NPO Washington FACT SHEET
The best way to protect children is to protect parents.
Why maintaining equality between parents is the best way to ensure children achieve their greatest potential:
Kentucky’s Shared Parenting Law passed in 2017, resulting in an 11% drop in divorce cases and 248 fewer domestic violence claims in the first year, followed by 445 fewer domestic violence claims in the second year – this comes after nothing but increases for the prior 40 years
Myths and facts ~
Children whose parents had at least 35% shared parenting time had significantly better outcomes than children in sole custody families. “While maintaining the parent/child with both parents is the most important factor” [Linda Neilson, Professor of adolescent and educational psychology, Wake ForestUniversity]
We have been misled as a nation to believe men don’t want to be fathers. Statistics show us that over 90% of fathers who are estranged from their children prefer to be an integral part of their children’s daily lives - but have been prevented by a spouse through the family court system. This completely debunks the “Dead beat dad” myth.
Many believe that family structure is not important. However, research on father absence shows that for many of our most intractable social ills affecting children, father absence is to blame. [McLanahan, S., Tach, L., & Schneider, D. (2013). The causal effects of father absence. Annual review of sociology, 39, 399-427]
A comprehensive, 12-year study on divorce has revealed:
Emotional and psychosomatic health problems [are] more pronounced in the group of adolescents that lost contact with a parent. The deleterious effects of divorce on the well-being of children and adolescents seem to be confined to those experiencing a concomitant loss of Parental Contact.
The child is left with difficult choices of alliance with one of the parents and loss of contact with the other. This is the proper context when referencing ‘Parental Alienation Syndrome’
[Gardner RA. The parental alienation syndrome. 2nd edn. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics; 1998 Google Scholar]
When divorce is accompanied by strong conflicts where children may even be used as ‘weapons in parental wars’, contact with one of the parents may be limited or brought to an end. In such conflicts all parts suffer.
[Amato PR. The consequences of divorce for adults and children. J Marriage Fam 2000;62(4):1269-87. Web of Science Google Scholar]
The Victim/Tyrant dyad
Promotes a contentious, detrimental and toxic environment for a child.
Unequal, unbalanced determinations are like adding fuel to a fire
Resentments and unresolved anger between parents is fueled under uni-directional protection orders and unbalanced parenting plans. This new power dynamic inherently perpetuates and often exacerbates pre-existing conflict leading to escalated violence, trauma, leading to deeper emotional scarring upon children. In the absence of an actual criminal violation, an equal 50/50 presumption is the best way to avoid feeding these problems. As parents and as leaders, we must act by example.
Equal 50/50 presumption is the only viable approach ~
By removing the power/control dynamic, we compel the two parties to work out their differences as equals, together. This is the primary reason domestic violence and divorce has been reduced so quickly in states which have adopted the 50/50 presumption legislation. An equal 50/50 presumption obviates the need for protection orders.
RCW 26.09.315 Child custody issues – Custody by Parent – Information ~
This informational pamphlet created by the State of Washington Legislature explains perfectly the harmful affects of parental abduction and why it is unhealthy for child to be deprived of their relationship with the other parent.
A child is incapable of discerning the differences between a protection order and abduction. Any loss of a parent is perceived by a child in exactly the same way. We can help lower violence by helping parents protect children from legal abuse.
Broad Discretion and policy
Even without the imperative change in legislation to adopt a 50/50 Equality presumption, a Judicial officers broad discretion already allows for a more balanced approach. Indeed, we already have the power to promote an empathetic environment for troubled families by bench marking and adjudicating a 50/50 presumption.
The "burden of litigating a domestic relations proceeding can itself be 'so disruptive of the parent-child relationship that the constitutional right of a custodial parent to make certain basic determinations for the child's welfare becomes implicated.' "
Troxel, 530 U.S. at , 147 L. Ed. 2d at 62, 120 S. Ct. at 2065, quoting 530 U.S. at , 147 L. Ed. 2d at 78, 120 S. Ct. at 2079 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). US SUPREME COURT CASE
Children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor. In 2011, 12 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 44 percent of children in mother-only families.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Children’s Living Arrangements and Characteristics: March 2011, Table C8. WashingtonD.C.: 2011.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states, “Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse.”
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NationalCenter for Health Statistics. Survey on Child Health. Washington, DC, 1993.
Children of single-parent homes are more than twice as likely to commit suicide.
[Sources: The Lancet, Jan. 25, 2003 • Ringbäck Weitoft, MD, Centre for Epidemiology, the National Board of Health and Welfare, Stockholm, Sweden • Irwin Sandler, PhD, professor of psychology and director of the Prevention Research Center, Arizona State University, Tempe • Douglas G. Jacobs, MD, associate clinical professor of psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; and founder and director, The National Depression Screening Program • Madelyn Gould, PhD, MPH, professor of child psychiatry and public health, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University; and research scientist, New York State Psychiatric Institute.] http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20030123/absent-parent-doubles-child-suicide-risk