Journey to Peace

A number of studies have not found consistently significant differences in child adjustment based on the type of custody arrangement.

“Ongoing Post-divorce Conflict: Effects on Children of Joint Custody and Frequent Access” (Janet Johnston et al., 59 American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 576), a 1989 research project that studied primarily high conflict families who litigate about children over a period of one to four years, found that the type of custody designated by the courts was not associated with the level of child access by the nonresidential parents were associated with increased child adjustment problems.

Contact with Fathers and Emotional Security

In 2007, (“Post-divorce Living Arrangements, Parental Conflict, And Long-Term Physical Health Correlates for Children of Divorce,” 21 Journal of Family Psychology 195). The behaviors investigated included histories of living arrangements with each parent, relationship quality with the father, and physical health. Greater amount of time with the father was associated with both a positive relationship quality with him and better physical health.

Significant proportion of zero-contact fathers who had left the child, or that there was a negative father-child relationship that no-contact pattern developed. It is also possible that conflict between parents contributed toward the father having been absent or having a relatively minor role in the child’s life.

A 2004 report estimated that approximately one-quarter to one-third of nonresident fathers maintain little to no contact with their children.

Successful Shared Parenting Depends on Cooperative Co-parents

Shared parenting is likely to reflect, at least in part, beneficial individual and family characteristics that had been in place before the divorce and that contributed to the shared parenting arrangements.

If parents manifest long standing conflict with one another without a history of successful cooperation in parenting, children may be unlikely to benefit from shared parenting.

There is vigorous controversy about the interface between parental conflict and considerations of shared or joint custody-particularly as it pertains to very young children.

Shared Parenting and Residential Stability

Shared parenting may have a higher risk for residential changes than custody primarily with one parent, which is typically characterized by that parent having the child approximately 70% of the time or more. A 1977 report concluded that children who were living in a shared parenting arrangement about six years after the separation were also more likely to have made a subsequent residential change than those who had been living mostly with one parent.

Post-Separation Parenting Arrangements and Developmental Outcomes for Infants and Children. Pt. I (Jennifer E. McIntosh et. Al., Family Transitions, North Carlton, Australia), a 2010 study that used a high-conflict mediation sample, manifested the same general pattern. The study collected information for more than four years after mediations and reported that shared parenting children experienced less residential stability than did those who had been in sole custody.

Specific family characteristics when devising parenting plans, the shared custody parents who exhibited relatively good cooperation with one another also manifested a greater likelihood of successfully maintaining shared care over time than did the parents who were not able to attain adequate cooperation and decreased conflict.

However, a 2008 study based on a sizable Wisconsin sample, compared children in shared parenting arrangements with those in sole maternal custody about three years post-divorce. Overall, the residential stability was equally high for the shared parenting, and sole maternal custody groups. This study is an outliner, a gradual shift towards shared parenting taking place more frequently.

Should Shared Parenting Be Default for Plans?

Equally shared parenting occurs in a modest proportion of cases, and that there is somewhat less residential stability for shared parenting children in general.

[1] E.g., Christy M. Buchanan et al., Adolescents After Divorce, 92 (1996), note 65, at 288; Marsha Kline et al., “Children’s Adjustment in Joint in Sole Physical Custody Families”, 23 Developmental Psychology 430 (1989); Jessica Pearson & Nancy Thoennes, “ Custody after Divorce: Demographic and Attitudinal Patterns”, 60 AM. Journal of Orthopsychiatry 223 (1990).

[2] Parenting Plan Evaluations Applied Research for the Family Court 2ND ED. 118 (Leslie Drodz et al. eds., 2016), supra note 1, at 65

[3] Paul R. Amato & Julie M. Sobolewski, The Effects of Divorce on Fathers and Children: Nonresidential Fathers and Stepfathers, in The Role of The Father in Child Development, 4th ED. 341 (Michael E. Lamb, ed., 2004), at 348.

[4] Lamb, supra note 42, at 189; Smyth et al., supra note 44 at 157

[5] Lamb, supra note 42, at 192

[6] Richard Cloutier & Christian Jacques, “Evolution of Residential Custody Arrangements in Separated Families: A Longitudinal Study” 28 Journal of Divorce and Remarriage 17( 1997), supra note 4.

[7] Lawrence M. Berger et al., The Stability of Child Physical Placement Following Divorce: Descriptive Evidence from Wisconsin, 70 Journal of Marriage and Family 273 (2008).