Parenting Time Schedules for Infants and Toddlers: Evidence Regarding Overnights

• Jurisdiction: Colorado,United States
• Citation: Vol. 31 No. 10 Pg. 103
• Pages: 103
• Publication year: 2002

31 Colo.Law. 103 Colorado Lawyer 2002.

2002, October, Pg. 103. Parenting Time Schedules for Infants and Toddlers: Evidence Regarding Overnights

---

103

31, No. 10, Pg. 103

The Colorado Lawyer
October 2002
Vol. 31, No. 10 [Page 103]

Specialty Law Columns
Family Law Newsletter
Parenting Time Schedules for Infants and Toddlers: Evidence Regarding Overnights
by Linda Luther-Starbird, Jean E. LaCrosse

This column is sponsored by the CBA Family Law Section to provide information to family law practitioners. Articles are intended to focus on practice tips and discussions of current issues within the realm of family law. New column authors are welcomed

Column Editors

Gretchen Aultman, Denver, of Burns, Wall, Smith &amp Mueller, P.C. - (303) 830-7000, gaultman@bwsm.com; Marie Avery Moses, a domestic relations attorney - (720) 273-2103, marmoses@msn.com

About The Authors:

This month's article was written by Linda Luther-Starbird, Grand Junction, a clinical psychologist in private practice, specializing in child custody issues and co-parenting training - (970) 245-3212; and Jean E. LaCrosse (not pictured), Denver, a clinical psychologist specializing in child custody and clinical practice - (303) 399-6106.

A wide body of social science literature analyzes the risks and benefits to infants and toddlers of overnight visits with a non-custodial parent. This article surveys the research and analyzes overnight issues relating to the admissibility of expert testimony in court.

Over the last few years, the issue of whether infants and toddlers should spend overnights away from their primary caretakers has been hotly debated. This article describes the positions of various experts in this area and analyzes divergent viewpoints regarding the risks and benefits of overnights for young children. The article provides a framework for addressing the current range of options regarding parenting time arrangements for infants and toddlers.

Finally, the article highlights expert testimony issues in the context of overnights. This information should help attorneys evaluate whether current research regarding overnights for young children meets minimal standards for admissibility of expert testimony.

Summary of Experts' Views on Overnights

Various reviews and commentaries on overnights have been published in recent years in Family Court Review (formerly Family and Conciliation Courts Review).1 The authors have addressed the same basic question: What is the credible empirical basis for making decisions about overnights for young children?

The following summaries elucidate various issues and positions regarding overnights for infants and toddlers. Although the summaries do not provide an exhaustive review of available research, they address current competitive dialogue, interpretation, and reinterpretation of influential research in this area.2

Attachments and
Overnight Issues

Controversies over the advisability of overnight visits with someone other than the primary caretaker3 revolve around the concept of "attachment." Specifically, attachment is defined as "an interactive and reciprocal process that fosters the infant's growing discrimination of parents or caregivers, as well as the emotional investment in these caregivers."4 Attachment is considered both a process and an accomplishment in early childhood.

Social scientists do not agree whether an infant's or a young child's attachment is helped or hindered by spending overnights away from a primary caretaker. This is particularly controversial when the infant is in the care of another parent.5 A number of questions arise in connection with the issue of overnights, such as the following:

1. Is a child's primary attachment harmed by spending overnights away from a primary caretaker?

2. Is a child's attachment to the non-custodial parent harmed by restricting overnights?

3. Is there solid evidence that young children actually have a hierarchy of attachment figures with one preferred primary caretaker? If so, does it matter, in terms of the child's successful development, whether parenting time arrangements accommodate the preference hierarchy?

4. Is there an inherent difference in the infant's attachment process with his or her father and mother that would be harmed by overnights?

5. Do the immediate and long-term benefits of keeping a non-custodial parent involved outweigh possible risks incurred by allowing overnights?

Relevant answers to such questions emerge from studies in a wide variety of areas, including child development, attachment processes, divorce adjustment, and daycare research. As with any research field, relevant, credible data accumulate gradually and are not necessarily gleaned from research that is narrowly focused on the specific questions listed above. As one researcher pointed out, "In science it is easy to overlook the fact that some of what we find depends on what we seek."6

Research Favoring Overnights

J.B. Kelly and M.E. Lamb reviewed the child development literature on attachment, and concluded that the benefits of frequent overnights with both parents far outweigh the risk of harming primary attachments in most cases.7 They focused on what currently is known about attachment processes, separation from primary attachment figures, and the respective roles of mothers and fathers in children's development.8

Kelly and Lamb assert that there is no empirical support for the claim that infants must learn how to attach with one primary attachment figure before they can generalize attachment skills to anyone else.9 That assumption emerged from idiosyncrasies associated with a "one-mother, one-baby" research design. In fact, recent research has shown that infants develop meaningful attachments to both parents at about the same time - approximately 6 to 7 months of age10 - even when one parent is more actively involved in childcare than the other. In any event, there must be some threshold of interaction required to develop a meaningful attachment.

Although infants may have a stronger preference for the parent who provides more immediate care, even that preferential attachment seems to disappear at about 18 months of age. In view of these understandings about infant attachment, Kelly and Lamb reason that failure to have frequent overnights between infants and both parents - assuming an attachment exists with both parents - actually may harm the child's relationship with his or her non-custodial parent.

Infants and young children comprehend the world in the present tense, which is anchored in immediate sensory experiences. In other words, if something is not right there, to be experienced in the immediate present, it does not exist. At most, the infant recognizes something experienced before if it presents itself to him or her. The capacity to mentally represent what is not immediately present is a skill that develops gradually from repeated sensorimotor experiences. Until they attain this skill, referred to as "object constancy,"11 infants need regular contact with caretakers to develop and maintain attachments.

According to Kelly and Lamb, ongoing interactions with both parents in a wide variety of contexts will best maintain existing attachments. Stability is attained from predictable routines, schedules, and contact with attachment figures. They conclude that frequent visits, possibly every other day, with overnights that involve regular caretaking activities, will better fit the adaptive limitations of young children than infrequent daytime visits that currently are recommended in many parenting time plans. Kelly and Lamb assert that the concept of "location engendered stability" for children - in other words "one home, one bed" - has been greatly overexaggerated.

Several studies have found that fathers need to be involved in day-to-day caretaking activities to avoid becoming peripheral in the child's life.12 This finding may not seem particularly relevant unless...