CLICK HERE FOR RESEARCH: Gordon E. Finley (Florida International University) University of Miami)
Abstract Quote:
“Across family forms, the total amount of nurturance or involvement received (from both parents) was positively associated with:
· self -esteem,
· purpose in life,
· life satisfaction,
· friendship quality and satisfaction, and
· academic performance
and negatively related to:
- distress,
- romantic relationship problems, and
- troubled ruminations about parents.”
Quotes:
1. “Divorced families were associated with a greater “divided world” effect than intact families, suggesting that divorce is associated with compromised quality of life in emerging adulthood, as well as with troubled ruminations about one’s father.
2. “All of these findings were consistent across gender and ethnicity – suggesting that custody and access decisions need to be responsive to the feelings and outcomes of children of divorce, regardless of their gender or ethnic background.
3. "However, in divorced families where the father generally is cast into a nonresident role, divorce itself may structurally create the divided world effect. It is therefore essential for family courts to create post-divorce custody arrangements that maximize nurturance and involvement from both parents in order to reduce the “divided world” effect.
4. “Among the psychosocial functioning indices, self-esteem, life satisfaction, and psychological distress appear to be among those most affected both by “total” parenting and by mother-father differences in parenting. These three psychosocial functioning indices, taken together, have been labeled as “subjective well-being” (Sheldon et al., 2004) and are often used to index quality of life in young people. Post-divorce arrangements that marginalize the father from the child’s life and decrease that parent’s nurturance and involvement (cf. Fabricius & Hall, 2000; Finley & Schwartz, 2006; 2007) thus appear to have far-reaching impacts on young people’s quality of life.”
5. “In turn, these effects may be associated with subsequent difficulties in career and in relationships (Côté, 2002). Troubled ruminations about the father, which also appear to result from lowered parental nurturance and involvement and from the “divided world” effect, have also been found to reduce well-being and to increase distress in emerging adults (Schwartz et al).”
Implications for family court practices
5. “The present findings thus suggest that divorce decrees that include joint physical custody may represent one way to reduce the distress associated with the “divided world” and to enhance quality of life for children of divorce (cf. Warshak, 2007).
6. “The present results also suggest that, the more the child’s post-divorce life resembles that of an intact family, the better adjusted children of divorce are likely to be as they enter adulthood.”
