Rigid application of custody deals may turn the young against family ties, new research shows

How parents' tug-of-war can wreck a child's future

Estranged parents who stick to a strict timetable to share custody of their children could be sowing the seeds for more family breakdown, research shows. The first study to follow the children of separated parents over a five-year period has found that many children find rigid agreements between their mothers and fathers so stressful they eventually opt out of family life altogether. 'Inflexible arrangements can be the product of insecure and over-needy parenting and are often very oppressive for the children involved,' said Dr Fran Wasoff, co-author of Private Arrangements For Contact With Children, an Economic and Social Research Council report.

The findings echo the critically praised American film The Squid And The Whale, which tracks a family as it disintegrates. Dr Bren Neale, a co-author of the report, said: 'The film picks up on the fact that the divorce itself isn't necessarily the key challenge for young people, but the way we manage it is. It highlights the fact that trying to run a shared household based on a bad relationship between parents is a recipe for disaster for children. For children, it can be like carrying a war between two houses and the film accurately depicts the emotional and behavioural impact that stress can have on children.'

The young people tracked by the researchers had spent an average of 10 years moving between two homes. 'The lives of these children were largely dictated by their parents' work schedules,' said Neale, co-director of the Families, Life Course and Generations Research Centre at Leeds University. 'This means all issues associated with a young person's "ownership" of their identity and rights became inextricably linked with parental "ownership" of the child's time and space.

Teenagers talked to us about parents "owning their days" and being unable to develop their own lives because of that.' Many of the children spoke of a sense of loss and gain as they moved between their different homes.

Wasoff, a director of the Centre For Research on Families and Relationships at the University of Edinburgh, added: 'Children need to be given the space to develop as adults, and the resentment that can grow from a child who feels they are being denied that space is a dangerous thing. It can lead to deterioration in parent-child relationship and, ultimately, to children choosing to see less of a parent as soon as they have the chance to make that choice. Childcare arrangements frame and define a child's life, and unless the children have a say in those arrangements they can end up feeling caught, resentful, torn, guilty and highly stressed.'

The study found the important issue in childcare arrangements was the quality, not quantity, of contact. One boy interviewed saw less of his father as he got older but still felt he had a great relationship with him. In contrast, a girl saw her parents in rigidly equal quantities, but said she did not have a close relationship with either because she felt her needs were being ignored.

Wasoff said that, while family law encourages contact between non-residential parents and their children, little is known about the views of the children involved in such arrangements. She said: 'Contact is a means to an end. Primarily, its purpose should be to help children sustain and develop relationships with both parents. We need to focus more on relationships, less on contact.'

Amelia Hill
7 May 2006

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1769435,00.html

home / Previous feature