Recommended reading!

The 50/50 Solution: The Surprisingly Simple Choice that Makes Moms, Dads, and Kids Happier and Healthier after a Split 

by Emma Johnson (Author)

here is one proven method for happier kids, more involved dads, and less stressed-out moms after divorce―50/50 custody

It's hard for everyone when parents split up―but the end of living together doesn't need to mean the end of a functional family. Part of the reason divorces are so traumatic for the kids involved is because of our child custody system, which truly sets everyone up for failure. Throughout the country, the default arrangement is for Mom to get majority time with the kids (and most of the responsibility of caring for them), for Dad to become an occasional visitor (and perhaps saddled with massive child support payments), and for the kids to lose the stability, structure and confidence of knowing they have two equally committed, loving parents. But it doesn't have to be this way!

In The 50/50 Solution, creator of the Wealthy Single Mommy community Emma Johnson showcases the robust research proving that, in the vast majority of cases, equal timesharing is the best outcome for everyone in a family where the adults no longer live together. The 50/50 Solution will show you that equal parenting time leads to:

• Better physical, emotional, and mental health for children of divorce
• Higher career earnings for single mothers
• Fathers who are more engaged and whose rights as parents are preserved
• Far less parental and legal conflict
• A progressive, forward-thinking cultural norm that promotes gender and racial equality for all families, regardless of their configuration

A few states have already adopted 50/50 custody as the default arrangement, and several more are poised to follow. Equal parenting time is the custody framework of the future, and The 50/50 Solution shows readers how it helps our families and communities thrive.

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Georgia Shared Parenting

Column: Shared parenting: preventative medicine for kids

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6 hours ago  •  BY DR. LINDA NIELSEN

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Linda Nielsen

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Columnist and family psychologist John Rosemond recently wrote that when deciding contested custody cases, judges should avoid equal parenting outcomes and instead give one parent primary custody with the other parent receiving limited parenting time (“Custody should focus on fairness to kids,” LJS, Feb. 20.)

Mr. Rosemond argued that equal parenting arrangements were based on the best interests of the parents rather than the best interests of the children.

Mr. Rosemond is absolutely correct that, when their parents separate, children have “rights.” More importantly, children have “needs” that adults should ensure are met -- especially if those adults happen to be mental health professionals or judges.

Do too many hurt and angry parents put their own “rights” and needs ahead of their children’s? Unfortunately, yes. Some parents indulge their “need” to punish the other parent by restricting their parenting time even at the expense of their children’s physical and mental health. Even worse, these parents are often aided by mental health professionals and judges who are not familiar with the research -- or who have been misled by poorly informed seminar speakers and writers.

Many of us are upset with parents who feel they have the “right” to deprive their children of necessary medical attention, even though these loving and often well-educated parents sincerely believe this is in “the best interests of the child.” Similarly there are parents, judges and mental health professionals who advise against a powerful preventative medicine – one that protects children for a lifetime against damaged, weakened, or completely lost relationships with one of their parents. That preventative medicine is shared parenting -- allowing children to continue living with both parents at least 35 percent of the time.

Mental health research clearly shows shared parenting provides the best outcomes in most cases for children whose parents aren’t living together. There are 43 peer-reviewed studies that compare children in shared parenting families to those who live primarily or exclusively with one parent. The results are clear and unambiguous. The children in shared parenting families have better outcomes.

Did the parents in the shared parenting families have especially communicative, friendly relationships with each other? No. Did they mutually agree at the outset to share rather than to hoard parenting time without any nudging from mediators, lawyers or therapists? No. Do these 43 studies show these children’s lives are unstable, disrupted or stressful because they lived in two homes instead of one? No.

When their parents are behaving badly towards each other, are children any worse off living in two homes rather than one? No. For the past quarter century, in dozens of research studies, have most children told us that the every other weekend parenting plan is meeting their needs, making them feel stable and secure, and reducing the disruption in their lives? No. In fact, they’ve told us quite the opposite.

Last year, 110 international experts on child development, early childhood attachment and divorce reached a ground-breaking consensus -- shared parenting, including frequent overnighting with both parents for infants and toddlers, is in children’s best interests.

Too many mental health professionals and professors offer recommendations about parenting plans that are based on their personal beliefs -- not on empirical data. Indeed many of these professionals have never read the available research. Just as some poorly informed doctors offer outdated or harmful advice about medical treatments, there are professionals who offer advice to judges and mental health practitioners that is not research-based.

More troubling still, many of these speakers and writers convincingly present their opinions as if they were actually reporting empirical data – a disguise that is not only disingenuous but potentially harmful to children whose lives are affected by judges’ and mental health practitioners’ decisions regarding custody issues. In short, too many well intentioned judges and practitioners have been misled into accepting advice that is not based on empirical evidence.

Shared parenting is not about parents’ rights. It is about making the best choices for children -- decisions that are firmly grounded in research -- not on the personal opinions of parents, seminar speakers, mental health professionals or judges.

Dr. Linda Nielsen is a professor of Adolescent and Educational Psychology at Wake Forest University. 

State Affiliates Leadership Report of the First Meeting

To: National Parents Organization Affiliates Leadership From: Rita Fuerst Adams, National Parents Organization The first meeting of National Parents Organization Affiliates leadership was held via conference call Thursday evening, November 6th. Forty volunteer leaders from twenty-three states participated to learn about National Parents Organization’s goal to introduce Shared Parenting in Temporary Custody Orders in 2015 and National Parents Organization’s work to grade child custody statutes in every state. National Parents Organization is asking each of our state affiliates to: Commit to introducing shared parenting in temporary custody orders in 2015. Contact Rita Fuerst Adams NOW if your National Parents Organization affiliate is committed to working with us on this. Participate in rolling our grade for child custody statutes in your state. Our PR consultant, Burton Taylor, will work with you to place Op Eds in your local media. National Parents Organization conducted this study to respond to questions from legislators and to promote the scope of the issue with the media. Again, contact Rita Fuerst Adams NOW to let us know you are ready to participate. Meet, via conference call, to report on our progress, at 6 pm, Eastern, Tuesday, December 16th. In 2015, Affiliate leaders will meet quarterly. Please note that all materials that you need for introducing shared parenting in temporary custody orders are on Sharepoint. Look in the National Library for the folder Shared Parenting in Temporary Custody Orders. The list of affiliate leaders is there too.   Summary of November 6th meeting: Ned Holstein, Chair and Founder, joined the meeting early to welcome volunteers and to speak about the upcoming Divorce Corp. conference. He encouraged our leaders to attend informing us that it is a great opportunity to meet each other and to learn more about our issues. National Parents Organization is hosting a reception on Saturday evening, November 15th. Please let Rita Fuerst Adams know that you are attending Divorce Corp. conference so we know to look for you. Don Hubin, Chair, Executive Committee, National Parents Organization of Ohio; and member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization addressed the importance of shared parenting in temporary custody orders and why National Parents Organization is making this our priority. At the early stage of parental separation, children are concerned that they are losing one of their parents. Beginning with an assumption of shared parenting is helpful to our children. Ideally parents should cooperate but we know this does not happen. Children need both of their parents to help them in this adjustment period. Not awarding shared parenting in temporary custody is a major impediment to not awarding in permanent custody orders. When shared parenting in permanent orders is routinely opposed by judicial organizations, we are told it is because we cannot have a presumption. We cannot have cookie cutter orders. Judges use this to work against us. But, for establishing temporary orders, the court does not know anything about the case. So, the judges cannot go before the legislature and say they need to make the decision in the best interest of the children because they do not have any information to make such a decision. Awarding shared parenting in temporary custody orders provides a testing ground and parents will have to stand up and prove they want it. Alaska is the only state with shared parenting in Temporary Custody Orders Oklahoma used to have such verbiage, but reverted on this, so research WHY it didn’t work in Oklahoma Only 6 states have statutes that say courts CAN award shared parenting in Temporary Custody Orders: Alaska Georgia (National Parents Organization Affiliate) Illinois Kansas Oklahoma Washington (National Parents Organization Affiliate) Only 4 states have statutes that ALLOW a presumption of joint/shared custody in Permanent Orders: Arizona DC Iowa New Mexico Establishing shared parenting in temporary orders is critical to establishing shared parenting in permanent orders Strategic Reasons for Establishing Shared Parenting in Temporary Orders: Judges state that they don’t want shared parenting as the norm, because each situation is different and they want to have the purview to make decisions in the best interests of the children involved. While that may be their intent, the reality is that, during the process of establishing a Temporary Custody Order, judges have no substantive evidence, other than brief statements from each party, on which to base the wording of the Temporary Custody Order. Puts both parents to the test: During the time period that the Temporary Custody Order is in place, judges will see exactly how serious each parent is in being a shared parent for their children and with the other parent. Need to address the issue of domestic abuse and/or violence: DV abuse exception should be allowed only when there is credible and evidentiary proof of said DA/DV. We want to protect our children and other victims, but also guard against false allegations for the purpose of establishing sole custody even during temporary custody orders. For any false allegations made knowingly or recklessly, we need to establish some sort of judicial response, in order to safeguard the judicial process. In Mississippi: If allegations are found to be without foundation, then the party, who made the false allegations, pays all court costs and attorney fees to the other party. Also ensure to award compensating time to the falsely-accused parent, who has lost time with their child as a result of the false allegation. Matt Hale, chair, Executive Committee, National Parents Organization of Kentucky, addressed how he has been working in Kentucky to promote shared parenting in temporary custody orders. Matt said that his representative emailed the legislation to his local family court judge. This judge spoke well of it and agreed with introducing shared parenting in temporary custody orders. His bill died in committee because a line was added to it. It spoke to parents having the financial resources, without this could not get shared parenting. He got the line removed and Kentucky has refiled the legislation. Curtis Vandermolen, member, Executive Committee, National Parents Organization of California, spoke to his history of 10 years working with the legislature. Reminded people to be attuned to their states own culture. It can impact strategy. Noted that Matt spoke well about introducing a bill in Kentucky and much of this will work in most states. He reminded people to know the deadline. If you miss deadline may push your work to the following year. Best to have someone in your committee to work on questions. Ok, to say you do not know and get back to the legislator later. Recommended getting. Good to meet with the staff. They are first line to educate. Reminded members to remember the Governor. Still needed even if you have strong voice with legislators. California has been working for the past year to introduce shared parenting in temporary custody. Good contacts to make in the process of introducing legislation: Your local representatives Judiciary Committee members Other allies: PTAs, School Boards, etc. Burton spoke about the national grade card and why this is important for our work and our media strategy. It is going live the week of November 10th and is going to key target media. National Parents Organization’s 2014 Shared Parenting Report Card is the first national study to provide a comprehensive ranking of the states on their child custody statutes, assessing them primarily on the degree to which they promote shared parenting after divorce or separation. This study was motivated by the tremendous impact our nation’s family courts have on children whose parents are divorced or separated, and also by recent consensus statements by leading child development research organizations that confirm children thrive with shared parenting following separation or divorce. National Parents Organization evaluated each state’s child custody statute to instances of divorce to determine its grade. In 45 states, the statute also includes custody determination for nonmarital children. This is important to note because, according to recent U.S. Health and Human Services data, nearly 40% of children in our nation are born to unmarried parents. As a result of our research, National Parents Organization found that a majority of states received poor grades on shared parenting statutes.

Some Quick Advice

1. A judge is unlikely to *order* shared parenting, meaning tell the parents that they must share parenting responsibilities equally. They will, however, often sign and endorse shared parenting agreements that parents agree to on their own. So you likely must negotiate for it, or agree to it, on your own terms.
*Why* judges are currently unlikely to order this custody arrangement is discussed in, among other sources, Edward Kruk's work: http://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/edward-kruk-phd

2. In a parenting plan, settlement, there is no need for anyone to be called the "primary physical custodian," *except* the child support worksheet. In shared parenting, there is no primary physical custodian, and the law does not require that there be one. Nearly all discussions of the issues assume that there must be a primary physical custodian, but there need not be, except for the child support worksheet.

3. The child support worksheet, however, does currently require that there be a "primary physical custodian." This complicates factors since it attempts to generate financial obligations based on the assumption that one parent has the child(ren) most of the time. And there is no systematic way to deviate from that presumption: no schedule E deviations are determined by any standard method. So there is no standard method to calculate any child support obligations in a 50%-50% custody arrangement. For discussion and guidance, see the economist Mark Rogers: http://rogerseconomics.com/

See also
https://www.nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/21453-how-to-calculate-child-support-in-shared-parenting-cases

Since the primary physical custodian tends to receive a financial benefit from having this designation, this discourages shared parenting: the parent who would receive these funds might resist shared parenting so as to receive this financial benefit. And the parent who is seeking the deviation might be discouraged since, even though she (or he) has her (or his) children 50% of the time, she pays the amount of child support that would be due if she (or he) had the children rarely, e.g., every other weekend. The child support system should readily accommodate shared parenting by developing a systematic way to determine child support in an equal, shared custody arrangement.

From the Baltimore Sun

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-child-custody-20141008,0,2573219.story

Joint custody should be the rule, not the exception [Commentary]

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By Ned Holstein

12:24 p.m. EDT, October 8, 2014

A little-noticed research revolution confirms that our family courts are damaging the health of our children on a daily basis.

In 2014, three separate and independent groups of experts reviewed decades of child development research. They found that after parents separate or divorce, children do much better with shared parenting — joint custody — on multiple measures of wellbeing than with single parenting. Yet in more than eight out of 10 custody cases today, one parent (usually the mother) is awarded sole guardianship.

The negative impact on our children is dramatic. For instance, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Census Bureau, children raised by single parents account for:

•63 percent of teen suicides,

•70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions,

•71 percent of high school dropouts,

•75 percent of children in chemical abuse centers,

•85 percent of those in prison,

•85 percent of children who exhibit behavioral disorders

•And 90 percent of homeless and runaway children.

Last year's formation of Gov. O'Malley's Commission on Child Custody Decision Making is a promising start to tackling the problem. However, much work remains to ensure that more children experience the benefits of shared parenting, which include fewer behavioral and emotional problems, higher self-esteem, better family relations and better school performance than children in sole custody arrangements, according to 2002 Maryland research. Psychologist Robert Bauserman, then of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, conducted a meta-analysis of 33 studies between 1982 to 1999 that examined 1,846 sole-custody and 814 joint-custody children and found that children in joint custody arrangements were as well adjusted as intact family children on the same measures.

As the International Council on Shared Parenting put it in July, "shared parenting is a viable post-divorce parenting arrangement that is optimal to child development and well-being, including for children of high conflict parents." This represented the consensus of nearly 100 experts from over 20 countries. Similar sentiments were recently expressed by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts ("Children's best interests are furthered by parenting plans that provide for continuing and shared parenting relationships "), and by 110 experts around the world who endorsed a consensus statement published in February the journal of the American Psychological Association ("shared parenting should be the norm").

Shared parenting is also better for parents. The claim is often made that joint custody exposes children to ongoing parental conflict. In fact, the studies in Mr. Bauserman's review found lower levels of conflict with shared parenting, possibly by disposing of the winner-loser feelings that come with a sole custody decision. Shared parenting also gives each parent a break from continuous child care responsibilities.

Towson dad Mark Cyzyk reports that, "12 years out" his teen-aged daughter is thriving. She recently brought home straight A's, has a good group of friends and appears well adjusted. "For as far back as she can remember," Mr. Cyzyk said, "she's had two homes, two extended families, and now with remarriages that's four extended families, all of whom care for her deeply. I couldn't be more proud of her and am lucky to have been awarded shared physical custody years ago. But I should not have had to rely on luck — nor should she."

And neither should the other Maryland children whose parents separate or divorce. The alternative to reform in Maryland is a continuation of the one-size-fits-all tradition of giving sole custody to one parent. This is the outcome in more than 80 percent of cases, so that 35 percent of American children are being raised by only one parent, according to the U.S Census Bureau. In some cases, one parent has walked away from the children. But in most cases, the family courts have created a sole custody arrangement even though both parents are fit and both wish to remain closely involved with their children.

Governor O'Malley's commission holds out hope that family structure after separation or divorce will become part of Maryland's dialogue about children's health, emotional balance, educational difficulties, substance abuse problems, bullying and violence. Family court reforms that return both parents to 35 percent of our children where possible would help them in all these realms at no cost to the taxpayer, while bringing children what they most want: two loving parents actively involved in their lives.

Dr. Ned Holstein is founder and chair of National Parents Organization, which has an affiliate in Maryland. His email is nedholstein@nationalparentsorganization.org.

From The Federalist

• PARENTING

What ‘New’ Studies Say Is Best For Children Of Fractured Homes

Trading weekends is out. Children need open access to both parents.

By Leslie Loftis

OCTOBER 6, 2014

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What is the best custody arrangement for children after divorce? Most of us outside of family lawyers and courts don’t think about that question until we are faced with it. And then adults tend to choose administrative stability, figuring the kids are as exhausted and spent as themselves. Children of divorce face such an upheaval that it makes sense to adults that the children need time to rest and recover, and so we prioritize routine.

Certainly our custody assumptions support this kind of stability. Typically, one parent gets primary custody, while the other gets Wednesday evenings, every other weekend, half the summer, and alternating holidays. This is so normalized that I was recently encouraged to host a women’s event on Wednesday night because that’s when the kids of divorce are with their dads. It is widespread and predictable.

But those custody norms are informed by old research. We have new research now. In fact, we have enough research that we have long-term studies of children of divorce and meta studies—studies of those studies, a few of which I covered here last summer.

Grant Children Their Rights, Too

What children want and what children need—what they see as stability—is open access to both parents. From a 2000 paper by William V. Fabricus and Jeffery Hall onyoung adult perspectives on living arrangements after a divorce, reporting on their follow-up in the late ’90s with children of divorce they had studied in the ’70s:

Earlier research on younger children’s perspectives on living arrangements has demonstrated that children desire free and frequent access to noncustodial parents. For example, Rosen (1979) found that 60% of children wanted unrestricted contact, regardless of whether the noncustodial parent was mother or father. Children repeatedly insisted that being able to see the noncustodial parents whenever they wished and being able to see that parent often made their parents’ divorces tolerable for them.

Kelly and Wallerstein (1977) reported that young children viewed the typical every-other-weekend visitation arrangement as severely inadequate. ‘The only younger children reasonably content with the visiting situation were those 7- and 8-year-olds visiting 2 or 3 times a week, most often by pedaling to their father’s apartment on a bicycle’ (p. 52).

…The perspectives of young children, although compelling, have not had much influence in public policy debates about custody and visitation. Young children’s feelings may be suspected of being relatively temporary, malleable, and ultimately not strongly connected to measurable outcomes. The public policy debate about custody and visitation has generally been framed in terms of parents’ (and, most recently, grandparents’) rights rather than children’s wishes (Mason, 1999). Thus, it is important that Wallerstein and Lewis (1998) have recently reported on the longitudinal follow-up of the perspectives of these children now that they are adults. Their report is based on a subsample of 25 respondents who were the youngest (now ages 27 to 32) in the longitudinal study.

Wallerstein and Lewis (1998) found that many of their respondents reported that their visitation schedules with their fathers had been too disruptive and too inflexible and that when this was true they got little enjoyment or benefit from visitation in the way of enhanced relationships with their fathers. As adults, they feel strongly now, as they did then, that their wishes should have been taken into account, and they remain angry and resentful that they were not.

But the children’s desires have had a hard time breaking through the conventional wisdom. Myths about single-adult attachment and simple routines persist. Considering the relative advantages for children of intact families, that children need both parents should not surprise us. Yet it does.

Historical and Practical Ruts

Divorce wasn’t commonplace until the 1970’s. Before then, social scientists studied orphaned children and mother and young child attachment. Mothers were the primary caregivers of children, so studying them first made sense. Then, when the divorce rate spiked, courts didn’t have other information to advise them about the best custody arrangements for children. They granted primary mother care based on the only available research and the prevailing cultural practice. Then social science started to study the effects of a fractured family or father absence.

Courts should grant shared custody to divorcing parents unless presented with clear and convincing evidence this arrangement is not in the best interest of the child.

After about four decades of such studies, we have another answer to “What is best for the children?” (Or really we find another example of being led astray by partial data that our common sense should have warned us to be wary of back in the ’70s.) Absent extenuating circumstances such as abuse, children want and children need open access to both parents.

Advocacy groups for children of fractured homes are opening all over the world trying to break though the old myths with the new studies. They typically seek a presumption of shared parenting rather than the current unstated presumption of primary maternal custody, which covers for an epidemic of familial alienation when the sole-custody parent restricts visitation by other family members.

Simply, courts should grant shared custody, roughly 60 to 40 percent splits of time, to divorcing parents unless presented with clear and convincing evidence that this arrangement is not in the best interest of the child. Abuse, addiction, instability—evidence of each could prompt the court to grant custody to one parent. The court would simply start from the idea that the child should have time with each parent.

The Opposition: Lawyers and Feminists

As simple and logical as that presumption sounds, the two main groups actively resistant to shared parenting make for powerful opposition: lawyers and, paradoxically, feminists. That lawyers oppose shared parenting makes sense. Shared parenting arrangements tend to reduce parental conflict and therefore the continued need for lawyers and their fees. (See generally, the myths link above, page 3 and studies cited in footnotes 16-21.) But feminists, a group often heard demanding more domestic participation from fathers and who we might expect to vehemently object to the old legal assumptions that expect the mother to provide primary care for children, their opposition to shared parenting makes no sense.

In other contexts, feminists complain about the cultural assumptions of childrearing putting an unfair burden on women, but when the law tries to redress that burden and demand that parents share in childrearing, then feminists object. Why? Since courts have overwhelmingly awarded primary custody to mothers in the past, feminists see shared parenting as part of the men’s rights movement. They object to shared parenting as men trying to usurp women’s power by trying to assume the parental responsibility women normally assume, as an attempt to lower child support payments, and as society failing to protect women from abusive men. A particularly tight contortion in reasoning from a recommendation of the National Association of Women and the Law in Canada, where a shared parenting law was defeated back in May:

In fact, as long as women remain the primary caregivers of children, women’s equality is in the best interests of children, and law reform can and must simultaneously take into account and promote both the best interests of children and the equality interests of women.

So while the assumptions about mother care hold, then the assumptions should be followed? I thought feminism was, partially, about breaking assumptions about women’s roles. (Pause here for a moment to ponder that although non-feminists keep getting lectured about how feminism isn’t anti-men, their actions suggest otherwise. They turn their own goals inside-out for simple spite.)

Playing to type, in the North Dakota political battle over the “new and improved” Measure 6, the only active vote for a presumption for shared parenting in this U.S. election cycle, the group running the opposition campaign is all lawyers plus a male pastor and a female domestic violence advocate—and they seem to be using State Bar resources to oppose the legislation. The group that sponsored the measure, however, isn’t the stereotypical men’s rights groups. That group is all women.

Shared parenting is about family.

There are many fathers’ rights groups who support shared parenting, of course, but that is only because fathers are usually the alienated parent. I’m a member of Leading Women for Shared Parenting and the stories we receive in that organization are overwhelmingly from women. Some are mothers who hardly see their children. Others are grandmothers and aunts who cannot see their grandchildren, nieces, or nephews, because their son or brother is denied access to his children. The heartache strains other family relationships, like the distraught father who avoids talking to his mother so he can keep his angst from overflowing or the mortified sister who inadvertently posted a FB link that upset the alienating parent and ended the little contact her brother had with his children.

Shared parenting isn’t about fathers’ rights. It isn’t even just about children’s rights, although their hurts are certainly the deepest because they last a lifetime. Shared parenting is about family. Divorce is hard enough, severing the family’s spirit. Physically splitting the family as a matter of course means those spiritual wounds cannot heal for anyone, especially the children.

It is time to stop playing money and politics over children from fractured homes. They have enough to deal with. We should do what is best for them. And the four decades of studies really just tell us what we intuitively know: Children need their parents—both of them.