Payoffs and Pitfalls of Listening to Children

• Date: 01 October 2003
• Published date: 01 October 2003
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2003.00373.x
• Author: Richard A. Warshak

2003, Vol. 52, No. 4 373

Special Collection

Payoffs and Pitfalls of Listening to Children

Richard A. Warshak*

Children’s perspectives can enlighten decisions regarding custody and parenting plans, but different opinions exist about how best to

involve children in the decision-making process. This article discusses why most procedures for soliciting children’s preferences do

not reliably elicit information on their best interests and do not give children a meaningful voice in decision making. Instead, these

procedures provide children with forums in which to takes sides in their parents’ disputes. In addition to hearing an individual child’s

voice, decision makers can use the collective voice of children, as revealed in research on such topics as joint custody, overnight stays,

and relocation to help understand what children might say about these issues with the hindsight of maturity and in the absence of

parental pressure, loyalty conf‌licts, inhibitions, and limitations in perspective and articulation.

Controversies about the long-term legacy of divorce are

relevant to the families who experience it themselves, as

well as to scholars and researchers. How one construes

the consequences of divorce also has implications both for clin-

ical practice and for policy making. Implications for clinical

work are discussed by Haine et al. (2003) and Ahrons and Tanner

(2003) in this issue of Family Relations. Implications for divorce

policy are discussed from an international perspective in Walker

(2003, this issue). The current article addresses the implications

of divorce research for a specif‌ic divorce policy: how profes-

sionals involve children in decision-making processes. The per-

spective developed here is illustrated through its application to

the issues of joint custody, overnight stays, and relocation.

Throughout history, the voices of children have been con-

spicuously absent from decisions that affected their welfare fol-

lowing their parents’ divorce. Instead, concepts of parental rights

and gender stereotypes determined the postdivorce fate of chil-

dren (Roth, 1976; Warshak, 1992, 1996). Throughout most of

the 20th century, the beliefs (a) that women, by nature, are better

suited to love and care for children, and (b) that children need

mothers more than they need fathers resulted in most children

living with their mothers after divorce and infrequently spending

time with their fathers.

The weakening of gender stereotypes and growing concern

about equal protection under the law led to the adoption of the

best-interests-of-the-child standard in the early 1970s (Scott,

1992). This standard was intended to substitute a broad range of

gender-neutral criteria for the a priori preference for sole mother

custody of young children. The goal of individualized custody

decisions was not immediately realized until the emergence, a

decade later, of a genuine understanding of the impact on chil-

dren of various custody dispositions. Pioneering projects by

Wallerstein and Kelly (1980) in California and Hetherington,

Cox, and Cox (1978, 1982) in Virginia measured various aspects

of psychological functioning and helped show conventional post-

divorce arrangements from the children’s perspective as revealed

in interviews and self-report scales. Research with father-custody

families (e.g., Rosen, 1977; Warshak & Santrock, 1983a, 1983b)

and joint-custody families (e.g., Greif, 1979; Steinman, 1981;

Wolchik, Braver, & Sandler, 1985) gave further voice to chil-

dren’s concerns and preferences in the aftermath of parental di-

vorce.

*Division of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, University ofTexas Southwestern

Medical Center at Dallas. Address correspondence to the author at: 16970 Dallas Parkway,

Suite 202, Dallas, TX 75248 (richard@warshak.com).

Key Words: child custody, divorce, joint custody, visitation, relocation.

(Family Relations, 2003, 52, 373–384)

Judith Wallerstein was an early, passionate, and eloquent

champion of children from divorced families. Her work with

these children led her to conclude that their feelings and pref-

erences should be given serious consideration by the courts.

Writing about relocation, she stated, ‘‘Especially at the time of

a contemplated move, the court should be responsive to the

child’s voice, amplifying it above the din of competing parents.

Only in this way can it ascertain and respect ‘the best interest

of the child’’’ (Wallerstein & Tanke, 1996, p. 323).

Here, two basic rationales for seeking children’s input when

formulating parenting plans for divorced and never-married par-

ents are described. Some of the dangers of listening to children

are described, as well as how these pitfalls can be mitigated by

considering children’s voices as reported in empirical studies of

children’s divorce-related attitudes and as inferred from studies

of long-term outcomes. Last, what these studies reveal about

children’s perspectives on three issues is summarized to show

how this knowledge can inform decisions made on their behalf.

Potential Payoffs of Listening to Children

The plea to hear children’s voices carries almost axiomatic

appeal to career child advocates, but it is not universally ac-

cepted. Many societies would reject as inappropriate the idea of

seeking counsel from children on such important decisions; they

would regard such a proposal as an inversion of the proper re-

lationship between adults and children. A discussion of the po-

tential benef‌its and risks of inviting children’s participationwhen

formulating parenting plans will help clarify how best to listen

to children and what to do with what is heard.

Enlightenment

The call to hear children’s voices was a response to the

growing awareness that decisions made by adults on behalf of

children too often missed the mark and resulted in unnecessary

suffering (Kelly, 1994). In the playrooms of therapists and the

laboratories of researchers, children showed us, through their

words and behavior, that their burden was heavier as a result of

a host of errors promulgated by parents, courts, and society.

Parents avoided and evaded open discussion of the divorce

and their children f‌illed the gap with misinformation, anxiety,

and self-blame (Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980). We learned that chil-

dren needed to construct an understanding of the family transi-

tion and that sensitive explanations geared to their level of cog-

nitive development could help them do this (Garvin, Leber, &

Kalter, 1991).

Courts wrote orders prescribing ‘‘reasonable visitation’’ for

children and fathers. The children helped us see the ill conse-

quences of such ambiguous language (Kelly, 1994). They were