child under stress

[wg1]

Hello Dr. Could you please respond to this again, I submitted this yesterday and you replied to it.  When I went to show my daughter it was not on your site any more, I don't know what happened to it.

Could you please give us your honest opinion on 50/50 custody of a 5 year old child? Do you think they can adjust well to constant back and forth living?  How does the child know where to call home? Or what address they are to use?  Do you think that one parent having primary custody with liberal visitation is better for the child than 50/50?  Don

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

See previous reply.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

I'm not sure what occurred with your first posting. In any case, I suggested that (in my opinion) 50/50 shared physical custody arrangements are often detrimental to young children because such arrangements, by their very nature, involve too many comings and goings, too many transitions. I believe young children are better served by arrangements that permit them to have a 'principle' home, where they go to bed and wake up in the same bed at least on every school day. I'm sure there are 50/50 arrangements that are working out just fine, but I almost always guide parents and courts away from them. One thing to keep in mind, though, regardless of what the time split is in a shared custody situation: the most salient feature for children whose parents are divorced is the stability of the post-divorce relationship between the parents. Longitudinal studies of families with divorce have illuminated this truth over and over.

[wg1]

Thank you for taking the time to do this for me again.