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The Relationship Between Correlates of Children's Adjustment and Both Family Law and Policy in England Liz Trinder Louisiana Law Review Volume 65 | Number 4 Divorce and Child Custody Symposium Summer 2005 Measuring Up? The Relationship Between Correlates of Children's Adjustment and Both Family Law and Policy in England Liz Trinder Michael E. Lamb Repository Citation Liz Trinder and Michael E. Lamb, Measuring Up? The Relationship Between Correlates of Children's Adjustment and Both Family Law and Policy in England, 65 La. L. Rev. (2005) Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/lalrev/vol65/iss4/9 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at LSU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Louisiana Law Review by an authorized editor of LSU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Measuring Up? The Relationship Between Correlates of Children's Adjustment and Both Family Law and Policy in England Liz Trinder* Michael E. Lamb** Over the last two decades, an impressive, albeit incomplete, body of evidence has been built identifying the factors associated with children's adjustment following parental separation. At the same time, English family law and policy have changed and developed considerably for a variety of reasons. In this paper, we explore the linkages between these two developments. We consider, first, the body of evidence documenting the factors associated with adjustment and maladjustment on the part of children whose parents have separated or divorced, and second, the extent to which changing laws and policies in the United Kingdom have been guided by this literature and have helped achieve the desired outcomes for children. Our assessment is mixed. In broad terms, developmental research has helped to drive law and policy, although other factors, including costs, ideology, and pressure groups, have also been influential. The impact of legal and policy developments on outcomes for children is harder to detect. The extent and frequency of contact between children and their non-residential parents appears to have risen over the last decade, although this probably reflects cultural as much as legal change. Perhaps the greatest success is attributable to the policy of non- intervention emphasized in the Children Act 1989, which has permitted the majority of parents to make contact arrangements without court intervention. Nevertheless, support services to assist children and parents remain underdeveloped and there continue to be significant problems in managing the small minority of cases that do go to court. I. WHAT CHILDREN NEED: A SELECTIVE SYNOPSIS Systematic research on early social development has flourished in the last twenty-five years, and has helped generate a much better understanding of both the normative developmental processes that define the first year of life and the roles played by parents.' The Copyright 2005, by LOUISIANA LAW REVIEW. * Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Work and Psychosocial Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. ** Professor of Psychology in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Cambridge University, UK. 1. See M.E. Lamb, M. H. Bornstein, & D. M. Teti, Development inInfancy (4th ed. 2002); M. E. Lamb & C. Lewis, The Role ofParent-ChildRelationshipsin 1510 0LOUISIANA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 65 formation of attachments to parents depends on reciprocal interactive processes that foster the ability to differentiate parents from others. Infant-parent relationships or attachments are consolidated by the middle of the first year of life and are characterized by the onset of separation anxiety and separation protest.2 Even adequate levels of responsive parenting foster the formation of infant-parent attachments, although some of these relationships may be insecure. Contrary to Bowlby's initial speculation and widespread "common sense," most infants form meaningful attachments to both of their parents at roughly the same age (six to seven months),' even though most fathers in our culture spend less time with their infants than do mothers.4 This indicates that the amount of time spent together is not the only factor affecting the development of attachments. Although some threshold level of interaction may be necessary, even brief opportunities for regular interaction appear sufficient. Most infants come to "prefer" the parents who take primary responsibility for their care (typically their mothers), but this does not mean that relationships with their less-involved parents are unimportant. Although there is no evidence that the amount of time infants spend with their two parents affects the security of either attachment relationship, it does affect the relative formative importance of the two relationships. Nonetheless, both relationships remain psychologically important despite disparities in the two parents' levels of participation in child care. The quality of both maternal and paternal behavior is reliably associated with the security of infant-parent attachment.5 The association between the quality of paternal behavior and the quality of infant-father attachment appears to be weaker than the parallel association between maternal behavior and the security of infant- mother attachment. However, the quality of both mother- and father- child interaction remains the most reliable correlates of individual differences in psychological, social, and cognitive adjustment in Child Development, in Developmental Science: An Advanced Textbook 429-68 (M. H. Bomstein & M. E. Lamb eds., 2005). 2. M. D. S. Ainsworth, Object Relations, Dependency and Attachment: A Theoretical Review of the Infant-Mother Relationship, in 40 Child Development 969-1025 (1969); J. Bowlby, Attachment, in 1 Attachment and Loss (1969). 3. M. E. Lamb, The Development of Infant-FatherAttachments, in The Role of the Father in Child Development (M. E. Lamb ed., 3d ed. 1997). 4. J. H. Pleck & B. P. Masciadrelli, PaternalInvolvement by U.S. Residential Fathers:Levels, Sources, and Consequences, in The Role of the Father in Child Development 222-71 (M. E. Lamb ed., 4th ed. 2004). 5. M.S. DeWolff & M. H. van IJzendoorn, Sensitivity and Attachment: A Meta-Analysis on Parental Antecedents of Infant Attachment, in 68 Child Development 571-91 (1997). 2005] LIZ TRINDER & MICHAEL E. LAMB 1511 infancy, as well as in later childhood.6 Not surprisingly, therefore, children appear better adjusted when they enjoy warm positive relationships with two actively involved parents.7 Infants and toddlers in particular, and children more generally, need regular interaction with their "attachment figures" if their relationships are to persist and flourish.' Extended separations from either parent are undesirable because they unduly stress developing attachment relationships.9 In addition, young children need to interact with both parents in a variety of contexts (feeding, playing, diapering, soothing, putting to bed, etc.) to ensure that the relationships are consolidated and strengthened. In the absence of such opportunities for regular interaction across a broad range of contexts, infant-parent relationships fail to develop and may instead weaken. For the same reason, it is extremely difficult to reestablish relationships between infants or young children and their parents when these relationships have been disrupted. Instead, it is considerably better to avoid such disruptions in the first place. Common sense and scientific research thus tell us that both the dissolution of the parents' relationship and the attenuation or loss of a relationship with a parent are likely to have psychological costs. Additionally, there is substantial evidence that children in both the United States and the United Kingdom are better off psychologically0 and developmentally in two- rather than single-parent families. O 6. Lamb & Lewis, supra note 1, at 429-68; R.A. Thompson, Early SociopersonalityDevelopment, in 3 Handbook of Child Psychology 25-104 (W. Damon & N. Eisenberg, eds., 5th ed. 1998). 7. P. R. Amato & J. G. Gilbreth, NonresidentFathers and Children's Well- Being: A Meta-Analysis, in 61 Journal of Marriage & the Family 557-73 (1999); E. M. Hetherington & M. M. Stanley-Hagan, The Adjustment of Children with Divorced Parents: A Risk and Resiliency Perspective, in 40 Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines 129-40 (1999); M. E. Lamb, Non-CustodialFathers and their Impact on the Children of Divorce, in The Post- Divorce Family: Research and Policy Issues 105-25 (R. A. Thompson & P.R. Amato ed., 1999); M. E. Lamb, Noncustodial Fathers and their Children, in Handbook of Father Involvement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives 169-84 (C. S. Tamis-LeMonda & N. Cabrera eds., 2002); R. A. Thompson & D. J. Laible, Noncustodial Parents, in Parenting and Child Development in "Nontraditional" Families 103-123 (M.E. Lamb ed., 1999). 8. M. E. Lamb, Infant-Father Attachments and their Impact on Child Development, in Handbook of Father Involvement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives 93-117 (C. S. Tamis-LeMonda & N. Cabrera eds., 2002); Lamb, Bornstein, & Teti, supra note 1. 9. J. Bowlby, Separation: Anxiety and Anger, in 2 Attachment and Loss (1973). 10. P.R. Amato, The Consequences of Divorcefor Adults and Children, in 62 Journal of Marriage and the Family 1269-87 (2000); E. M. Hetherington & M. M. Stanley-Hagan, The Effects ofDivorce on Fathers and their Children, in The Role of the Father in Child Development 191-211(M.E. Lamb ed., 3d ed. 1997); 1512 2LOUISIANA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 65 Researchers agree that, on average, children growing up in fatherless families
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