Karen Kissane
December 21, 2007
IN A finding that challenges the Howard government's changes to child
custody laws, new research has found that children aged under 10 can be
emotionally harmed by shared-parenting arrangements in many families.
Where parents cannot co-operate and remain hostile towards each other,
shared-parenting arrangements can result in a higher-than-normal rate of
clinical anxiety in the children, the research found.
The report follows changes to family law by the Howard government in 2006 in
response to lobbying by fathers' groups.
The changes emphasised the concept of equal shared parental responsibility,
which is often misinterpreted as meaning equally shared time.
The report recommends that mediators and Family Court judges screen warring
couples to ensure that their level of conflict does not make them unsuitable
for shared care.
Written by Jennifer McIntosh, a child psychologist and associate professor
of psychology at La Trobe University, and former Family Court judge Richard
Chisolm, the report will be published next month in the journal Australian
Family Lawyer.
Professor McIntosh told The Age that, to be successful, shared parenting
must involve parents living close to each other and getting along well
enough to have a working arrangement.
They must each feel confident that the other is a competent parent, be
financially comfortable, have family-friendly work practices and keep the
child out of their disagreements.
These conditions do not exist for many parents who have arrangements
adjudicated by a court, Professor McIntosh said.
Litigating couples were more likely to substantially share children, even
though 73% in one study reported "almost never" co-operating with each
other, and 39% admitted "never" being able to protect their children from
conflict.
"Shared care puts children more frequently in the pathway of animosity and
acrimony between their parents, witnessing derogatory exchanges, for
example," she said. "The core issue is that shared care can inadvertently
rob children of security in their relationships with both parents.
"Screening is essential. We should not allocate (shared) time as a means of
appeasing angry parents."
Professor McIntosh reported on two recent studies that tracked children's
wellbeing after a difficult divorce. One involved 181 children and the other
111 children. In the latter study, 28% of the children were clinically
distressed four months after their parents' court case ended.
Living in substantially shared care, being unhappy with those arrangements,
and having parents in conflict were associated with poor mental health.
"One of the other realities of shared care is that it's less stable," she
said. "It very often breaks down. Older children vote with their feet and
say, 'I don't want to do this any more'. My concern is for the little kids
who can't vote and have to live in these conditions of sharing their time
between two enemies."
She said the concept of substantially shared time < five or more nights a
fortnight with the "other" parent < was now being applied to very young
children, with 21% of shared-care children in one study aged under four.
Babies and toddlers are developmentally unsuited to shared care.
She said the new law "tried to do good things. It tried to say that
relationships with fathers are important, and they are. My data show that
too. But, inadvertently, these changes seem to be creating new
difficulties."