Are We Doing What is Best for the Children? Parenting Arrangements on Children's Outcome

Abstract

In light of the growing research on family diversity, the field of family science has yet another critical topic to explore: the implications of family structures on children’s outcomes. With family policy and laws in many countries providing the option for shared parenting, this research on how children cope in different parenting arrangements comes at a necessary and opportune time. For this special issue, shared parenting is broadly defined as a collaborative arrangement regarding child custody where parental responsibilities for caregiving are shared by parents after divorce or separation occurs. Our first paper examines the co-parenting relationship following divorce with an emphasis on co-parenting support, overt, as well as covert conflict on child outcomes. Parental alienation is discussed in the following two papers – the first examining parental alienation in terms of contact time while the second extends this to an examination of parental alienation as a form of child abuse. The final paper in this set examines how parents make decisions about custody arrangements following divorce through an exchange theory framework.