Children at risk in rise of shared care

Adele Horin
March 4, 2008

SEPARATING parents involved in acrimonious conflicts over their children are
more likely to end up with shared-care arrangements than other divorcing
parents, research shows.

But the 50-50 or near-equal arrangements put their children's psychological
health at risk and often break down within a year.

The research, which is funded by the federal Attorney-General's Department
and the Family Court, raises questions about the rise in shared care that
has taken place since changes to the Family Law Act in 2006.

The findings, to be published in the Journal Of Family Studies, show that
parents who needed help from the court to resolve their disputes ended up
with shared care in 46 per cent of cases, while among parents who made their
own arrangements only 9.5 per cent favoured shared care.

The researcher, Jennifer McIntosh, the director of Family Transitions, said:
"We have a very high percentage of very high-conflict families sharing the
care of their children and this goes against all the good research. This is
not a good situation - developmentally - for children to be in."

In almost three-quarters of the shared-care cases, at least one parent
reported "almost never" co-operating with the other four months into the
arrangement.

While the court sample is small - 77 cases involving 111 children - a second
study by Dr McIntosh of 183 high-conflict couples who went to formal
mediation showed a similar pattern. These parents were also far more likely
to enter a 50-50 arrangement than is the norm. While 27 per cent of the
couples left the mediation with a shared-care agreement, three-quarters of
the arrangements had broken down within a year. The fathers in particular
reported worsening conflict with their former partners during the shared
care.

Dr McIntosh said the legislative and social environment had created a
"shared-care frenzy", with parents entering the arrangement ill-advised and
ill-prepared.

She said it was an effective arrangement for children aged over two when
parents were emotionally mature and focused on the child's interests rather
than on their own rights.

The paper urges lawyers, mediators and other professionals to ask themselves
whether shared care for parents in conflict would lead to children "being
richly shared or deeply divided". Dr McIntosh said before rushing into
shared care, parents should be helped to put the necessary building blocks
in place.

The findings show 28 per cent of the children from the Family Court sample
and 21 per cent from the mediation sample were suffering a high degree of
emotional distress, with shared care and parental conflict big factors.
Children aged under 10 were most at risk.

The Howard government, with Labor support, changed the Family Law Act after
strong pressure from fathers' groups to give greater legal weight to shared
care. But Richard Chisholm, a former Family Court judge, and co-author of
the paper, concluded the 2006 amendments should not be seen as a
straitjacket that requires equal or near-equal parenting time. "The new
guidelines, although more prescriptive than the old, still focus on the
child's best interests," he said.