Parent's Pocket Guide

Links to Research Articles

 

The research articles are listed numerically in the same way as the Pocket Guide.  Some of the articles are available via links.  Those that are not are detailed below.

 

(1)  Children's Involvement in their Parent's Divorce: Implications for Practice Butler, I G; Scanlan, Lesley; Robinson, Margaret; Douglas, G; Murch M

 

The paper reports findings from a research study that explored children's experience of divorce.  It shows that children experience divorce as a crisis in their lives but that they are able to mobilise internal and external resources to regain a new point of balance.  In doing so, children demonstrate the degree to which they are active and competent participants in the process of family dissolution.  The implications of the data are then considered in relation to engaging with children involved in divorce and in relation to some of the cultural presumptions that might militate against hearing what they have to say about their experiences.

 

Children's Involvement in their Parent's Divorce: Implications for Practice

 

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Date of Publication 2002

 

(2)  The Exeter Family Study - Family Breakdown and it's Impact on Children

www.jrf.org.uk/bookshop/ebooks/1842630857.pdf

 

(3)  Children's Views of their Changing Families

www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/931.asp

 

(4)  Supporting Children through Family Change: a review of services

www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/323.asp

 

(5)  Current Research on Children's Post Divorce Adjustment: No Simple Answers Family Court Review, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 29 - January 1993

 

Author: Joan B Kelly

 

This article reviews the current research on the effects of marital conflict, parent adjustment, custody and access on children following divorce.  Evidence from research demonstrates that significantly more adjustmnet problems confront children, especially boys, of divorced parents compared to those in never-divorced families.  However, when assessed in years following the divorce, these children are functioning in normal limites and do not appear 'disturbed', although the media report the opposite.  The article discusses an important British study finding that marital conflict and not the divorce affect children and that divorce may mitigate some of the more dstructive effects.  The analysis of research dealing with joint custody brings together both current and ongoing studies.  A surprising finding in one study was that mothers who share custody are more satisfied than those having sole custody and whose children see their father periodically.  However, both groups expressed more satisfaction with their residential arrangement than did sole-custody mothers whose children had no paternal contact.  court-ordered joint custody was less satisfactory than when the parents voluntarily agreed to that arrangement, and spouses reporting high levels of marital conflict tended to do less well in joint custody arrangements than did families with less conflict.

 

(6)  Using Child Development Research to make Appropriate Custody and Access Decisions for Young People

 

http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/child_development.php 

 

(7)  Family Court Review Volume 39 A Rejoinder to Solomon and Biringen Michael E Lamb and Joan B Kelly

 

Most infants form attachments to both of their parent at roughly the same age.  These relationships are consolidated by continued interactions, indeally in a broad array of contexts, whether or not the parents live together.  The mechanisms underlying the formation and consolidation of relationships with both parents appear to be similar, although most infants establish preferential relationship with the persons who take major responsibility for their care.  When parents separate, children often experience distress, and their adjustment is adversely affected when the relationship with one of their parents is severed.  This can be avoided by developing parenting plans that continue to ensure that children have regular interaction with both parents in a broad array of contexts.  Overnight periods provide opportunities for many important interactions.

 

(8)  The Effects of Divorce and Custody Arrangements on Children's Behaviour & Adjustment

www.ingentaconnect.com/search/article?title=the+effects+of+divorce+and+custody+arrangements+on&title_type=tka&year_from=1998&year_to=2005&database=1&pageSize=20&index=2

 

(9)  Cohabitation, Separation and Fatherhood

www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/552.asp

 

(10)  Drifting Towards Shared Residence

www.leeds.ac.uk/media/current/Drifting%20towards%20Shared%20Residence.doc

 

(11)  Divorce and Separation: The Outcomes for Children

www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/foundations/spr6108.asp

 

(12)  Children and Co-Parenting After Divorce

www.leeds.ac.uk/family/research/new.htm

 

(13)  The Changing Experience of Childhood: Families and Divorce

www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0745624006/familyresearc-21/203-5024339-2494310

 

(14)  Post Divorce Childhoods: Perspectives from Children 

www.leeds.ac.uk/family/research/findings-post.htm

 

(15)  Children's and Parent's Experience of Contact After Divorce

www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/092.asp

 

(16)  Divorce: The Child's Point of View Yvette Walczak with Sheila Burns (Divorce: The child's Point of View; Harper & Row, 1984)

 

Children are impressionable and their fear and confusion at the time of divorce perhaps makes them more so.  Parents are therefore in a powerful position to influence their children's thinking and their understanding of a confusing situation - whether they intend to do so or not - and of tipping the balance in their own favour when trying to explain what has happened and why.

 

Parents are parents, married or divorced; it is the child's right to have and to hold on to and continue to share in their lives fully.  Our findings do not support the view that children want to sever the relationship with the loving parent following separation or divorce.

 

It is also clear that a child's 'natural' view of divorce can be changed by fear and insecurity, or by persuasion, or even indoctrination by one parent, and can thereby for a time at least appear to have resolved the balancing position by opting for one side against the other - with with such regret and remorse later on that the cost seems toom high.

 

Satisfaction ws linked to the quality of the reltionship with the part-time parent as well as access arrangements and there was a strong connection between the two.  It is difficult to love and feel loved by a parent with whom contact is infrequent or non-existent.  Frequent contact on the other hand makes it possible for parent and child to know each other, to give support and tangible proof of love.

 

It was the children who knew that both parents wanted and approved of access who remembered enjoying their meetings with the absent parent best.

 

Wallerstein and Kelly (1980) found that the happiest and best adjusted children were those who had frequent, regular and flexible contact with the non-custodial parent and could exercise some degree of control over visiting arrangements ... it was the continuity of relationship with both parents that was of the utmost importance in helping children cope with ivorce and recover from its initial impact.

 

By making joint custody orders the rule ... the law wouod give the right kind of message to parents and encourge, rather then discourage, as it does at present, sensible behaviour.  Only the principle of joint custody can emphasise the continuity of parenting and the child's right to have two parents.

 

(17)  Co-operative Co-Parenting Post Divorce Janet Walker

 

Research shows that, after divorce, children do best when they retain a constructive relationship with both parents.  Hence, mediation services and recent reforms in Family Law seek to encourage parents to co-operate fully and amicably, and to share parent responsibility for the care and well-being of their children.  There is danger that a viion of 'happy-ever-after' post-divorce families ignores the complexity of transitions facing separating families, and the emotional, social and economic stresses which parents experience for many years.

 

Drawing on years of research with divorcing families, this paper inites practitioners to consider whether too much is expected of divorced parents, and whether existing services for separating families adequately address the needs of different family members.

 

(18)  Surviving the Break-Up

www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465083412/qid=1140091557/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl/203-5024339-2494310

 

(19)  Overnight Contact Between Parents and Young Children  Richard A Warshak

 

In attempting to fashion developmentally sensitive residential schedules, some courts, with the endorsement of mental health professionals, routinely deprive infants and toddlers of overnights with their fathers.  This article analyses the contributions, misuses, and limitations of theory and research relevant to such restrictions and discusses their scientific status with respect to current knowledge about child development.

 

(20)  Critical Aspects of Parenting Plans for Young Children - Interjecting Data into the Debate about Overnights  Marsha Kline Pruett, Rachel Ebling and Glendessa Insabella

 

The debate about the benefits and drawbacks of overnight schedules for young children is hotly contested in family law.  This study investigated connections between occurrence of overnights, schedule consistency, number of caregivers, and young children's adjustment to parental separation and divorce.  Families (N = 161) with children aged 6 years or younger were recruited t the time of filing for divorce or child custody (if unmarried); follow-up data was obtained from 132 families 15 to 18 months later.  Results indicated that parenting plan variables are related to children's social, cognitive and emotional behaviour with caregivers and schedule consistency more salient than overnights.  Girls benefited from overnights and more caregivers, whereas boys did not.  Overnight children aged 4 to 6 years when their parents filed manifested fewer problems 1.5 years later thandid younger children.  Even when controlling for parental conflict and parent-child relationship variables, the constellation of parenting plan variables contributed to young children's adaptation.