Preserving the parent-child relationship in separated families!
Joint Physical Care Research
Research by Drs. Judith Wallerstein and Joan Berlin
Kelly revealed that 50% of mothers either saw no
value in the father's contact with his children and
actively tried to sabotage it, or resented the
father's contact (Source: Separated Parenting
Access and Resource Center, 2006).
Almost 40% of the custodial wives reported that they
had refused at least once to let their ex-husbands
see the children, and admitted that their reasons
had nothing to do with the children's wishes or the
children's safety, but were somehow punitive in
nature (Source: Separated Parenting Access and
Resource Center, 2006).
Fulton reported that 53% of non-custodial fathers
claimed their ex-wives had refused to let them see
their children (Source: Separated Parenting
Access and Resource Center, 2006).
It is NEVER in the child's best interest to withhold
visitation or to make it unnecessarily difficult for
the other parent to spend time with the child, just
for the purpose of punishing or getting even with
the other parent. Even if you are not
receiving child support, the child needs to spend
time with the other parent (Source: Separated
Parenting Access and Resource Center, 2006).
Some of the methods used to discourage contact are
forgotten appointments, insistence on rigid
schedules for visits, refusal to permit the visit of
the father brought an adult friend, a thousand
mischievous, mostly petty devices designed to
humiliate the visiting parent and to deprecate him
in the eyes of his children (Source: Separated
Parenting Access and Resource Center, 2006).
Consider this statistic when you are tempted to use
the child to punish the other parent (Source:
Separated Parenting Access and Resource Center,
2006).
The decision to keep the child with the mother is
theoretically made in the best interest of the
child; however, when children were surveyed later in
life, fewer than half felt their mother's motives
had anything to do with their best interests, only a
quarter felt it was because their mother loved them
(Source: Separated Parenting Access and Resource
Center, 2006).