Parents in child custody disputes: Why are they disputing?

Bergman, Ann‐Sofie; Rejmer, Annika

doi:10.1080/15379418.2017.1365320

Cited by 30 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Sources of conflict between ex‐spouses vary across studies but generally concern children (e.g., access to, time with, discipline, and parenting practices) and money (e.g., child support), and often center on the ways that parents feel entitled to their children, and their place in children's lives, in terms of time and location (Bergman & Rejmer, 2017; Bonach, 2005; Kotila & Schoppe‐Sullivan, 2015). Meta‐analyses have documented few differences in the level of conflict between coparents as a function of custody type (Bauserman, 2012; Leclair et al, 2019)—although Leclair et al (2019) observed that more recent studies (which tend to define joint physical custody as involving equal time sharing, as opposed to 70%–30% time sharing; see also Steinbach, 2019) suggest more conflict under joint than sole physical custody, perhaps reflecting greater interaction between parents than in earlier studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divorced and separated parents during the COVID‐19 pandemic

2021

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The COVID‐19 pandemic has caused significant stress for individuals, couples, and families. Divorced and separated couples with children face unique stresses amid the pandemic. This mixed‐methods study explored these challenges among 296 divorced and separated parents: namely 204 women formerly partnered with men, 34 men formerly partnered with women, and 58 women formerly partnered with women, who were surveyed during Summer/Fall of 2020. Participants described legal, financial, and coparenting challenges. Those who were not yet divorced described difficulties filing for or finalizing their divorce because of court closures and lack of responsiveness from legal professionals. Those who were already divorced also faced legal challenges, such as being unable to obtain a court date to modify custody arrangements. Financial challenges included renegotiating financial support obligations in the context of job loss. Salient coparenting conflicts, explored through closed‐ and open‐ended questions, included communication issues, different views on virus risk mitigation behaviors, financial issues (especially for those not yet divorced), and transitioning between households and handling remote schooling (especially for those with shared physical custody). Participants elaborated on COVID‐19‐specific challenges, revealing that (a) lack of communication or agreement regarding shared strategies for risk mitigation reflected and exacerbated challenging dynamics between coparents, (b) remote schooling was often the site of disagreement when one parent felt that they were doing more than their fair share of coordination and oversight, and (c) different perspectives on science were expected to lead to future contention when making a joint decision about whether to vaccinate children. Findings have implications for family and legal professionals working with divorced, divorcing, and separated parents.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divorced and separated parents during the COVID‐19 pandemic

2021

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“…In Norway, between 30 and 40 percent of all children presently experience family break-up or have never lived together with both parents (Statistics Norway, 2020). Beginning in the 1990s, the number of disputes about child-related issues that ended up in court rose considerably in Norway (Koch 2008;Vimblemo, Tobra, Knutsen, Olsen, Gleinsvik & Bush 2016), as it did in many other Western countries (Bergman & Rejmer, 2017;Parkinson, 2011). For separating and divorcing families, a standard estimate is that between ten and 15 percent will end up in a pattern of entrenched conflict between parents (Haddad, Philips & Bone 2016;Helland & Borren, 2015;Hetherington, 2002;Mahrer et al 2018;Wiik, Kitterød, Lyngstad & Lidén 2015).…”

Section: Separation and Divorce In The Norwegian Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Whose Life is it Anyway? Exploring the Social Relations of High-Conflict Divorce Cases in Southern Norway

Bertelsen

2021

Contemp Fam Ther

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The paper reports on findings from an empirical study based on qualitative interviews with Norwegian parents identified as part of a high-conflict divorce situation and interviews with caseworkers from a child welfare service. The site of study is an institutional circuit of concern, assessment, and referral involving the court, child welfare services, and a public family therapy service. The paper draws on the social ontology and analytic concepts of institutional ethnography and adopts parents’ standpoint to explore how their knowledge and experience are shaped through encounters with professionals in the process of being identified and assessed as a high-conflict divorce case. The focus on people’s doings and their expert knowledge about their doings sets institutional ethnographic research apart from more conventional forms of qualitative inquiry that focus on informants’ inner experience. The paper highlights how a generalized professional discourse seems to permeate the work that parents and caseworkers jointly engage in, sometimes subsuming the knowledge and experience of those involved. When the issues of life as subjectively known and experienced are different from those of the institutional discourse, there is a danger that what is important to those whose lives they concern escapes the dialogue between parents and professionals.

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“…Idag utövar nio av tio föräldrar gemensam vårdnad oberoende av om de lever tillsammans eller inte (SCB statistikdatabas 2019). Resterande hälft av vårdnadsmålen är så kallade high-conflictmål som drivs aktivt av en eller båda föräldrarna, vilka är särskilt utmanande att handlägga för domstol och socialtjänst (Bergman och Rejmer 2017a). Antalet high-conflictmål behöver alltså inte ha ökat nämnvärt sedan barnkonventionen ratificerades.…”

Section: Inledningunclassified

Barnkonventionens implementering i svensk lagstiftning och praktik – barns bästa och barns rätt att uttrycka sina åsikter vid vårdnadstvister

Rejmer

Bergman

2019

Barn

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Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Swedish legislationand practice – children’s best interests and children’s rights to express their viewsin custody disputes: The article examines the implementation of articles 3 and 12 of the UN Convention on the Rightsof the Child (CRC) in the parental code regulations on custody, residence and access and how theyare applied in practice. The best interests of the child are, according to the regulations of the parentalcode, the superior principle in handling custody disputes, which includes an examination ofthe risk of abuse, the child’s need for close and good contact with both parents and the child’s will.The results of conducted empirical studies show that articles 3 and 12 of the CRC have not beenimplemented in the parental code. Children lack an independent right to express their opinionin the handling of custody disputes. The article is based on empirical data from sources of law,custody cases, and interviews with parents in dispute.

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Parents in child custody disputes: Why are they disputing?

Cited by 30 publications

References 7 publications

Divorced and separated parents during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Divorced and separated parents during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Whose Life is it Anyway? Exploring the Social Relations of High-Conflict Divorce Cases in Southern Norway

Barnkonventionens implementering i svensk lagstiftning och praktik – barns bästa och barns rätt att uttrycka sina åsikter vid vårdnadstvister

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