Parental Separation and Overnight Care of Young Children, Part I: Consensus Through Theoretical and Empirical Integration

• Author: Joan B. Kelly,Jennifer E. McIntosh,Marsha Kline Pruett
• Date: 01 April 2014
• Published date: 01 April 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12087

PARENTAL SEPARATION AND OVERNIGHT CARE OF YOUNG

CHILDREN, PART I: CONSENSUS THROUGH THEORETICAL AND

EMPIRICAL INTEGRATION

Marsha Kline Pruett, Jennifer E. McIntosh, and Joan B. Kelly

The AFCC ThinkTank on Research, Policy, Practice, and Shared Parenting wasconvened in response to an identified need for

a progression of thinking in the family law field, removed from the current polarizing debates surrounding the postseparation

care of infants and very young children. Weshare this goal as our research and commentaries have been centrally implicated

in the current controversies. Our collaboration over this empirical paper and its clinical counterpart endorses the need for

higher-order thinking, away from dichotomous arguments, to more inclusive solutions grounded in an integrated psycho-

developmental perspective.We first critically appraise the theoretical and empirical origins of current controversies relevant to

attachment and parental involvement research.We then describe how attachment and parental involvement contribute comple-

mentary perspectives that, taken together, providea sound basis from which to understand the needs of very young children in

separated families. As a companion piece, Part II offersa collective view of a way forward for decision making about overnights

for infants and young children, toward the integration of theoretical and empirical with clinical wisdom.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

• An integrative perspectivesuggests that the goals of attachment and early parental (typically paternal) involvement with

very young children after separation are mutually attainable and mutually reinforcing rather than exclusive choices.

• An optimal goal for the family is a “triadic secure base” developed through a co-parenting environment that supports

the child’s secure attachment with each parent and the recognition by each parent of the other’s importance to the child.

• Cautions against overnightcare during the first three years are not supported. The limited available research substantiates

some caution about higher frequency overnightschedules with young children, particularly when the child’s relationship

with a second parent has not been established and/or parents are in frequent conflict to which the child is exposed.

Keywords: Attachment;Children;Divorce;Infants;Overnights;Parent Involvement;Parenting Plans;and Separation.

Various narrativestrands combine within the f amily law arena to form this decade’s debates about

overnight care for young children of separated parents. These deliberations occur against a backdrop

of increasing legislative support for shared-time parenting following separation. Presumptions are

being proposed in various states, provinces, and countries for both legal (decision making) and

physical (parenting time) care of children, yet the merits of such presumptions remain unclear,

especially for families with very young children. While developmental vulnerability unique to this

stage of life is duly acknowledged by most who offer a view on the topic, the associated solutions

offered when parents separate or live apart vary, sometimes quite markedly.Common to all arguments

is an attempt to protect the infant and young child by ensuring that essential components of early

development are not jeopardized by the postseparation parenting arrangement.

Proposals for the arrangements that could best provide this protection vary along differing theo-

retical and research lines. Two foci often posed in family law as “either-or” propositions are attach-

ment theory, with its focus on continuity of caregiving for the young child and an historic emphasis

on the role of mothers in this, and joint parental involvement, with its focus on the ongoing mutual

parenting roles of both parents following separation, with particular emphasis on father involvement.

Reliance on either attachment theory or joint parental involvement research, as if these two strands of

development are not overlapping and inextricably related, has in our view, fostered polarizations in

legal and academic thinking and practice, impeding thoughtful integration of the existing reliable

knowledge bases.

Correspondence: mpruett@smith.edu; mcintosh@familytransitions.com.au; jbkellyphd@mindspring.com

FAMILY COURT REVIEW,Vol. 52 No. 2, April 2014 240–255

© 2014 Association of Familyand Conciliation Cour ts

The need to achieve a coherent view is pressing, with the certain knowledge that every family law

decision carries significant and potentially enduring consequences for young children and their

parents. In this paper we begin by examining the sources of dichotomous perspectives at the heart of

the current debate. While acknowledging that differences in professional opinion will remain, we

concur that perspectives on parenting plans and judicial orders in separated families that focus

simultaneously on the developing child and his/her significant relationships are not only theoretically

possible but empirically supported. After examining the scant existing research in terms of what it

does and does not tell us about overnight care, we identify points of consensus weshare. We conclude

with a summary that lays the foundation for our companion paper (Part II, this issue). Part II provides

a set of assumptions about the individual and family conditions under which overnightsare most likely

to support the developmental needs of the very young child,and a char t of considerations for weighing

these in the individual case.

EARLY CHILDHOOD DEFINITIONS

Terminology in itself can cause problems,such as, when parties think they are describing the same

events or experiences but in fact are not.The definitions pertaining to early childhood are no exception.

Although researchers in the early child mental health field (National Research Council and Institute of

Medicine, 2000; Zeanah & Zeanah, 2009) recognize the formative years as spanning pre-birth through

to the fifth year,a “0–3 years” definition is commonly used to connote the years of greatest vulnerability

(see www.Zerotothree.org) in family law and mental health literature. Included in this definition is

infancy, commonly referred to as the pre-verbal stage, which ends around the first year with the

emergence of talking and locomotion. In line with the available research specific to separated parents

and overnightcare, we refer to early childhood as the period from birth to and including the year of being

three (0–48 months). Given the significant and normative diversityof psycho-emotional and cognitive

accomplishment among three year olds, ambiguity surrounds this age cutoff for overnights.At issue is

whether the age of three is substantively different enough from 1–2 yearsold, regarding psychosocial

and emotional development, to be included in the definition of “young child” and all it represents when

making decisions about overnights, or whether it constitutes a significantly less vulnerableage. In this

paper we adopt the view that the year between3 and 4 belongs in this 0 to 3 period, while recognizing

normative and significant variation in the age at which children manifest a range of vulnerabilities and

consolidate new skills. We include the year of being three in our “young child” distinction as it affords

the protective function some children of this age need.

Within the vast spectrum of developmental achievement from infancy through preschool, three

broad eras within these years are generally evident and differentiated in our formulation: the first

eighteen months of life, the second eighteen months of life (18–36 months), and the year of being

three. As each era presents different challenges and possibilities for parents living apart, we occa-

sionally make these distinctions within this paper, and when combining the eras, use the collective

term “early childhood”.

Synonymous with healthy social and emotional development, “infant mental health” refers to the

young child’s capacity to experience, begin to regulate and express emotions, form close and trusting

relationships, explore the environment and learn (Greenough, Emde, Gunnar, Massinga,& Shonkoff,

2001; Zeanah, 2009). Given the sheer dependence of infants and young children on their caregivers,

mental health in early childhood is best understood in a relational frame. There is general agreement

about factors important in explaining both health and dysfunction in early psychosocial and emotional

development. Chief among these stressors that affect development are poverty, neglect and abuse,

heritable predispositions—including cognitive capacity and temperament, and the interactions of each

of these with the early caregiving environment. Multiple factors determine the overall caregiving

environment, chiefly parent mental health and associated parenting capacity (Clarke-Stewart, Vandell,

McCartney, et al., 2000; Cummings, Keller,& Davies, 2005; Kaufman, Plotsky, Nemeroff & Charney,

2000; Keitner & Miller, 1990; Meadows, McLanahan, & Brooks-Gunn, 2007), parental reflective

Pruett, McIntosh, and Kelly/PARENTAL SEPARATIONAND OVERNIGHT CARE OF YOUNGCHILDREN, PART I 241