Cautionary notes on the shared care of children in conflicted parental separation

By J. McIntosh, R. Chisholm. 2008

92 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract The Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act 2006 has brought into sharp focus the issue of shared physical care of children, post separation. In this paper, we explore new data suggesting accumulative risks for children whose care is divided between parents who lack the core relational infrastructure to support a healthy environment for shared care. Developmental background is provided, giving context to the complex dynamics at play, particularly for young children who experience divided care in a hostile climate. A discussion of the amendments shows that, rather than endorsing an assumption of shared care, the legislation supports and indeed requires professionals to engage in active consideration of the child’s ‘best interests’ in each case. The paper outlines a tighter 'safety net’ of considerations through which the ‘best interests’ question might be filtered. Implications for supporting separated parents to develop and maintain adequate foundations for shared care are discussed.

Subfields: Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health, Reproductive Medicine, Safety Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d772999e2cd6bbd7ab1790a7492dd1dd1f7752d1

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In Safety Research

1. E. Hesse
2. M. Main

Citations in the corpus

• ATTACHMENT THEORY AND RESEARCH: OVERVIEW WITH SUGGESTED APPLICATIONS TO CHILD CUSTODY (2011, background): “Mary Main, Erik Hesse, and Siegfried Hesse* The term “attachment” is now in common usage and, as the readers of this Special Issue are aware, is referenced in a rapidly increasing variety of contexts involving child custody (McIntosh & Chisholm, 2008).”