Parental Gatekeeping and Child Custody/Child Access Evaluation: Part I: Conceptual Framework, Research, and Application

• Date: 01 July 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12045
• Author: Marsha Kline Pruett,William G. Austin,Jonathan W. Gould,James R. Flens,H.D. Kirkpatrick
• Published date: 01 July 2013

ARTICLE

PARENTAL GATEKEEPING AND CHILD

CUSTODY/CHILD ACCESS EVALUATION: PART I:

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK, RESEARCH, AND APPLICATION1

William G. Austin, Marsha Kline Pruett, H.D. Kirkpatrick, James R. Flens, and Jonathan W. Gould

Parental gatekeeping refers to parents’attitudes and actions that serve to affect the quality of the other parent’s relationship and

involvement with the child. It captures a common statutory best interest factor that often becomes the center of child custody

disputes, especially in relocation cases. Gatekeeping research is reviewed for its relevance to family court and child custody

evaluation. Divorce conflict and litigation is expected to be associated with negative, restrictive gatekeeping. A conceptual

framework for gatekeepingis presented for child custody evaluation. Scholars have proposed a gatekeeping continuum varying

from very restrictive to very facilitative in coparenting attitudes and actions. Research allows for a general prediction of

potential harm to the child when there is substantial restrictive gatekeeping. The concept of social capital is proposed as an

efficient explanation of the “gatekeeping effect” on children of divorce. Evaluators are cautioned not to confuse restrictive

gatekeeping attitudes and behaviors. Restrictive/negative attitudes are normative among custody litigants. Children’s adjust-

ment will be affected more by the level and quality of parental involvement than by parental gatekeeping attitudes. Evaluators

are encouraged to identify specific gate-closing and gate-opening behaviors in a gatekeeping assessment. Implications for

crafting parenting plans are discussed.

Keypoints

• Gatekeeping varies along continuum from facilitative to restrictive gatekeeping.

• Maternal gatekeeping attitudes influence father’s involvement and affects child adjustment.

• Restrictive gatekeeping fosters parental conflict.

• It is important to distinguish between restrictive gatekeeping attitudes and behaviors.

Keywords: Child Custody Evaluation;Co-Parenting;Facilitative and Restrictive;Parent Conflict;and ParentalGatekeeping.

ORGANIZATION

This article is Part I of a series of articles on parental gatekeeping that explores gatekeeping as a

unifying concept for understanding and evaluating child custody and access disputes. It is directed

primarily to custody evaluators, but we suggest the conceptual framework for a gatekeeping analysis

will also be useful to judges, legal practitioners, parenting coordinators, and mediators. We first

describe the concept and supporting research on gatekeeping and present a framework to guide

custody evaluators in their behavioral assessments of mutually supportive parenting and coparenting

behaviors. We offer an explanation of the “gatekeeping effect” in terms of the resource-availability or

social-capital perspective and describe the legal context of a gatekeeping dispute.

Parent alienation behaviors will be described as a form of restrictive gatekeeping.We will illustrate

the conceptual and practical overlap between gatekeeping and alienation by describing several appel-

late cases in which the issue of alienation was raised, with an emphasis on the context of relocation.

Subsequent articles will describe (1) the concept of Protective Gatekeeping in the context of allega-

tions of intimate partner violence; (2) how the gatekeeping model applies in child custody relocation

cases; (3) a gatekeeping analysis when there have been allegations of child sexual abuse in a custody

Correspondence: wgaustinphd2@yahoo.com; mpruett@smith.edu; jwgould@aol.com; www.hdkirkpatrickphd.com

FAMILY COURT REVIEW,Vol. 51 No. 3, July 2013 485–501

© 2013 Association of Familyand Conciliation Cour ts

context; and (4) a forensic protocol for the assessment of gatekeeping in child custody evaluations,and

guidelines for integrating the gatekeeping assessment into the crafting of parenting plans.

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR GATEKEEPING

Parental gatekeeping encompasses attitudes and behaviors by either parent that affectthe quality of

the other parent-child relationship and/or level of involvement with the child. This research-based

concept was initially examined in intact couples from the perspective of mothers’ influence over

father-child relationships through her role as primary caregiver and therefore “manager” or “protec-

tor” of the child (e.g., Allen & Hawkins, 1999; Lamb, 1981). Maternal gatekeeping focuses on

women’s “beliefs and behaviors that ultimately inhibit a collaborative effort between men and women

in family work by limiting men’s opportunities for learning and growing through caring for home and

children” (Allen & Hawkins, p. 200). Recent conceptual efforts have emphasized the need to view

gatekeeping as potentially involving both parents, as part and parcel of coparenting and sharing

responsibility for the raising of children (McBride & Rane, 1998; Pruett & Pruett, 2009; Austin, 2012;

Ganong, Coleman & McCalle, 2012), and as a bidirectional process of influence and control over the

other parent’s involvement (Trinder, 2008; Adamson, 2010).

Such influence is arguably present in any dual parenting relationship as the parents attempt to

define how the exercise of parental responsibilities will be shared. The reasons that gatekeeping

develops vary based on parents’ own parental identities, sex role expectations and preferences, and

feelings about the other parent’s competence (see Pruett, Arthur & Ebling, 2007 for a fuller discus-

sion). Negotiations about the other’s influence on the child, the extent and type of hands-on involve-

ment each parent “should” have, and the degree to which the child requires some protection from the

other parent’s behavior or permissiveness are a natural part of coparenting (Pruett & Pruett, 2009),

with mothers often adopting and being assigned the role as primary gatekeeper in the family,

especially for young children. The concern in family law arises when the influence of one parent on

the other unduly detracts from the other’s relationship with the child. In response to this concern, a

few studies (Pruett, Williams, Insabella & Little, 2003; Trinder, Beck & Connolly, 2002; Trinder,

2008) and family law clinician-scholars (Austin 2005a, 2005b, 2008b, 2010, 2012; Austin, Eidman,

Gould, & Kirkpatrick, 2006; Austin, Flens, & Kirkpatrick, 2010; Pruett, Arthur, & Ebling, 2007)

began deliberating about the potential role of gatekeeping in child custody/access disputes.

Gatekeeping is a general construct (Hage, 1972) that has been described and examined in terms of

specific variables and dimensions (Austin, 2005a; Austin et al., 2006; Pruett et al., 2007; Gaunt, 2008;

Ganong et al., 2012), including:

• cognitive (i.e., gatekeeping attitudes) and behavioral (Austin, 2005a; 2012; Pruett et al., 2007;

Allen & Hawkins, 1999; DeLuccie, 1995; Fagan & Barnett, 2003) indicators;

• an expression of parental identity (Allen & Hawkins, 1999; Gaunt, 2008; Adamson, 2010);

• reflections of parental personality characteristics, mental health, and self-esteem (Cannon,

Shoppe-Sullivan, Mangelsdorf, Brown et al., 2008; Gaunt, 2008);

• descriptive poles ranging from facilitative to restrictive (Austin, 2005; Pruett et al. 2007;

Trinder, 2008) and passive versus active (Trinder, 2008);

• evaluative poles ranging from positive to negative and justified (i.e., protective) versus unjus-

tified (Trinder, 2008; Austin et al., 2006; 2010; Austin, Fieldstone, & Pruett, 2013).

GATEKEEPING IN THE CONTEXT OF CUSTODY LITIGATION

BEST INTERESTS FACTOR

The overriding legal standard that governs child custody/access disputes is the best interests of the

child in all of the states in the United States as well as Australia, Canada, England, and New Zealand.2

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