What two factors determine how well children fare after divorce? Mom and Dad. It seems like it should be a no brainer that having a good relationship with BOTH parents is critical to children’s well being. Yet many judges still favour mothers in cases where custody is being ordered by the court.
What two factors determine how well children fare after divorce? Mom and Dad. It seems like it should be a no brainer that having a good relationship with BOTH parents is critical to children’s well being. Yet many judges still favour mothers in cases where custody is being ordered by the court.
A recent study by Linda Nielsen, a Professor of Adolescent and Educational Psychology at Wake Forest University, found that the effects of conflict between divorcing parents may have been exaggerated and that minimizing conflict may be less important than other factors when it comes to custody. High conflict does not necessarily mean poor outcomes for children. What does matter most for positive outcomes for children according to Nielsen’s study? The quality of the parent-child relationship, with both the father and the mother, trumped everything else.
This provides a strong argument that shared custody should be the norm unless it is a situation involving abuse or neglect. The love and support of both Mom and Dad is much more important to children’s well being.
Here are some tips for parents that make a shared custody arrangement easier on everyone:
- Don’t talk about the other parent negatively to your child. If you need to vent, find a friend, write in a journal, call a family member. Don’t vent to your child.
- Be willing to put your child’s interest first by accepting that for certain life events. your child needs both his or her parents there, and you can tolerate the presence of your ex for a few hours at a graduation, an important game, a wedding and other important events in your child’s life.
- If your child is having difficulty with something in the other parent’s home, encourage your child to talk about it with the other parent. Don’t put yourself in the middle of something that shouldn’t involve you.
- Don’t sweat the small stuff. Let little things go and don’t make a big deal out of something that your ex did that in the bigger picture really isn’t that important.
Shared custody benefits children in many ways. It’s about time it becomes the norm.
