Dr Richard WarshakPenelope Leach in her book 'Family Breakdown', published last week but trailed in advance in several newspapers, warned that children under 4 could be psychologically damaged by staying overnight with their father when the parents arer separated. 

The assertion will have worried fathers who have residence with their children or who have successfully negotiated some degree of shared overnight parenting with their former partner. No father will want to believe that he is doing harm by doing what he believes is right for both him and his children.

It will equally have undermined the efforts of fathers who are asking a court to order overninghts with their children when negotiations have failed.    

The US National Parents Organisation, asked Dr Richard Warshak for his response (https://nationalparentsorganization.org/recent-articles?id=21778) reproduced below with thanks). It is an important and concise summary of the social as well as scientific flaws in the Leach assertion.             

"The days are past when experts advised divorced dads to make a clean break from the family and remain, at best, visitors in their children’s lives. Growing awareness that children do best with two parents, whether parents are living together or separated, has led to a trend toward shared parenting. Yet some holdouts believe that shared parenting, appropriate for older children, is ill suited to meet the needs of young children.

The latest is Penelope Leach. Her forthcoming book, in defiance of conclusive evidence to the contrary, contends that children under four should not stay overnight with dad after separation.

Our society maintains a curious double standard when it comes to encouraging hands-on shared parenting. For instance, we want dads involved with their infants and toddlers — changing nappies, feeding, bathing, putting to bed, soothing in the middle of the night, cuddling in the morning. But when parents separate, some people mistakenly think that it is best for young children to spend every night in one home, usually with mom, even when this means losing the care their father has been giving them. Despite all strides in cracking gender barriers, many of us still think that it is a mother’s exclusive role to care for infants and toddlers, and that we jeopardize young children’s wellbeing if we trust fathers to do the job.

The result is the common custody plan where infants and toddlers whose have parents separated only get to see their dads a few hours at a time, a couple of days a week. Hurriedly loading and unloading the child into the car and driving to and from dad’s home at the end of a day hardly lays a good foundation for a comforting and secure relationship with dad.

Fortunately, science offers clear guidance on these issues. I spent two years reviewing the relevant scientific literature and vetting my analyses with an international group of experts in the fields of early child development and divorce. The results have recently been published in the American Psychological Association’s prestigious journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. The report is endorsed by 110 of the world’s leading researchers and practitioners from 15 countries. The endorsement by these scholars reflects a groundswell of concern among experts that misinformation about research evidence is impoverishing custody decisions and public policy.

It is unfortunate that Penelope Leach’s compendium of otherwise sage advice perpetuates a myth that relies on research that has been roundly criticized by these leading international authorities on child development. Leach claims that the evidence is undisputed that children under the age of five should spend every night in their mother’s home if their parents separate. Leach cites two outlier studies to support this radical view and overlooks a pool of studies that reported generally positive or neutral findings for overnights with fathers. The Australian study Leach cites relied on a group of 14 infants for some of its conclusions and used unreliable measures. The scientists endorsing the American Psychological Association recent publication concluded that the Australian study “provides no reliable basis to support custody policy, recommendations, or decisions.”So strong was the indictment and its underlying analysis that, in the wake of its publication, the lead author of the Australian study recently admitted: “Cautions against overnight care during the first three years are not supported.” Apparently Professor Leach has not received the update.

So how did we come to our conclusions based on the mass of evidence? Our first goal was to provide a balanced and accurate overview of settled, accepted research of the past 45 years relevant to parenting plans for children under the age of four whose parents have separated. Our second goal was to provide empirically supported guidelines for policy makers and for people who make custody decisions.

We found no support for the idea that children under four (some say under six) need to spend nearly all their time living with only one parent, when their other parent is also loving and attentive. Warnings against infants and toddlers spending overnight time with each parent are inconsistent with what we know about the development of strong positive parent-child relationships. Babies and toddlers need parents who respond consistently, affectionately, and sensitively to their needs. They do not need, and most do not have, one parent’s full-time, round-the-clock presence.

Many married mothers have work patterns that keep them away from their infants and toddlers at night. Like these married mothers, most single mothers do not need to worry about leaving their children in the care of their fathers. To maximize infants’ chances of having a secure lifelong bond with both parents, public policy should encourage both parents to actively participate in daytime and overnight care of their young children. After their separation, both parents should maximize the time they spend with their young children, including sharing overnight parenting time.

How did public policy and the direction of custody decisions go so wrong? It seems related to the legacy of the “motherhood mystique,” the idea that mothers are innately better suited to care for young children. John Bowlby put forward the notion that infants form enduring ties of affection with just one person, normally the mother, before all other relationships and that this relationship both ranks higher than and serves as a template for other relationships.

A number of studies have examined this hypothesis to see if it reflects infant experience. The research shows that children develop multiple relationships at around the same time. They form relationships with more than one care giver. These are independent of one another in the sense that the relationship with the mother is not a template for that with dad. Even John Bowlby came to recognize later in his career that infants form attachments with more than one caregiver. We cannot rank order these relationships.

It is clear that we should encourage relationships with both parents. Doing so doubles the infant’s chances of having at least one high-quality relationship. Also, moms and dads make different contributions to their children’s development.

The evidence continues to mount. A recent study reported long-term benefits to teenagers and young adults who, as preschoolers, spent overnights with their fathers after their parents separated. These children feel more important to their dads than do those who were deprived of overnights. They report better relationships with their dads at no cost to the quality of their relationships with their mothers. And these children showed no signs of any long-term stress-related health problems.

Of course, shared parenting is not for all families. Regardless of their children’s ages, parents should consider a number of factors when creating the best parenting plan. What works for one child in one family may not be best for another child in another family. Our recommendations apply to most families. Some parents are negligent, abusive, or grossly deficient in their parenting, and their children would need protection from them even in intact families, But that fact should not be used to deprive the majority of children who were being raised by two loving parents from continuing to have that care after their parents separate.

It is time to resolve our ambivalence and contradictory ideas about fathers’ and mothers’ roles in their children’s lives. If we value Dad reading Goodnight Moon to his toddler and soothing his fretful baby at 3 a.m. while the parents are living together, why withdraw our support and deprive the child of these expressions of fatherly love just because the parents no longer live together, or just because the sun has gone down?"  

Dr. Richard A. Warshak is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. His paper, “Social Science and Parenting Plans for Young Children: A Consensus Report,” is published in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, a journal of the American Psychological Association.

Researchers, family lawyers and organisations promoting shared parenting from all over the world will be attending a conference in Bonn from 9th - 11th July 2014 to discuss research findings on shared parenting and family life.

The conference is organised by the newly established International Council on Shared Parenting (ICSP) supported by the German Federal Ministry of Family and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), a major German research funding organization.

The conference will discuss responses to the alarming increase in psycho-social and developmental problems among children whose parents are living apart.  Under the theme "Bridging the Gap between Empirical Evidence and Socio-Legal Practice", a wide range of international experts in the field of shared parenting will present their research results and practical experience. The conference language is English, simultaneous translation will be provided in English, French and German.

 For more information and to register, please see the Conference's website. FNF Scotland will attend and report on the event.

Families Need Fathers Scotland welcomes the Equal Opportunities Committee report on Fathers and Parenting in Scotland. The report may in time be recognised as a notable milestone in challenging some of the institutional and attitudinal obstacles placed in the way of both fathers and mothers who want to share parenting of their children.

It is our experience that the obstacles the Committee has identified become steeper for fathers when the marriage or relationship breaks down. The acknowledged advantages for the children of the full involvement of both parents while the parents are together somehow gets sidelined on separation.

There is a raft of research that demonstrates children do better in all aspects of their life and emotional involvement when both parents are involved even after separation.

It is estimated that in the region of 30% of children in Scottish schools have parents who live separately.

It is evident that parents themselves are some way ahead of many professionals and politicians in establishing genuine shared parenting after separation. Perhaps that is as it should be. Unfortunately it is also our experience that even the phrase “shared parenting” still induces passive resistance or active hostility among some professionals and some family court sheriffs. While parents should lead, professionals should not be so far behind.

The Committee noted a “data deficit” in the extent of shared parenting. FNF Scotland will write to the Committee to offer our assistance in finding ways of gathering statistics and case studies that will present a fuller picture for future policy development.

The public petitions committee of the Scottish Parliament has discussed a petition lodged by Ron Park calling for Equal Rights for Unmarried Fathers.

Ron explains the background of his petition that his son, Alex, was born in October 2013 but the mother has refused ever to let him even see him. He has not been named as the father in Alex's birth certificate. Ron explains the efforts he has made to see the child and to have a role in boy's life - and his shock at discovering there are no mechanisms in Scots law to assist him.

Ron is calling for:

1. Both parents must be named on a birth certificate before a birth can be legally registered. Where the child's parentage is in doubt, all avenues must be explored in determining the child's father to the satisfaction of a court. If it is still not possible to name the child's father for whatever reason, a court may grant a registered birth with only one parent.

2. After parentage is determined, and should both parents be found to be fit and able to care for the child should an investigation be necessary, full rights and responsibilities will be awarded to BOTH parents. This will include the duty of care and living arrangements either agreed by mutual consent or, as a last resort, a court order.

3. And perhaps my most important change in that if the court orders a DNA test, or anything else for that matter, then failure to comply with this request should be considered contempt of court. If we cannot rely on our legal system to fall back on, then we simply have a lawless and anarchic society. 

The full petition, now signed by 423 individuals, can be found here. http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/GettingInvolved/Petitions/petitionPDF/PE01513.pdf

FNF Scotland national manager, Ian Maxwell, says, "This is an important initiative by Ron Park. Many people, including legislators, are unaware of how difficult and heartbreaking it can be for an unmarried non-resident father to be an involved parent of his child - especially a new born - if the mother wishes to exclude him for reasons of her own.

There is a raft of evidence that shows children do better in every area of their life - in health, educational attainment, self esteem and maintaining relationships themselves when both parents and their respective extended families are fully involved even after divorce or separation.

Successive Scottish Children's Acts have stressed that the paramount concern of both parents should be the best interests of their children. Public policy repeatedly reminds us of our responsibilities as parents towards our children.

We hope the Public Petitions Committee will take an active view of Mr Park's petition and urge on the Scottish Government the need to bring our parenting legislation up to date with current expectations about parental involvement and prevent individual tragedies such as Mr Park's."

Families Need Fathers Scotland will be providing further information to the committee about an issue which features in many of the enquiries we receive.

The newly enacted Children and Families Act has no direct impact on Scottish family law, but even in its severely watered down final form it adds to the pressure for an updating of the Children (Scotland) Act. 

The welfare checklist in the 1989 Children Act now includes a statement about continuing parental involvement:

(2)     In any proceedings in which any question with respect to the upbringing of a child arises, the court shall have regard to the general principle that any delay in determining the question is likely to prejudice the welfare of the child.

(2A) A court, in the circumstances mentioned in subsection (4)(a) or (7), is  ... to presume, unless the contrary is shown, that involvement of that parent in the life of the child concerned will further the child's welfare.

(2B)     In subsection (2A) "involvement" means involvement of some kind, either direct or indirect, but not any particular division of a child's time.

This amendment was diluted considerably as the bill progressed through the House of Commons to remove anything that might risk creating an impression of a parental 'right' to any particular amount of time with a child.  Nevertheless, it lays down a marker.

In the background information produced for the Bill, it was stated that "The Government remains of the view that a legislative amendment will send an important message to parents about the valuable role which they both play in their child's life. As well as helping to promote greater understanding about the way in which court decisions are made, we believe the amendment will, in time, encourage separated parents to adopt less rigid and confrontational positions with regard to arrangements for their children."

This may prompt the English and Welsh courts to be more willing to impose shared care arrangements and it may make parents negotiating in the shadow of the law more likely to agree such arrangements. 

The other change affecting post-separation arrangements is the ending of "contact" and "residence" orders.  Instead, there will be a single order, a "child arrangements order", which deals with the arrangements as to "with whom a child is to live, spend time or otherwise have contact" and "when a child is to live, spend time or otherwise have contact with any person."

This may remove some of the competition to be the "resident" parent. 

A similar change in the Children (Scotland) Act might make some sheriffs more willing to make orders for shared arrangements.  At present there seems to be reluctance in some Scottish courts to make shared residence orders.