Jennifer McIntosh

Enduring Conflict in Parental Separation: Pathways of Impact on Child Development

There are established research truths about parental conflict and its impact on children which are increasingly respected in practice: divorce does not have to be harmful; parental conflict is a more potent predictor of child adjustment than is divorce; conflict resolution is important to children’s coping with divorce. This synopsis of recent research moves beyond these truths, to a review of emerging “news” from the literature, with a focus on known impacts of entrenched parental conflict on children’s development and capacity to adjust to separation. The findings are illustrated by the case of two siblings, Jack and Rachel1, seen in short-term therapy by the author, in the period following their parents’ highly conflictive separation. From a practitioner’s chair, the news is more than noteworthy. It provides compelling arguments for a move beyond truisms about parental conflict and children’s adjustment, beyond wishful myths of resilience, to look at the process of impact on development, within the context of parental dispute and family restructure. 1. Jack and Rachael are pseudonyms

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

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.

Children Living With Domestic Violence: Research Foundations For Early Intervention

The impact of violence between parents or caregivers on a child’s inner world is complex. Over recent years, researchers have gained vital knowledge about the workings of trauma in children induced by family violence. Of particular power has been definitive evidence about the potential for interspousal trauma to disrupt neurological and biochemical pathways in the developing child. From their respective vantage points, clinicians and researchers name the imperative for the early identification of children traumatised by domestic violence, in the service of preventing acute trauma symptoms from becoming embedded in development, at all levels of the child’s functioning. This paper reviews recent evidence about the developmental impact on children of living in violent homes, with the aim of establishing a research-based rationale for early intervention.

Child-Responsive Practices in Australian Family Law: Past Problems and Future Directions⋆

This paper considers key systemic issues that have to date constrained the hearing of children’s voices in both litigation and mediation processes in Australian family law. It is proposed that the time is now right for child-focused and child-inclusive approaches, described in this and previous publications, to become the default position in mediated disputes over children following separation. The application of child-inclusive practice to non-adversarial forms of litigation is also considered.

Child-focused and Child-inclusive Mediation: A Comparative Study of Outcomes

Children have largely been absent from or on the periphery of mediation processes in postseparation parenting disputes. An accompanying paper (Moloney & McIntosh, 2004) canvasses a number of reasons why this may be the case. Moloney and McIntosh draw a distinction between child-focused and child-inclusive practice, provide a definition of both, and argue that the time is now right for child-focused mediation to become the minimum yardstick by which practice is measured. Child-inclusive practice, on the other hand, more formally fulfils the aspirations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (and statements from similar bodies) that children should be consulted when decisions about their welfare are being made. Further, child-inclusive practice (as defined in Moloney & McIntosh) allows for consultation without placing the burden of decision making on the child. The present paper describes a current prospective study of outcomes for families utilising these two different forms of mediation: child focused and child inclusive. Over 12 months, the study follows the pathways of individual adjustment and parental alliance for families across the two forms of intervention, addressing whether and in what cases a childinclusive mediation process enhances postseparation family outcomes.

Group interventions for separated parents in entrenched conflict: an exploration of evidence-based frameworks

This paper explores the nature of enduring postseparation conflict between parents; it looks to a growing body of research around group interventions designed to help parents move on from entrenched dispute, toward a more constructive coparenting relationship, in the interests of their children. Interventions range from traditional education approaches to therapeutic and treatment oriented models. Evidence regarding the impact of specific interventions is reviewed, and while encouraging, the need for more flexible, differentiated models emerges. Simultaneously, attention is drawn to the need for increased research activity in this burgeoning area of dispute resolution.

Child focused and child inclusive family law dispute resolution : one year findings from a prospective study of outcomes

Abstract This prospective study compared outcomes over one year for two groups of separated parents who attended mediation about their entrenched parenting disputes. The two treatments studied both aimed to improve the psychological resolution of parental conflict with associated reduction of distress for their children. The child-focused intervention prioritised the needs of children in high conflict divorce without any direct involvement of the children, while the child-inclusive intervention incorporated separate consultation by a specialist with the children in each family and consideration of the children’s concerns with the parents in the mediation forum. Measures were collected from parents and children before mediation commenced and again three and twelve months after the mediation concluded. Significant and enduring reduction in levels of conflict and improved management of disputes occurred for both treatment groups in the year after mediation. Across all ages, children in both interventions perceived less frequent and less intense conflict between their parents and better resolution of conflict, with a significant lowering of the children’s related distress. The child-inclusive intervention showed a number of independent effects not evident in the other treatment group, related to relationship improvements and psychological wellbeing. These effects were strongest for fathers and children. Agreements reached by the childinclusive group were significantly more durable and workable over the year, and these parents were half as likely to instigate new litigation over parenting matters in the year after mediation than were the child-focused parents. The article considers possible mechanisms of change underpinning these outcomes.

Overnight care patterns following parental separation: Associations with emotion regulation in infants and young children

Abstract Children living in a shared-time parenting arrangement following separation (also known as joint physical custody or dual residence) spend equal or near-equal amounts of day and night time with each parent. Little data exist regarding developmental sequelae of such arrangements for infants. The current study examined a theoretically driven question: Are there associations between quantum of overnight stays away from a primary resident parent and the infant’s settledness, or emotion regulation with that parent? Nationally representative parent report data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) were used Three age bands were studied and three level of overnight care contrasted. When parenting style, parental conflict and socio-economic factors were controlled for, greater number of shared overnight stays for the 0–1 year old and the 2–3 year old groups predicted some less settled and poorly regulated behaviours, but none for the 4–5 year old group. Limits of these data are discussed, including application to the individual case. Findings suggest emotional regulation within the primary infant-parent relationship is one useful index of infant adjustment to parenting time arrangements.

Current findings on Australian children in postseparation disputes : outer conflict, inner discord

This paper sets out descriptive baseline data on the first 111 Australian families participating in a current study of the efficacy of child-focused and child-inclusive Family Law Mediation. The families come from the first of two treatment groups in that comparative study. While outcome data are not yet available on this group, the baseline data, gathered prior to intervention, are of interest and value. The paper describes the nature of parents’ conflict with each other, the strength of their parental alliance, and the psychological functioning of their children at the time of presentation to the mediation service. High mental health risk for the children in these families is evident, both from parents’ and children’s perspectives. Uniquely, the paper includes the perceptions of 73 children about their parents’ conflict and its impact on them. Implications are discussed, underscoring the imperative of early intervention with separating families that includes screening of the children’s experience of conflict and their own needs for recovery.

Assessing Attachment Needs and Potential in High-risk Infants

This paper outlines a clinical response to these pressures through the development of rigorous, evidence-based approaches to the early assessment of the young child in out-of-home care, with a primary focus on the potential of a caregiver to parent that child in line with his or her developmental needs. The approach described aims for “depth” understanding of the traumatised attachment relationship, its historical underpinnings, and its psychological trajectories for parent and child. Above all, it aims to clearly delineate, from an evidence base, the capacity of the relationship to recover, within a time frame that is developmentally appropriate for the child.