One
million children in America are involved in a new
divorce annually,
as
of 1997, according to DivorceMagazine.com.
The
Children’s Fund
reports that one in three American children is born to unmarried
parents and the
National
Fatherhood Initiative
reports “About 40 percent of children
in father-absent homes
have
not seen their father at all during the past year.”
Dr.
Joan
Kelly wrote, “The primary negative aspect of divorce reported
by
children in numerous studies was loss of contact with a
parent.”
E.
Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly, authors of For
Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered,
found that “twenty
years after the divorce less than one-third of boys and one-quarter of
girls reporting having close relationships with their nonresident
fathers.”
“The
emotional stability of children of divorced
parents is
directly related to the quality of their continuing relationships with
both of their parents. We have repeatedly described the dissatisfaction
of so many youngsters who felt they were not seeing their fathers often
enough. If custody and visiting issues are to be within the realm of
the 'best interest of the child’, then such widespread
discontent
must be taken very seriously,” said Dr. Kelly
and Judith
Wallerstein in In
Surviving
the Breakup.
According
to Ronald
Rohner and Robert Veneziano,
authors of "The
Importance of
Father Love: History and Contemporary
Evidence," (Review of General
Psychology
5.4, 2001), "Having a loving
and nurturing father was as important for a child's
happiness,
well-being, and social and academic success as having a loving and
nurturing mother," and researchers
found a direct link between children's
behaviour
and quality
contact with their real fathers, according to Child
health News.
Warren
Farrell, Ph.D., author of Father
and Child Reunion said,"Children
need both their mom and their dad because children are both their mom
and their dad. When they are missing either, they are missing
that half
of themselves. The children who need most the stability of both halves
of themselves are the children of divorce, especially those
children
whose parents are the most in conflict."
"Mothers’
attitudes strongly determined the effectiveness of post-divorce father
involvement, and quality of father contact was more important than
quantity. Joint custody led to better child outcomes
overall," wrote Kelly, J. B. in Children’s adjustment in
conflicted
marriage
and divorce: A decade review of research. Journal of the
American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 39, 963-973.
More research
CHILDREN
LIKELY TO BE BETTER ADJUSTED IN JOINT VS SOLE CUSTODYARRANGEMENTS
IN
MOST CASES, ACCORDING TO REVIEW OF RESEARCH
Living
Situation Not As Influential As Time Spent With Parent
WASHINGTON
- Children from divorced families who either live with
both parents at different times or spend certain amounts of time with
each parent are better adjusted in most cases than children who live
and interact with just one parent, according to new research on custody
arrangements and children's adjustment.more
Published March
24, 2002
Young Perspective, PERSPECTIVES
ON
DIVORCE, Living
Arrangements
William
V. Fabricius and Jeffrey Hall,
2000
The
plea has recently been made (Wallerstein &
Lewis, 1998; Mason
1999)
and
apparently is being heard by the courts
(L’Heureux-Dube, 1998) to develop
a
child-centered approach to custody and visitation decisions.
The current
findings can be used by those setting policy and those deciding
individual cases
to
understand the typical feelings that children undergoing their parents’
divorces will have regarding their living
arrangements.Young adults who
have lived
through their parents’ divorces, and who have gone
on to college, do
not think
living equal time with each parent is necessarily
unworkable, and
in fact,
they believe with remarkable consensus that it is the best arrangement
for
children.
more
(pdf file)
Making Shared Custody Work
These
key guidelines can help joint custody
arrangements run smoothly.
Once
dismissed as a
disruptive oddity,
shared physical custody is increasingly common in divorce courts across
the nation. A growing body of research indicates that children in joint
custody arrangements have fewer behavioral and emotional problems,
higher self-esteem, and better family relations and school performance
than children in sole custody arrangements. "Children need both parents
-- one is not more primary or important than the other," says Jerry
Brodlie, Ph.D., a child psychologist specializing in custody issues.
Here, some basic guidelines to make shared custody run smoothly.
more original
article in The
Sydney Morning Herald
Published:
December 3, 2004
Children's behaviour
is linked to contact
with real father
The
importance of a father figure in children's lives has been
demonstrated
by a new study of families with separated
parents in
Bristol.
After
looking at couples who had split up, researchers found there was
a direct relationship between their children's behavioural
problems and the amount of contact they had with their natural father,
and the quality of the relationship between father and
child.
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