. The law, sending this message, can inform the unassisted negotiations between parents, and this message might, in appropriate cases, be given by lawyers and other professionals involved with the family.
However, the message—reinforced by the 2011 reforms—that the courts are instructed to act protectively in cases where there are significant concerns about family violence or child abuse is not one that the parties can act on for themselves. Nor is it likely to form the basis of a compromise in mediation where the protective concerns are denied or minimized. The message is that if the parent resists compromise and litigates, and has evidence that can substanti- ate the protective concerns, then orders may be made after trial that respond to the protective concerns. That message does not help parents settle. Kaspiew et al. (2011), summarizing the findings of the evaluation by the AIFS, observed:
A clear theme in the qualitative data generated from interviews with legal system professionals (lawyers, registrars, judges and family consultants), was a concern that women, in some cases, were being pressured into agreeing to arrangements that they felt weren’t in their children’s best interests and, in some cases, exposed both the women and their children to increased levels of risk. (p. 409)
That is likely to have been the case before 2006 as well, and indeed was one of the complaints about the very modest reforms to the law made in 1995 (Rhoades, Graycar, & Harrison, 2000). Settlements prior to 2006 might have been more likely to involve every other weekend and half of school holiday arrangements than more substantial shared care, but the protective issues involved in such arrangements are not much less.
How then can the law better address protective concerns? So much of the debate in Australia has been about how the law on the statute book addresses the issue of family violence. Hence the 2011 amendments made changes to the text of the law to satisfy the concerns of advocacy groups. For the most part, this was looking for solutions in the wrong places. The law, as applied by the judges, can only play a protective role if people have sufficient access to justice.
No amount of tinkering with the law, no amount of amendment, can bring about better outcomes for victims of violence and abuse unless the resources are there to litigate the case. Inevitably, the greater the problems of cost and delay in gaining access to justice, the less protective the family justice system will be. Most people, out of necessity or exhaustion, will compromise or acquiesce in ways that might, in some cases, adversely affect their safety or what is developmentally best for the children. Litigation is therefore, to this extent, like the nuclear deterrent. Few sensible people would ever wish to use litigation to resolve parenting disputes; but to have strength in negotiation, there needs to be a credible threat of litigation that will lead to outcomes that restrict or deny contact in cases where protective action is necessary.
Conclusion
It is reasonable to suggest, from all the available evidence in Australia, that the legislation contributed to an increased awareness and acceptance of shared care arrangements as a viable and “normal” option for parenting after separation. There is evidence also from the AIFS research that the requirement to consider arrange- ments for parenting time that is not just at the weekends and on school holidays is playing a valuable role in shifting community attitudes (Kaspiew et al., 2009, p. 365). The legislation seems to have encouraged parents who live near one another to be more equally involved in looking after their children during the school week.
However, we can believe too much in law; and therefore we can believe too much in law reform. The law might have a positive effect by offering broad principles intended to achieve shifts in values and voluntary social behavior, or by influencing the way in which parents negotiate private arrangements (Kaspiew et al., 2011). Even still, the law on the books might well be in tension with the norms and values that social-science trained mediators, custody eva- luators, and other nonlawyer professionals bring to the process of dispute resolution. Here, understanding of the developmental needs of the children might be a more powerful driver of professional advice and opinion than legal norms or lawyers’ predictions about “what the court will do” (Rhoades, Dewar, & Sheehan, 2014). Family law is therefore not hermetically sealed from other frames of reference or sources of knowledge. The role of law therefore, in norm- setting and changing behavior might be exaggerated. Nonetheless, Australian family law does seem to have found a reasonable balance between the different messages that the law needs to send to a diverse range of audiences.
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Journal of Divorce & Remarriage
ISSN: 1050-2556 (Print) 1540-4811 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjdr20
Does Joint Physical Custody “Cause” Children’s Better Outcomes?
Sanford L. Braver & Ashley M. Votruba
To cite this article: Sanford L. Braver & Ashley M. Votruba (2018): Does Joint Physical Custody “Cause” Children’s Better Outcomes?, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, DOI: 10.1080/10502556.2018.1454203
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454203
Published online: 13 Apr 2018.
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JOURNAL OF DIVORCE & REMARRIAGE
https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1454203
Does Joint Physical Custody “Cause” Children’s Better Outcomes?
Sanford L. Bravera and Ashley M. Votrubaa,b
aDepartment of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA; bDepartment of


Psychology, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
ABSTRACT
Policymakers and researchers are concerned with whether joint physical custody (JPC) produces better outcomes for children than sole custody. Although several review articles summarizing up to 61 empirical articles demonstrate very positive answers, many of the research designs used compromise the ability to claim that it is JPC per se--and not selection effects--that causes the effect. We discuss several research design issues, such as propensity score analysis, that can more powerfully probe the question of causality. Some studies have already been conducted employing these strategies and more are recommended and likely to soon be forthcoming. On the basis of this comprehensive review we conclude that JPC probably does cause benefits to children on average, and that social scientists can now provisionally recommend rebuttably pre- sumptive JPC to policymakers.
Research generally suggests that children of divorce are at increased risk for social, psychological, and educational difficulties (Braver & Lamb, 2012; Chase-Lansdale, Cherlin, & Kiernan, 1995; Cherlin et al., 1991). Thus, when it comes to family law and custody determination, policymakers and researchers are concerned with knowing what types of postseparation par- enting arrangements are generally the most beneficial for children. More specifically, interest has focused on whether joint physical custody (JPC) produces better outcomes for children than sole maternal physical custody (SPC). Another related question is how well JPC works when there is parental conflict or when one or both parents did not want JPC.
A handful of review articles have examined the large number of studies that have addressed these questions and generally found that children with JPC arrangements were significantly better off than those in SPC (generally mater- nal custody) arrangements (Baude, Pearson, & Drapeau, 2016; Bauserman, 2002; Nielsen, 2015, 2017). Bauserman (2002) performed a meta-analysis on 33 studies with a combined sample size of more than 2,650 children, of whom about one-third had JPC arrangements. Children with JPC plans scored
CONTACT Sanford L. Braver [email protected] Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, PO Box 871104, Tempe, AZ 85287-1104, USA.
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
KEYWORDS
Joint custody; shared parenting; causal inference; divorce


2 S. L. BRAVER AND A. M. VOTRUBA
significantly higher on adjustment measures compared to children in sole custody. This was true for nearly all categories of adjustment (except academic adjustment), including general measures of adjustment, family relations, self- esteem, emotional adjustment, behavioral adjustment, and divorce-specific adjustment. This suggests that JPC can benefit children in a wide range of domains. Baude et al. (2016) replicated this finding in a meta-analysis of 17 studies that included some 36,000 families.
Nielsen also updated the Bauserman (2002) review in 2015, citing 40 studies, then again in 2017, summarizing 54 studies, and most recently summarizing 61 studies (Nielsen, 2018). In all three reviews she found that children with JPC arrangements were generally better off than children with sole custody arrangements. Across these studies, children with JPC arrange- ments showed (a) better grades and cognitive development; (b) lower levels of depression, anxiety, and dissatisfaction; (c) lower aggression, drug use, and alcohol use; (d) better physical health and lower smoking rates; and (e) better father–child relationships. Nielsen (2015) also concluded that the benefits of JPC arrangements occur even when there is parental conflict. Nielsen (2015) explicitly noted that in 11 of the 40 studies, the researchers stated that their sample included high-conflict and litigating parents. Further, in 16 of the studies, either the parents with a JPC arrangement had as much conflict as those with sole custody arrangements, or the outcomes remained better for JPC children even controlling for parental conflict.
Despite being armed with this robust and consistent recent literature attesting to the substantial benefits of JPC, advocates have run into consistent opposition in converting the findings into a legal presumption: an assump- tion made and accepted by a court as a basis for their decision in the case to be decided. Generally, presumptions in family law are considered rebuttable and are accepted by the court until disproved. The assumption “will stand as a fact unless someone comes forward to contest it and prove otherwise” (Rebuttable Presumption Law and Legal Definition, 2017). In family law, for example, the child support amount arising from each state’s child support guidelines constitutes a rebuttable presumption of the proper child support award (Elrod, 1990). Proponents of JPC have engaged in many unsuccessful attempts to pass laws making JPC a presumption that is rebuttable on showing that, for some specifiable legal reason, such an arrangement should not be considered in the child’s best interest in the particular case.
One of the key sources of opposition to making JPC a legal presumption arises because of scientific considerations.1 The objection focuses on a certain limitation of the research design historically used by the vast majority of the studies comparing the impact of JPC and SPC arrangements. This research design has been termed the static group comparison (Campbell & Stanley, 1963) and is often also referred to as a cross-sectional study. A static group design compares two or more preexisting groups. In this case the research compared families with JPC arrangements to those with SPC arrangements— generally maternal custody. The term cross-sectional (implying a single point in time, with preexisting groups) is generally contrasted with the longitudinal study (implying multiple points in time). The limitation of this design gen- erally ensues from the fact that there is “no formal means of certifying that the groups would have been equivalent had it not been for” the custody arrange- ment (Campbell & Stanley, 1963, p. 12). Whatever the basis is under which the individuals become sorted into groups represents selection, which constitutes a substantial threat to the internal validity of the causal conclusion.
For the issue at hand, it is mostly self-selection that comprises the most plausible alternative explanation for the differences found between JPC and SPC children. Specifically, during the historical period when many of the JPC studies were conducted, families were granted JPC only if both parents (more or less) freely declared that this was the arrangement they preferred. If either parent declared that he or she was unalterably opposed to such an arrange- ment, the courts would typically not grant it. Thus, JPC was virtually never imposed on consistently unwilling families--in some instances because the statutes specifically precluded it. Thus, couples in which both parents wished for JPC--which was a distinct minority (Braver & O’Connell, 1998; Maccoby & Mnookin, 1992)--were compared to couples in which one or both parents opposed it. Hence, the sorting into the two comparison groups was based nearly entirely on the parents’ own decisions, resulting in self-selection. It is also well known that many discernable factors, as identified later in this article, might discriminate between couples making these two choices and that these factors often are also associated with better child outcomes regardless of the custody arrangement. This is an important methodological limitation because it could be these self-selection factors, rather than the custody arrangement per se, that accounts entirely for the advantages found for JPC children.
The reality of this methodological limitation found in much of the research on JPC has implications both for scientific inquiry and for policy development. Scientifically speaking, when exploring a cause–effect relation- ship, if any plausible alternative explanation happens to be entirely respon- sible for the effect, the causal conjecture is thereby invalidated. Specifically, if selection accounts for the entirety of an effect, then enacting the “cause” variable will not have the anticipated impact on the “effect” variable. In terms of custody policy, if the JPC arrangement is not the cause of the benefits, if instead self-selection happens to account for all the positive findings, impos- ing JPC (rather than letting parents choose it) will not have the mostly beneficial effects indicated by the research, as noted by Bauserman (2002), and Fehlberg and colleagues (2011). Thus, a presumptive law, which would impose JPC over the opposition of one of the parents, might fail to create the intended benefits. As Emery, Otto, and O’Donohue (2005) concluded from research using this methodology, “we cannot extrapolate from voluntary
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joint physical custody to circumstances when joint physical custody is imposed upon parents by laws favoring joint physical custody ... or by judges who order it” (pp. 16–17).
Although the static group research design with self-selection into compar- ison groups has clear limitations for assessing causality, other methodological approaches offer greater promise. The gold standard methodological approach that can fully overcome the barriers to drawing causal conclusions is the randomized experiment (Cook & Campbell, 1979). For example, if couples were assigned at random to either JPC or to SPC, any subsequent differences in children’s well-being could be unambiguously attributed to the custody arrangement. It is true that family courts have on relatively rare but increasingly common occasions been convinced to deploy random assign- ment for various purposes (Ballard, Holtzworth-Munroe, Applegate, D’Onofrio, & Bates, 2013; Beck et al., 2009; Braver, Sandler, Hita, & Wheeler, 2016; Mauricio et al., 2017; Rossi et al., 2015; Sandler et al., 2016; Winslow et al., 2017). Nonetheless, there has never been and never will be an instance of judges assigning custody of children at random. Thus, although conducting a randomized experiment would clearly be the best methodolo- gical option for assessing the causal mechanism, it is out of the question.
Research designs that probe causality
There are, however, a number of additional methodological approaches that would allow researchers to probe causality, albeit not prove it. The inability— for practical, ethical, or physical reasons--to assign treatments at random is an extremely common one in social science and even physical science. This problem has prompted a great deal of recent scholarly work devoted to going beyond static group comparisons to render causal inferences more credible. These approaches include (a) employing statistical controls; (b) propensity score analysis; (c) natural experiments; and (d) regression discontinuity or interrupted time series quasi-experiments. In regard to JPC and SPC children’s outcomes, two more approaches present themselves: (e) differentiating the findings on the basis of parents’ initial custody preferences; and (f) examining outcomes in jurisdictions where JPC is already a presumption or a norm.
Statistical controls
The most common approach to strengthen the possibility of establishing causality is to employ statistical controls. The intent of this technique is to statistically hold constant, adjust for differences in, covary out, partial out, control for, correct for, or equate for (all preceding terms are essentially synonyms) these self-selection factors. According to the Berkeley Glossary of Statistical Terms, “to control for a variable is to try to separate its effect from the treatment effect, so it will not confound with the treatment” (in this case, the custody arrangement; Stark, 2017). It is important to recognize that such research takes place under one of two distinct statistical approaches. The first is the group-oriented approach that treats JPC and SPC families as two distinct classes of people. Group-oriented approaches, in general, use independent group t tests and analysis of variance (ANOVA) as their main statistical tools. When they attempt to control for any variables, they move to an analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), to “covary out” the possible confound. The second approach treats most of the variables as continuous ones, not as classes or groups. This approach uses multiple regression as its main statistical tool. Typically multiple regressions will treat JPC versus SPC as a dummy or binary variable, and enter it into the analysis after the control variables have been entered. In this (or in another equivalent) way, the self-selection variables are controlled for or partialed out, allowing a firmer inference that it is the custody arrangement per se that is responsible for the outcomes. The regression approach and the ANCOVA approach yield virtually identical results and are merely two different but equivalent approaches (Huitema, 2011).
In JPC and SPC studies, most researchers consider parent conflict and family income to be the two most important self-selection factors in that both are thought to powerfully affect both the self-selection of JPC arrange- ments and child well-being. Accordingly, quite a large number of recent studies have attempted to control for these two factors in evaluating the impact of JPC. Nielsen (2018) cataloged these 60 studies. Of the 36 studies that considered parental conflict, JPC children had better outcomes on all measures in 18 studies, equal to better in 11 studies, equal in 3 studies, and worse outcomes on one of the measures in 4 studies. In the 42 studies that considered family income, JPC children had better outcomes on all measures in 25 studies, equal to better outcomes in 9 studies, equal outcomes in 4 studies, and worse outcomes on one measure but equal or better outcomes on other measures in 4 studies. As Nielsen (2018) also pointed out, the links between income and children’s well-being in the vast literature on this topic actually find only weak and indirect effects, with the exception of children growing up in poverty.
Although the two self-selection factors of income and parental conflict are often seen as the most consequential, they certainly do not exhaust the list of potential factors influencing children’s outcomes. This fact is critical because the effectiveness of the statistical control approach is greatly compromised if other selection factors are strongly at work. Among these additional factors might be mother’s and father’s level of education, the child’s age, the parents’ ages, which parent wanted the divorce, each parent’s mental health, how guilty each parent felt about the breakup, and so on.
One study was quite comprehensive in identifying which factors might set JPC and SPC parents apart (Gunnoe & Braver, 2001). This study was some- what unique in that it was both longitudinal and captured data before the
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6 S. L. BRAVER AND A. M. VOTRUBA
divorce was final--that is, before any custody arrangement became official. In fact, the initial interview with the parents took place within a short 2.5 months after the initial petition for divorce, which starts the legal process of divorcing. The study assessed fully 71 predivorce variables, including all the ones men- tioned earlier, that might plausibly differentiate between families who ulti- mately obtained joint legal versus sole legal custody (with maternal physical custody). Twenty of the 71 factors indeed discriminated at a statistically significant level parents who ultimately obtained sole or joint legal custody. All 20 factors were then simultaneously controlled in a subsequent ANCOVA comparison of the 52 sole and 26 joint legal custody families 2 years post- divorce. The children in the families with joint legal custody continued to have fewer adjustment problems than children in sole custody families, over and above the predivorce selection factors. It should be noted that it was legal custody, rather than physical custody that was at issue here, because the study was conducted at a time before there were sufficient numbers of JPC cases to yield adequate statistical power. Note, however, that Bauserman’s (2002) meta- analysis found that that joint legal custody and JPC bestowed largely equal benefits. It is also important that the more positive outcomes for JPC children were not moderated by the level of predivorce conflict between the parents.
In conclusion, statistical controls, the most ubiquitous approach to dealing with the self-selection confound, have shown rather overwhelmingly that JPC confers substantial benefits to children over and above, or independent of, self-selection factors.
Propensity score analysis
Propensity score analysis is a relatively new technique that deals with the issue of static or preexisting groups by providing another means for equating the groups on a large number of variables (covariates) measured at a baseline point (West, Cham, Thoemmes, et al., 2014). Once they are “equated” at baseline (via matching, stratification, weighting, or ANCOVA) on all the covariates (e.g., parental conflict) that predict group selection, the comparison of the groups’ differential outcomes rules out the effect of these potential confound- ing factors (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002; West, Cham, & Liu, 2014). This strongly enhances the internal validity of the study and thereby the inference of causal impact.
Propensity score analysis is an upgrade from traditional approaches that equate groups on only a few variables, instead allowing equating on a large number of baseline covariates simultaneously by creating a single propensity score that summarizes all of the covariates. The score is typically constructed using a logistic regression equation in which the full set of covariates is used to predict group membership. Unlike traditional approaches, however, it leaves out simultaneous consideration at this stage of the outcome variable of interest. Essentially, the “propensity score is the predicted probability that the person will be assigned to the treatment group based on his or her scores on each of the full set of covariates” (West, Cham, Thoemmes, et al., 2014, p. 908). If the groups are successfully equated, then it is possible to arrive at an unbiased estimate of the causal effect of the treatment. In our case, it would thus be possible to examine what causal effect JPC or SPC had on child well- being. However, propensity score analysis has advantages over regression- oriented statistical controls because it assesses overlap of the two groups being compared; it makes no assumptions about the functional form of the relationship between the covariate and selection, such as linearity; it allows nonparametric as well as parametric conditioning; and it allows checks of the putative selection model.
One of the challenges of performing propensity score analysis is that to get an accurate propensity score, it is necessary to measure all or nearly all covariates that might be confounded with self-selection into JPC or SPC arrangements and child well-being (West, Cham, Thoemmes, et al., 2014). This could mean measuring a very large number of potential covariates at baseline. In addition to new data collection efforts, researchers can consider secondary analysis of data sets that included many potential such covariates that have already been collected, as did Gunnoe and Braver (2001).
To our knowledge, no researcher has yet attempted to use this powerful and sophisticated methodology to examine the causal effect of custody arrangements on child well-being. Because propensity score analysis achieves results close to those of a randomized experiment (Cook, Shadish, & Wong, 2008; Shadish, Clark, & Steiner, 2008), we believe this is a strong candidate for future research.
Natural experiments
Natural experiments also often allow causal conclusions to be fairly made. In natural experiments, the assignment to a treatment condition is not made at random by the researcher, but is made instead by some independent event; for example, nature, the weather, sickness, or policy changes. The key to whether the causal inference is valid in any natural experiment is whether “the event ... allows for the random or seemingly random assignment of study subjects to different groups” (Messer, 2017, italics added).
Because custody laws are a matter of much legal and cultural ferment and change, new laws and new court holdings are constantly coming into being. Comparing couples assigned by some means to JPC to couples assigned to SPC could plausibly constitute a natural experiment that would allow causal infer- ences about the custody arrangement’s impact on child outcomes. The validity of such an inference rests completely on the exact nature of the design, however. Consider, for example, a hypothetical study comparing couples
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who divorced before a JPC presumption took effect to another group of couples who divorced after the presumption took effect. Only to the degree that we might fairly regard as “random or seemingly random” whether the exact date of each specific case’s divorce decree fell either before or after the law change would the causal inference about the impact of the JPC presump- tion on the child’s well-being be valid. When other potential causes of any differences in child outcomes found might also be plausible, they constitute clear threats to the internal validity of the inference. For example, if “other change-producing events” (p. 7) that might affect the children’s outcomes have occurred between the two observation points (e.g., economic downturns, housing collapses), the inference risks invalidity. Such an other event “becomes a more plausible rival explanation of change the longer” (p. 7) the interval between the two observations. Thus, studies that let only small intervals (i.e., a few months) intervene between the divorce dates of the couples in the two regimes are on more solid footing with causal claims.
We are aware of no solid empirical investigations of JPC’s impact on child outcomes that employed such a natural experiment, but are mindful that these could be profitably deployed by alert investigators whenever the pas- sage of a presumptive law seems imminent. With more than 20 states and numerous countries currently debating new JPC presumption laws (Leading Women for Shared Parenting, 2017) researchers should note the important opportunity that exists to study a random sample of families before and another random sample after such a law takes effect.
It might appear that another natural experiment opportunity exists by com- paring two nearby jurisdictions with different custody laws, but this rarely is valid. For example, Douglas (2003) compared a sample of parents from New Hampshire, which had recently passed a presumptive joint legal custody law, to a sample from Maine, which did not have such a presumption. The samples were chosen from six counties matched on several demographic factors. However, although matched on some variables, many other differences between the jurisdictions exist, such as radically different child support regimes. Many or all of these differences could plausibly account for any impact of the new presumption. Thus, Douglas (2003) admitted that “more well-controlled designs are greatly needed” for sound inference (p. 9). In summary, comparing different jurisdictions at the same time generally constitutes an invalid variant of natural experiment with which to evaluate the causal impact of JPC on child outcomes.
Quasi-experimental designs: regression discontinuity or interrupted time series
One of the most important contributions of Campbell and Stanley’s (1963) work was to identify an extremely important class of research designs, new at the time, they termed quasi-experiments. These designs are admittedly less conclusive
than randomized experiments, but, when well conducted, only marginally so. The two quasi-experimental designs we highlight here are the ones best suited to the evaluation of JPC arrangements or presumptions on child well-being: regression discontinuity or interrupted time series. For our purposes, these terms are largely interchangeable and we refer to it as RD-ITS, accordingly.
Whereas a simple pre- and posttest design is very susceptible to the argu- ment that other causes might have intervened between the two measurement occasions, the RD-ITS approach minimizes that threat to internal validity by considering many pretest points and many posttest points. Figure 1 illustrates this approach: It gathers a sample of many pre-law-change cases and many post-law-change cases and plots them all on the horizontal axis by the date of the final decree. The child well-being measure(s) for each case are plotted on the vertical axis. If the law had an impact on child well-being (or any other relevant outcome measure) it should be evident by an abrupt discontinuity or
Month Custody Arrangement Finalized
Figure 1. Regression discontinuity design.
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Long Term Child Adjustment

10 S. L. BRAVER AND A. M. VOTRUBA
jump in the trend line tracing the average outcomes over time. Any alternative explanation of the child outcome results other than the causal impact of the JPC presumptive law taking effect would have to pass the considerable hurdle of explaining why the impact occurred at that one exact point in time.
Although we are aware of no existing study that used such a design to study the impact of JPC presumptions on child outcomes, work preliminary to an analysis of the introduction of Arizona law has been conducted by Fabricius and Millar. Moreover, the design can be used to evaluate other interventions in the family law environment. For example, DeLusé and Braver (2015) used such a design to evaluate a divorce education program and deemed such an evaluation rigorous.
Differentiating on the basis of parents’ initial preferences
In evaluating the causal impact of JPC arrangements on child well-being, another methodological strategy rather uniquely presents itself. This occurs because there are two parents, and they might in fact agree initially on a JPC arrangement, or they might initially disagree. With one parent initially against it, JPC sometimes nevertheless prevailed, infrequently because a court decision overruled that parent, and more commonly because the opposing parent later withdrew his or her opposition, perhaps because of professional advice or under pressure of some kind. Braver and O’Connell (1998) and Maccoby and Mnookin (1992) found that initial mutual agree- ment on joint custody is relatively rare, between 18% and 23%. Fabricius, Braver, Diaz, and Velez (2010), among others, discussed the many avenues in which the bargaining process between the ex-spouses can be influenced by the “guidance about their chances they receive from judges, attorneys, cus- tody evaluators, parent educators, and mediators” (p. 257). Mnookin and Kornhauser (1979) famously called this “bargaining in the shadow of the law.” Braver, Cookston, and Cohen (2002) presented evidence that it is the parents’ lawyers, in particular, that often influence the process, leading parents to not pursue their initial preferences by advising them about their “likelihood of prevailing” in seeking the arrangements they prefer. If analysts have access to information about the two parents’ initial preferences prior to the decree, they could compare the child outcomes of the “both initially agree on shared” to the “one initially wanted sole but ‘caved’” groups to probe the impact of the self-selection alternative explanation. If self-selection is respon- sible for the benefits of JPC that have been documented, we should expect that children for whom both parents voluntarily selected JPC will have better outcomes than those for whom one parent initially opposed it. Nielsen (2014) identified six studies that catalog parents’ initial agreements or lack thereof about the eventual parenting plan (Braver & O’Connell, 1998; Brotsky, Steinman, & Zemmelman, 1988; Fabricius & Suh, 2017; Luepnitz, 1986;


Maccoby & Mnookin, 1992; Pearson & Thoennes, 1990). Most of these are longitudinal, having assessed parents’ initial preferences before the decree was final. The study by Leupnitz (1986), however, is not longitudinal and simply stated, without explanation of how it was determined, that “in only 54% of the joint cases had parents agreed from the outset on some form of shared custody. In the remaining cases there was conflict over the question of custody initially” (p. 3). Finally, Fabricius and Suh (2017) assessed initial agreement about custody arrangements by retrospective report. The six studies in general do not find lower benefits of JPC for the group of parents who initially disagreed; rather, the benefits of JPC held even when one parent disagreed on the arrangement, undermining the notion that self-selection accounts for the totality of JPC benefits.
We encourage researchers with longitudinal data sets with parents’ initial custody preferences recorded to harness this power with additional second- ary analyses. Notably, Maccoby and Mnookin (1992) have a large data set that is publicly available at http://www.socio.com/fam2527.php. This could be leveraged to address this and other important causal questions, but to our knowledge it has not been done.
We should also note the inferential power of longitudinal studies more generally. Analyses such as cross-lagged panel studies and structural equation models at different periods of time are generally regarded as greatly enhan- cing the ability to make causal inferences even without random assignment. It has long been noted that family law research needs more longitudinal studies (e.g., Braver & Lamb, 2012; Braver et al., 1993).
Examining outcomes in jurisdictions where it is already a presumption or a norm
Finally, yet another inferential approach is or is rapidly becoming available in the present instance to evaluate this article’s central question. However, this final approach skirts the causal question per se and instead addresses the related question of whether the benefits of JPC arrangements found in the literature will continue to hold when such arrangements are a rebuttable presumption, or when imposed on parents against their will. It turns out we have such evidence by examining jurisdictions where JPC is already a pre- sumption, or where there are already strong norms upholding it. Because JPC practices are rapidly becoming more widespread throughout the United States and world, several jurisdictions now have large portions of the recent divorce cases adopting JPC, some of which were presumably initially disinclined. Among these jurisdictions are several European countries, including Sweden, Belgium, and Australia, and several states, including Arizona and Wisconsin. By examining child well-being or other relevant outcomes in samples of recent divorces in these locales it is possible to glean answers regarding how well it
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works when it is imposed, perhaps over the initial objections of one of the parents.
Most of these law reforms are too fresh to permit sensitive analyses of longer term impacts of the presumption or practice. Consequently, it is too soon to have many published evaluations. The Arizona presumptive law, however, had a recent cursory evaluation that is summarized in Fabricius, Aaron, Akins, Assini, and McElroy (2018). It found that the law appears to be having a positive effect and is in the child’s best interests.
The country with the most mature law and practice as well as rigorous recent evaluations is Sweden. The articles in this issue by Nielsen and by Bergstrom summarizing the Swedish research indicate both that the arrange- ment has become a “new norm” and that children who spent equal time living with both parents after a separation reported better well-being than children in predominantly single parent care.
As noted, the move toward making JPC the substantially normative option is very recent. Thus it is premature to expect a plethora of these types of well- designed studies assessing what happens when large swaths of couples, which include the many couples where at least one of the parents is unenthusiastic about the arrangement, have JPC imposed on them because of legal reform. Scholars, advocates, and decision makers should be very alert for when evaluations of these situations emerge and become part of the literature. It is noteworthy, though, that virtually all the studies to date support the proposi- tion that JPC is in children’s best interests even when one parent opposes it.
Conclusion
The central question posed by this article is whether JPC causes better outcomes for children, and to describe those research designs that can better help us answer this question. It is difficult to draw causal conclusions from older research in this area because the studies use primarily static group comparison research designs with self-selection into comparison groups, which confounds the causal question. Because a random assignment experiment is unlikely to ever occur, it is a certainty that such causality will never be answered conclusively. However, several other approaches are beginning to be employed with more frequency that can probe causality. Some recent studies exploiting such analyses have already been reported, and others should be expected in the near future.
The weight of the recent evidence indicates that self-selection effects do not largely account for the benefits of JPC in the empirical literature. Over a wide variety of methodological approaches and for the vast majority of findings to date, it appears that the benefits of JPC for children are not primarily due to the fact that a unique set of families choose it. Thus, evidence from recent research is discrediting the major rival explanation— that the better child outcomes observed in JPC are merely the result of self-


selection. Infirming the primary alternative explanation has the compensa- tory effect of supporting the original causal proposition (Cook & Campbell, 1979). Thus, we conclude that JPC probably does cause benefits to children on average. It should go without saying that the final two words in the preceding sentence are absolutely necessary. Although the general tendency across all individuals merits this conclusion, it certainly might not apply to all individual child custody cases. However, whether we currently have the requisite expertise to permit inferences about the likely impact in any parti- cular case is debatable (Emery, Otto, & O’Donahue, 2005; Kelly & Ramsey, 2009; Stevenson, Braver, Ellman, & Votruba, 2012). “Bottom line: much as it may be desirable, we may really not know how to properly individualize, tailor, or custom-fit parenting plans to achieve the best possible outcomes in each case. If this is true, the effort and expense and time and trouble taken in the futile pursuit of case-specific fittings come with little in the way of corresponding benefits. And, in such a case, it is better to have a rule or starting place that covers the majority of cases and families, with, of course, the ability to deviate when the fit is obviously bad” (Braver, 2014, p. 177).
Similarly, with the recent increased use of methodologically advanced research designs, we regard the evidence to now be sufficiently deep and consistent to permit social scientists to provisionally recommend presump- tive JPC to policymakers. As always, the presumption should be rebuttable; that is, although on average JPC can now be confidently predicted to bestow benefits on children, there are certainly situations where JPC would be unwise. Researchers can assist the enterprise of identifying these exceptions by engaging in systematic efforts to identify subgroups for whom the usual conclusion does not fit. One way to do this is to investigate interaction effects (e.g., custody arrangement by conflict interactions) on the child outcomes.
The term provisionally is used here, because we hope and expect research- ers will keep studying the matter, especially with rigorous analyses of the type identified in this article. Consumers of this research also need to be alert to new findings that continue to affirm the conclusions here—or perhaps that oppose it. We might aptly characterize the current state of the evidence as “the preponderance of the evidence,” meaning that there is substantially more evidence for the presumption than against it. A great many studies, with various inferential strengths, suggest that JPC will bestow benefits on children on average, and few if any studies show that it instead harms them. We note a kind of personal natural before and after experiment in this regard. About 20 years ago, the first author wrote, “There is simply not enough evidence available at present to substantiate routinely imposing joint residential custody ... there are too few cases adopting [it] to perform statistical analyses” (Braver & O’Connell, 1998, p. 223). That was before. A large number of those studies have since been performed, and the state of the newer evidence is almost completely supportive. On this basis, we contend
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the burden of persuasion has shifted to those who oppose a presumption of JPC.
Note
1. There is also, of course, a very substantial literature that opposes shared parenting presumptions when domestic violence is evident or alleged (e.g., Greenberg, 2004; Morrill, Dai, Dunn, Sung, & Smith, 2005). Although these voices are persuasive, in general, the articles provide arguments, not quantitative empirical research findings. Because this article is devoted to research design issues within the quantitative empirical research literature, papers presenting arguments only are outside the scope of this article. In any event, proposed statutes often explicitly note that the existence of chronic, one- sided domestic violence should be a rebuttal factor. There are also voices that oppose shared parenting when there is high interparental conflict. For example, Stahl (1999), in his guide for professional custody evaluators, opined, “high conflict parents cannot share parenting” (p. 99). Similarly, Buchanan (2001) wrote, “when parents remain in high conflict, joint custody is ... ill-advised” (p. 234). Emery (2009) wrote, “joint physical custody is the worst arrangement for children when [it] leaves [them] in the middle of a war zone. . . . In high conflict divorces, children do worse in joint physical custody than in other arrangements.” Such claims are supposedly based on the quantitative empirical literature and therefore are included in our review here.
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