Henvendelse af 27/5-22 fra Jan Bækgaard Nielsen, Farum

Folketinget
Social og Ældreudvalget
27. maj 2022
Ministeren har 25. maj 2022 svaret (doknr. 575192) på henvendelse af 20. maj 2022 (B 143 - bilag 5).
Af ministerens svar fremgår at ministeren ikke anser, at der er grundlag for at iværksætte en nærmere
belysning af samværsordninger når et barn pludseligt oplever at blive fraholdt mulighed for samvær med
den ene forælder, eksempelvis i forbindelse med et samlivsbrud eller et pludseligt initiativ trods
eksempelvis 7/7 samværsordning med fuldbyrdelsesklausul.
I ministerens svar refereres der til et citat fra en VIVE rapport, hvor der står:
”Analyseresultatet giver imidlertid ikke anledning til at drage konklusioner om, at
indretningen af samværet er underordnet. Analysen viser netop, at en god relation til moren
og faren hver især bidrager positivt til barnets trivsel. At udvikle relationer indebærer
selvsagt, at man har mulighed for at tilbringe tid sammen.”
Ministeren synes at tillægge sætningen ” Når vi tillige kontrollerer for betydningen af relationelle faktorer,
særligt om forældrerelationen er konfliktfyldt, opløses den statistiske sammenhæng mellem
samværsarrangementet og børnetrivsel” særlig vægt.
Det er problematisk.
Der er både før og efterfølgende VIVE rapportens tilblivelse, publiceret longitudinelle peer reviewed
studier, der underbygger at samvær i langt højere grad udgør en beskyttelsesfaktor for barnet, hvis effekt
mere end kompenserer for samtidig tilstedeværelse af en lang række risikofaktorer herunder ”højkonflikt”
og ”samarbejdsproblemer”.
I modsætning til VIVE rapporten har alle disse studier været udsat for en uvildig gennemgang af fagfæller i
form af et såkaldt peer review og derfor været publiceret i relevante anerkendte internationale journaler,
hvilket er et udtryk for at data, metode, diskussioner og konklusioner er repræsentative, lødige og fagligt
up-to-date.
Ligeledes er der ikke et forskningsmæssigt belæg for at fremhæve ”højkonflikt” og ”samarbejdsproblemer”
som værende særligt vægtige risikofaktorer, mens der for ”samvær” netop er et forskningsmæssigt belæg
for at vægte denne beskyttelsesfaktor i langt højere grad end det i dag er tilfældet.
Derfor synes det at være relevant at underbygge, hvorfor der er grundlag for at iværksætte en nærmere
belysning af udgangspunkt for indretning af samværsordninger. I det følgende anvendes nyere forskning
der er nuanceret, fagligt up-to-date og hvis resultater også er overførbare til danske forhold.
Beklager hvis læsemængden synes stor. Det er dog intet at sammenligne med konsekvenserne for de
børn, der oplever at miste kontakt med den ene forælder eller ende ud i skæve samværsordninger, med
en stærkt forøget risiko for at miste kontakten som følge af en uhensigtsmæssig systemisk praksis.
Offentligt
B 143 - Bilag 7
Social- og Ældreudvalget 2021-22
Spørgsmål til ministeren
- Anerkender ministeren præmissen at ny applicerbar relevant peer reviewed forskning altid bør
inddrages af det familieretslige system, når den for barnet mest hensigtsmæssige indretning af
samværsordninger skal defineres og udmøntes i relevant lovgivning og tilhørende vejledninger,
samt reflekteres i ansvarlige styrelsers praksis? Hvis ikke, hvorfor?
- Anerkender ministeren at VIVE og SFI’s rapporter på området ikke har været udsat for uvildig
fagfællebedømmelse eller gennemgået peer review (bilag 1)?
- Anerkender ministeren at man i Danmark ikke har udført effektforskning, dvs. longitudinelle studier
der belyser de langsigtede konsekvenser for børnene af den førte politik på det familieretslige
område, på samme vis som der heller ikke på anbringelsesområde er evidens for at konkludere, at
den førte politik reelt er til barnets bedste? Hvis ikke, hvorfor?
- Anerkender ministeren at den førte politik på det familieretslige område, skal sikre at den
kortsigtede ”fordel” ikke må indebære tilførsel af problemstillinger på den lange bane, der samlet
set indebærer at signifikant forøget risiko for at barnet som ung og voksen oplever en væsentligt
forringet livskvalitet sammenholdt med relevante kontrolgrupper? Hvis ikke, hvorfor?
- Mener ministeren at det er acceptabelt at operere med nuværende ”faste rammer for
minimumssamvær”, som også er udgangspunktet når Familieretshuset foretager vejledning, når
risiko for at barnet over tid mister kontakt til en ikke uegnet forælder er oppe på 50%?
Baggrund for spørgsmål:
Den af ministeren omtalte VIVE rapport henviser blandt andet til kildemateriale fra professor Dr. Linda
Nielsen, men desværre uden at forholde sig til at der er tale om et metastudie, der inddrager 60
internationale peer reviewed studier fra 15 OECD lande (herunder Sverige), hvis hovedpunkter er:
1. Forskningens konklusioner gælder for børn i alle aldre.
2. Uanset forældrenes indbyrdes konfliktniveau og samarbejdsevne konkluderer
forskningen klart at den ligeværdige deleordning er bedst for barnets udvikling.
3. Bedre kognitiv udvikling giver et bedre uddannelsesgrundlag
4. Bedre følelsesmæssig og psykologisk trivsel (angst, depression, selvværd,
livstilfredshed)
5. Færre adfærdsproblemer (mindre kriminalitet, destruktiv adfærd, i skolen, mobning;
stoffer alkohol, rygning)
6. Bedre fysisk helbred og færre stres relaterede sygdomme
7. Bedre relation til begge forældre, stedforældre og bedsteforældre
8. Konfliktniveauet stiger, når en forælder marginaliseres
9. Børn med deleordninger trives bedre uafhængigt af forældrenes socioøkonomiske
status
10. Ved en ligeværdig deleordning bevares barnets ligeværdige relation til begge
forældre som før skilsmissen
11. Myten om en primær forælder og en fast base i relation til ”flyttespørgsmålet” er
ikke relevant fordi ”weekend- og delebørn” flytter lige ofte mellem forældrene. Og
børnene oplever en normal hverdagsuge med begge forældre.
12. Børn med deleordningen mister sjældent den vigtige relation til deres
bedsteforældre.
Den nyere forskning underkender fuldstændig den praksis man anvender i det danske familieretssystem,
hvor konflikt eller samarbejdsargumentet i sig selv kan medføre at barnet mister kontakt til en forælder.
Professor Dr. Nielsen udtaler blandt andet at man reelt påfører barnet et dobbelt traume, ved at barnet
ikke alene påføres et traume ved forældrenes konflikt, men påføres et endnu større traume ved tab af
kontakt til en forælder.
Barnet er, uanset alder, sikret en mere stabil udvikling og trivsel ved bevarelse af kontakten til begge
forældre uanset konfliktniveau og samarbejdsproblemer. Samvær med særligt uegnede forældre er
undtaget.
Efterfølgende er der publiceret andre peer reviewed studier, der dels bekræfter professor Dr. Nielsens
sammenfattende metastudie, dels tilfører nye indsigter og behovet for og værdien for barnet af ligeværdig
adgang til begge forældre – på kort og langt sigte.
Samvær er for barnet en afgørende beskyttelsesfaktor ved "højkonfliktsager"
Ny peer-reviewed forskning ved professor William Fabricius et al. dokumenterer af ligeligt fordelt
samværstid udgør en beskyttelsesfaktor, der også på lang sigt mere end kompenserer for risikofaktorerne
"forældrekonflikt" og ”samarbejdsproblemer” som eksempelvis falske anklager i en sag kan være udtryk
for.
Studiet dokumenter at desto mere intensiv forældrekonflikten forekommer, desto vigtigere er det at
barnets samværstid deles ligeligt, hvilket indebærer at "højkonflikt" / samarbejdsproblemer = 50/50
ordning – uanset om der er tale om reel konflikt eller konflikten er ensidigt båret (chikane).
• Forholdet gælder også selvom forældresamarbejdet efter en sags afslutning synes konfliktfyldt eller
at samværsordningens udformning var truffet ved det familieretslige systems mellemkomst med
deraf afledt modstand.
• Studiet viser at øget samværstid med den ene forældre hen imod ligelig fordeling, ikke påvirker
barnets relation til den anden forælder negativt.
• Studiets udfald ændres ikke selvom at den forælder, der gives mere samværstid, ville kunne
betegnes som at have ”en dårlig forældrestil”.
• Studiets konklusioner var uforandrede, selvom barnet har været vidne til fysisk vold i hjemmet,
hvor voldsudøvelsen i øvrigt rent kønsmæssigt akkumuleret set var ligeligt fordelt.
Ved fravær af forældrekonflikt og tilstedeværelse af et konstruktivt samarbejde med barnet i fokus, ses
samme positive langtidseffekt også i mere skæve samværsordninger (5/9 og 4/10), hvilket er i
overensstemmelse med hvad man i mange andre peer reviewed studier har fundet.
Det longitudinelle studie tog udgangspunkt i et repræsentativt udsnit af samværsordninger samt state-of-
the-art statistiske analysemodeller, hvorved det var muligt at inddrage kritikpunkter andre studier havde
været udsat for, eller af tidligere studier påpegede usikkerheder med behov for yderligere belysning. Som
en væsentlig bisætning skal det bemærkes at mange danske analyser/rapporter på området ikke synes at
have været udsat for et såkaldt peer review, og dermed risikerer at fremstå som uanfægtede synspunkter,
desværre
Se bilag 8
Adskillelse mellem barn og forælder medfører langvarige neurologiske skader ligesom direkte
sagsinddragelse af det familieretslige system påfører barnet skade grundet emotionelt stress.
Neurologisk er det ligeledes undersøgt og dokumenteret, hvorledes et barns hjernes udvikling påvirkes
negativt af adskillelse fra forældre. Desto længere adskillelsen står på desto kraftigere og længerevarende
påvirkning af barnets evne til at knytte trygge bånd til andre, hvilket er en fundamental forudsætning for at
kunne udvikle sit læringspotentiale og indgå i stabile følelsesmæssigt givende relationer. Effekterne af
følelsesmæssigt misbrug og omsorgssvigt er virkelig, virkelig dyb, og svarer fuldstændig til fysisk misbrug
(vold) eller seksuelt misbrug med hensyn til hjerneeffekter.
I rapport fra 2016 belyste professor Vittorio Carlo Vezzetti samværsordninger ud fra et
folkesundhedsmæssigt perspektiv, hvor konsekvenser af adskillelse sammenkædes med eksempelvis
forhøjet blodtryk, kroniske forøgelse af kortisol hvilket forbindes med adskillige sygdomme i voksenalderen
og alderdom som psykopatologi (f.eks. depression), diabetes II, fedme og osteoporose. I rapportens
opsummering lyder det:
“Finally, the consequences of loss of contact between one of the parents and the child /
children will result in a heavy burden for future worldwide generations.”
Hjerneforskning dokumenterer at adskillelse mellem barn og forældre medfører langvarige neurologiske
skader, afhængig af barnet alder, adskillelsens karakter og omstændigheder, ligesom et barns hjerne kan
påvirkes negativt verbalt, såvel som af overgreb og misrøgt – skaderne på hjernen er identiske uanset
årsag.
Så når man i Danmark inddrager og placerer børn centralt i samværssager, hvor de i en ung alder udsættes
for et psykologisk pres (vedvarende emotionelt stress), som følge af en eller begge forældres stærke
interesse eller egne behov kombineret med lange undersøgelsesforløb, da forstærker det familieretslige
system en risikofaktor, som barnet hverken er udviklet til at forstå eller navigere i – det prøver givetvis efter
bedste evne, alt efter alder, at imødekomme de forventninger og krav det udsættes for, alt imens det
pådrager sig skade i forsøget. Amygdala er særligt udsat herfor.
Amygdala (på dansk mandelkernen) er et lille område i hjernens tindingelap, som blandt
andet håndterer frygt og forsvarsreaktioner. Den er en del af det limbiske system og har
forbindelser til hypofysen, binyrerne, lugtesansen og til indtagelse af føde og væske.
Amygdala kan udløse forskellige viscerale og autonome reaktioner.
Når Amylgdala udsættes for vedvarende stress kan det føre til:
▪ Vedvarende neuronal hypertrofi og symptomer på angst
▪ Irreversibel skade
▪ Effekt aftager ikke med præfrontal kortikal udvikling
Amygdala er eksempelvis involveret i posttraumatisk belastningsreaktion …
Så når man i Danmark vælger skæve samværsordninger eller at suspendere samvær, da øger man risikoen
for at påføre neurologiske skader på barnet, hvor nogle over tid måske kan heles, men andre er irreversible.
Derfor kan man passende spørge det familieretslige system, hvilken indsigt man har i dette område,
hvorledes de forskellige processer er tilrettelagt i forhold hertil, på samme vis som man kan spørge
hvorledes børnepsykologer, socialrådgivere og jurister inddrager dette i deres arbejde?
Se bilag 2
Derfor er det særlig interessant at Center for Familieudvikling d. 9. juni 2022 præsenterer de danske
erfaringer fra behandlingsprogrammet “Sammen Om Børnene”. Programmet retter sig mod at hjælpe
familierne ud af de fastlåste konflikter og er baseret på det internationalt anerkendte program “No Kids in
the Middle”.
Se bilag 9
Skæve samværsordninger øger også risikoen for tab af kontakt over tid
Nyere tysk studie har dokumenteret at risikoen for at barnet mister i opvæksten kontakten med den ene
forælder, afspejles af samværsordningens indretning:
▪ Hvis samværet udgør under 16% er risikoen 50% for at miste kontakt til en forælder
▪ Hvis samværet er 50/50 udgør risikoen 10% for at miste kontakt til en forælder
Hvis man igen kigger på Familieretshusets ”Faste rammer for minimumssamvær” så er der ingen af disse
der modsvarer et samvær på 16% eller mere.
Hvis barnet ikke er fyldt 1 år > 1% samvær
I kan få samvær 1-2 timer hver uge lørdag eller søndag samt 1-2 timer
en hverdag hver uge efter Familieretshusets nærmere bestemmelse.
Hvis barnet er 1-3 år > 3% samvær
I kan få samvær hver anden lørdag eller søndag kl. 10-17 samt en
hverdag i den modsatte uge kl. 16-18.
Hvis barnet er 4-6 år > 9% samvær
I kan få samvær hver anden uge fra lørdag kl. 10 til søndag kl. 17.
Hvis barnet er fyldt 7 år > 14% samvær
I kan få samvær hver anden uge fra fredag kl. 17 til søndag kl. 17.
Selvom ministeren i sit svar anfører at ikke altid opereres med et standardiseret minimumssamvær, da
synes praksis at være, at det er udgangspunktet i hovedparten af den rådgivning som familieretshuset yder
jf. bilag 3.
Man må derfor forholde sig til, om det er acceptabelt at operere med nuværende ”faste rammer for
minimumssamvær” når risiko for at barnet mister kontakt til en ikke uegnet forælder er oppe på 50%
Se bilag 5
Tilknytningsteori vs. dansk praksis
70 internationale forskere indenfor tilknytningsteori gennemgår i rapporten Attachment goes to court:
Child protection and custody issues fra januar 2021, vigtigheden af at inddrage børns tilknytning til nære
relationer, når der træffes afgørelser i det familieretslige system.
I rapporten fremhæves 3 principper og 8 anbefalinger som i dag ikke i tilstrækkeligt omfang er reflekteret i
det danske familieretslige systems praksis, hvilket ikke er til barnets bedste.
Det er evident at børns tilknytning til sine nære relationer vægtes i langt højere grad end det er tilfældet i
dag, idet beskyttelsesfaktoren over tid i signifikant grad overstiger risikofaktorerne ”højkonflikt” og
”samarbejdsproblemer”, som i dekader har været italesat som værende tungtvejende.
Kildematerialet udgør over 200 kilder.
Se bilag 6 for principper og anbefalinger
Familieretshusets samværsguide
Det følgende er citat fra familieretshusets samværsguide:
”Barnets alder som pejlemærker
0-1 år
Spædbarnet har i særlig grad brug for forudsigelighed, vante rammer og rutiner. Der er
desuden fysiske behov som amning, søvn og mad, der skal tages hensyn til. Barnet har brug
for at have en gennemgående omsorgsperson, som kender barnets signaler. Dette skal være
den person, som barnet har været mest afhængigt af og er knyttet til.
Samtidig er det vigtig at kunne have hyppig kontakt til den anden forælder, og at den anden
forælder inddrages og informeres godt. Dette er vigtigt for at bakke op om relationen til
begge forældre. Det optimale for barnet er en fast base, og at den anden forælder kan være
sammen med barnet flere gange om ugen.
1-3 år
Når barnet bliver lidt ældre, kan samværet udvides, og efterhånden kan overnatning også
være en god løsning. Når barnet er under tre år, har det stadig brug for stor stabilitet og
rytme i sin hverdag, og det er vigtigt at støtte op om dette. Barnet har stadig en begrænset
tidsforståelse.
Før man begynder på overnatning, skal barnet være modent nok. Overnatning fungerer
bedst, hvis der er et godt samarbejde og tæt kontakt mellem forældrene. Det er vigtigt at
tage hensyn til barnets robusthed og tilknytningen til forældrene.
3-6 år
Når barnet er mellem tre og seks år, kan det fungere godt for barnet med mere samvær og
flere overnatninger. Hvis de fungerer godt for barnet, kan man med tiden gradvist nærme sig
mere delt tid mellem forældrene. Igen er det afgørende at kigge på barnet, på forholdet til
begge forældre og på forældrenes samarbejde. Børn i denne alder forstår mere, og man kan
forberede dem på, hvad der skal ske. De har stadig svært ved at undvære en forælder i en
hel uge ad gangen og vil derfor have glæde af at se den anden forælder i løbet af ugen.”
Kilde: https://familieretshuset.dk/media/1576/samvaersguide_170321.pdf
Som det fremgår af peer reviewed forskning er ovenstående ikke i overensstemmelse med synes
samværsguiden at afspejle synspunkter og holdninger som var gældende dekader tilbage. Trods adskillige
forespørgsler til Familieretshuset er det ikke lykkedes at få oplyst hvilket kildemateriale, der ligger til grund
for ovenstående.
Professor i udviklingspsykologi Dion Sommer beskriver i kronik fra 2021 vigtigheden for barnet af begge
forældres aktive tilstedeværelse i dets liv, helt fra spæd. Manden er på samme måde som kvinden
evolutionært disponeret for at påtage sig faderrollen, på samme vis som kvinden moderrollen – og
samspillet mellem disse profiterer barnet af på forskellig vis, hvorfor fravær indebærer at begge parter
(barn – far/mor) ikke stimuleres i tilstrækkelig grad, til skade for alle.
I kronikken refereres der til observationsstudier som konkluderer:
1. Involverede fædre er lige så kompetente som mødre til at drage omsorg for
spædbørn.
2. Spædbørn knytter sig lige så nært til deres omsorgsfulde far som til deres moder.
Men ikke til den fraværende far.
3. Aktive involverede fædre spiller en fundamental rolle for spædbarnets udvikling.
4. Børn med mere end kun én nær og tryg tilknytning udvikles bedre.
Se bilag 10
Det er derfor stærkt problematik at Familieretshusets ”Faste rammer for minimumssamvær” ikke har et
udgangspunkt, der imødekommer de behov, som barnet reelt har jævnfør nyere forskning, men i stedet
tager udgangspunkt i skævvredne samværsordninger, der på mange andre områder også øger risici for at
barnet over tid oplever en væsentligt forringet livskvalitet.
Folketingets ansvar
I aftaletekst af 27.3.18 om ét samlet familieretligt system lød det således:
Regeringen (Venstre, Liberal Alliance og Det Konservative Folkeparti) og Socialdemokratiet,
Dansk Folkeparti, Enhedslisten, Alternativet, Radikale Venstre og Socialistisk Folkeparti har
den 27. marts 2018 indgået en stemmeaftale om ét samlet familieretligt system.
"…. Partierne ønsker at understrege, at de muligheder, der skabes for at understøtte det
ligeværdige forældreskab, er rettet mod forældre, der kan samarbejde til barnets bedste.
Partierne ønsker således ikke at skabe situationer, hvor konfliktende forældre i gult spor og
forældre i rødt spor har systemets opbakning til deleordninger, altså 7/7- eller 6/8-ordning,
delt bopæl m.v."
Link: https://www.regeringen.dk/aktuelt/publikationer-og-aftaletekster/aftale-om-
%C3%A9t-samlet-familieretligt-system/
Det kan undre, at man fra politisk hold synes at spænde ben for ligeværdige samværsordninger, når nyere
forskning dokumenterer, at disse på sigt er bedst for barnet jævnfør anerkendt forskning. Samtidig åbner
det for at spekulere i at skabe ”højkonfliktsager” og samarbejdsproblemer, idet udredning af årsag og
ansvar ikke indgår i sagsbelysning.
Det kan også undre, at man fra politisk hold med aftaleteksten nærmest tvinger afgørelser igennem, der
enten belønner en reelt ikke samarbejde part idet et skifte fra fx. 4/10 til 9/5 synes at være et meget
markant skifte (hvorfor man måske vælger 5/9 i stedet for som ønsket 7/7 ordning) eller man presses til at
træffe afgørelser, hvor man fx. går fra 3/10 til 9/5 ordning – ingen af disse tilgange er til barnets bedste.
Uddybende bemærkninger til den af ministeren omtalte VIVE rapport
Om den VIVE rapport, der af ministeren refereres til:
a) Den er udfærdiget af sociologer
b) Ingen psykologer synes at have medvirket til at kvalificere afsnittet (med start side 246).
c) Den har ikke været udsat for peer review (se bilag 1)
d) Den inddrager ganske få af de 60 nyere peer reviewed studier, som indgik i professor Dr.
Linda Nielsens metastudie, der blev præsenteret i starten af 2018 – dvs. før VIVE
rapportens publicering.
I rapporten (s248) står
”…. eller seriøse konflikter antages at have betydning for børns udviklingsveje (Felitti et al., 1998).
For det tredje spiller timingen af samlivsophævelsen en rolle for valg af samværsarrangement:
Børn, der oplever familiebrud tidligt i livet, får gennemgående mindre omfattende ordninger, end
børn, der oplever familieopløsning senere i livet (Ottosen, 2001, 2014). Det kan bero på forældres
og eksperters opfattelser om, at små børn har behov for en stabil og forudsigelig hverdag og derfor
vil profitere af have en fast base hos den ene forælder – ofte moren.”
Kommentar:
Det bemærkes at man i rapporten her vælger at henvise til en kilde fra 1998 samt rapportens
hovedforfatters egne publiceringer, samt anvender en ikke yderligere underbygget reference til
”eksperter”.
I rapporten (s249) står:
”Et mindre omfattende samværsarrangement kan således blive iværksat ud fra en hensigt om at
beskytte barnet mod yderligere at blive eksponeret for sådanne risici, fordi den ene af forældrene
ikke magter at udføre sin forældrerolle, eller fordi forældrenes konfliktniveau er for højt til, at en
deleordning kan fungere (Ottosen, Dahl & Boserup, 2017).”
Kommentar:
Man må bemærke at man i rapporten igen henviser til en kilde, som er udarbejdet af
hovedforfatteren til rapporten med medvirken fra den tidligere underdirektør i Børns Vilkår,
som ikke har en forskningsmæssig baggrund. Kilden har ikke været udsat for peer review.
”…… konfliktniveau er for højt til, at en deleordning kan fungere”
Kommentar:
Udsagnet er ligeledes bemærkelsesværdigt, idet det ikke er underbygget på nogen vis.
Hertil skal det bemærkes at man med udsagnet ikke forholder sig til hvilke muligheder der
forefindes for at hjælpe med at reducere konfliktniveauet eller omgå dette, ej heller
inddrager viden om hvorledes man i andre lande gør dette. Eksempler herpå kunne være at
knytte en til sagen der har til formål at varetage barnets interesser under og efter en
højkonfliktsag; Barnets Advokat (Sverige), Guardian Ad Litem (US m.fl.), CAFCASS’ samlede
værktøjskasse (UK)), kommunikationsplatform med moderator tilknyttet, fast track ordning i
retssystemet (Quebec, Canada), ligesom der i Holland er taget et omfattende initiativ, der er
nævnt i henvendelse til Social og Ældreudvalget d. 23 maj 2022.
Specifikt om risikofaktorer:
En risikofaktor kan bredt defineres som et hvilket som helst forhold hos individet eller i opvækstmiljøet, der
øger sandsynligheden for en fremtidig negativ psykosocial udvikling, herunder adfærdsproblemer. Man må
bemærke at risikofaktorer ikke kan anvendes direkte at forklare eller forudsige udfald. Med risikofaktorer
leder man efter sammenfald i børn og unges reaktioner på bestemte belastninger. Ud fra et statistisk
standpunkt anvendes et meget stort antal børn og unge til at få viden om, hvilke risikofaktorer de har til
fælles, hvis de lever under bestemte risikofyldte omstændigheder. Dette er på den ene side en stærk viden,
fordi den baserer sig på et stort antal af børn og unge. Den viden kan derfor bruges til at gøre den
professionelle opmærksom på, at lever et barn eller en ung under bestemte risikofyldte
opvækstbetingelser, så er der risiko for, at deres udvikling påvirkes negativt. 'Afvejning' af risiko- og
beskyttelsesfaktorer og forholdet mellem dem, findes der ingen opskrift til. Den baserer sig derfor på en
professionel vurdering, som til enhver tid bør være afdækket og dokumenteret.
Kilde: https://paedagogik.systime.dk/?id=260
“Børn i risiko” af Øyvind Kvello, som ofte indgår i diverse rapporters og artiklers kildeliste, er meget
interessant læsning, idet forfatteren anfører “forskningsresultaterne som viser, hvordan højrisikobørn
udvikler sig, går ikke alene i forskellig retning, men er også delvist modstridende” (s226).
Bogens kapitel 5 er i sin helhed interessant, men intet herfra underbygger postulatet at indbyrdes
forældrekonflikt isoleret set udgør en højrisikofaktor.
VIVE rapportens forfattere kommenterer rapporten med:
a) At data ikke rummer information om fædres involvering i børneomsorgen forud for bruddet
b) At man alene interviewer bopælsforælder for de to yngste årgange, hvilket indebærer at 93% af
besvarelserne alene er mødres;
a. Dette indebærer eksempelvis at det alene er den ene part der definerer ”konfliktniveau” /
samarbejdsproblemer.
b. Dette indebærer eksempelvis at det alene er den part, der forklarer årsag til at barnet har
mistet kontakt til samværsforælder.
c) At der ved interview af de to ældste årgange (11-årige, 15-årige) kan være tilstedeværelse af
bopælsforælder, men uden af forholde sig til hvorledes dette kan influere på svar.
Kildematerialet:
Når man kigger nærmere på VIVE rapportens kildemateriale og sammenholder dette med professor Dr.
Linda Nielsen's do., ihukommende at begge er publiceret i 2018, ses at:
VIVE refererer til i alt 40 kilder, professor Dr. Linda Nielsen til 60.
For 7 af kilderne gælder at de indgår i begge.
For VIVE's rapports er kildemateriale for 52% vedkommende ældre end 5 år, for professor
Dr. Linda Nielsen er det tilsvarende tal 32% (trods 50% flere kilder).
For VIVE's rapport er der for 20% af kildematerialets vedkommende sammenfald mellem
rapportens hovedforfatter og kildematerialets hovedforfatter.
For professor Dr. Linda Nielsen metastudie er der for 10% af kildematerialets vedkommende
sammenfald mellem rapportens hovedforfatter og kildematerialets hovedforfatter.
For VIVE’s rapport gælder at man inddrager professor Dr. Linda Nielsens forskning samt
andre fælles kilder, men trods dette konkluderer man modsat rettet. I sig selv bør dette give
anledning til en kritisk undren fra omgivelserne.
I rapporten (s246) står:
”Nogle studier, bl.a. fra Danmark, har peget på, at skilsmisseforældre, der praktiserer
deleordninger, er et særligt ressourcestærkt befolkningssegment ….”. Efterfølgende henvises
der til kildemateriale.
Kommentar:
Det eneste kildemateriale, der har et dansk udgangspunkt, er Ottesen & Stage 2012, hvor
den ene er rapportens hovedforfatter. Denne rapport har heller ikke været udsat for et peer
review, og er kendetegnet ved mangler/svagheder som blandt andet anført i afsnittet ”VIVE
rapportens forfattere kommenterer rapporten med:”.
Der er både før og efterfølgende VIVE rapportens tilblivelse, publiceret nye longitudinelle peer reviewed
studier, der underbygger at samvær i langt højere grad udgør en beskyttelsesfaktor for barnet, hvis effekt
mere end kompenserer for samtidig tilstedeværelse af en lang række risikofaktorer; herunder højkonflikt
og samarbejdsproblemer.
Myter
Myter bliver eksempelvis til
- når der ikke haves et tilstrækkeligt kildekritisk blik
- når man alene udvælger kilder der i sin helhed understøtter ens synspunkt
- når man udvælger udsagn eller delelementer fra kilder, der understøtter sit synspunkt, uden at
medtage hvad der måtte tale imod eller skabe usikkerhed
- når den underliggende forskning er forudindtaget i sin konstruktion
- når den underliggende forskning i sine fortolkning af data, anvender antagelser og gisninger med
henblik på at forklare, forhold som ikke tilstrækkeligt belyst
- når den underliggende forskning, reelt ikke er forskning - eksempelvis når datamaterialet er så
spinkelt (omfang) og/eller repræsenterer yderpunkter, der statistisk set anses som særdeles usikre
- når publicering sker i journaler, hvor man betaler for optagelse og kravene til validering er minimale
eller ikke eksisterende
- Når en myte frem til den brede offentlighed, fx. via medier, bøger, præsentationer, indgår i
undervisningsmateriale etc. da bliver det for alvor en vanskelig størrelse at have med at gøre. Og
helt galt går det når lovgivning og vejledning hertil reflekterer, at en myte er blevet til en absolut
sandhed.
Fra politisk side ses sådanne myter hjulpet på vej pakket ind som "vi skal jo beskytte barnet", "det er til
barnets bedste" - sætninger eller udtryk der appellerer til følelser, hvorved de nemmere finder accept hos
modtager, og på det familieretslige område er der ingen der kan være uenige i målet om det at beskyttede
et barn. Ved at koble sine holdninger til sådanne sætninger, opnår man det retoriske greb, at hvis ens
holdning bliver udsat for kritik, da er det ensbetydende med at kritikerne ikke vil beskytte barnet.
I Danmark ses en række myter, der præger praksis på det familieretslige område herunder anbringelser og
samvær, såvel som har fundet indpas i det omkringliggende økosystem.
I bilag 11 gennemgås en lang række af myter, også kaldet ”woozles”, der har haft og fortsat har afgørende
indflydelse på udformning og revision af love og vejledninger på det familieretslige område i Danmark.
Der er tale om myter, der flittigt udtrykkes holdninger i forbindelse med, anvendes når der udfærdiges
rapport og analyser, ligesom det indgår i bøger og artikler - ofte også i form af kildemateriale, som der
henvises til.
Resume
Dansk praksis i det familieretslige system strider imod hvad international peer reviewed forskning igennem
en årrække har dokumenteret er til barnets bedste på lang sigt.
Aktuel dansk praksis indebærer at man for at undgå to risikofaktor (højkonflikt, samarbejdsproblemer)
forstærker effekten af en anden risikofaktor (emotionel stress), i stedet for at ibrugtage en
beskyttelsesfaktor (samvær/tilknytning) der mere end kompenserer for de førstnævnte (højkonflikt,
samarbejdsproblemer) uden at forstærke risikofaktoren tab af samvær (emotionelt stress).
Det at man forsøger at beskyttet barnet mod forældrekonflikt eller samarbejdsproblemer, ved at reducere
eller afbryde samvær, er baseret på myter, som gennemsyrer det familieretslige system og omgivende
interesseorganisationer.
Dansk praksis i det familieretslige system synes at medvirke til den faktuelle stigning af børn og unge i der
kommer i kontakt med psykiatrien, medvirker til at unge ikke gennemfører uddannelse samt påfører
relationelle og interpersonelle problemstillinger langt ind i voksenlivet = tab af livskvalitet!
Dansk praksis i det familieretslige system synes præget af en juridisk/politisk tilgang, trods flittig brug af
”barnets bedste”. Den manglende inddragelse af psykologiske som helbredsmæssige aspekter og de
langsigtede konsekvenser heraf er dybt problematisk.
I aftaletekst af 27.3.2018 om ét samlet familieretligt system har regering sammen med hovedparten af
Folketingets øvrige partier defineret krav, som er uforenelige med hvad international forskning
dokumenterer, er til barnets bedste på lang sigt.
Dansk praksis er således ikke til barnets bedste – og man påfører meget store omkostninger, både på
individniveau og samfundsøkonomisk som konsekvens heraf.
I lighed med hvad der ses på anbringelsesområdet, sker der heller ikke en struktureret opfølgning og
evaluering – et forhold der er påtalt af Rigsrevisionen gennem mere end et årti.
Børn der udsættes for indgribende afgørelser ved det familieretslige systems mellemkomst, er ikke sikret
nogen form for efterværnsordning, med mindre at man anser forløb i psykiatrien som en sådan.
Fem meget bekymrende forhold:
• Ifølge analyse fra Børns Vilkår estimeres at hvert sjette 11-årige barn ikke har kontakt til den ene
forælder svarende til ca. 10.300 børn i Danmark.
• Ifølge årgangsanalyse fra SFI/VIVE estimeres det, at hver tredje 15-årige ikke har kontakt til den ene
forælder
• 7 ud af 10 unge savner den forælder, de ikke bor hos jf. undersøgelse foretaget af Børnerådet.
• Det er børn uden kontakt til den ene af sine forældre, der på lang sigt klarer sig signifikant dårligst.
• Ifølge Vidensråd For Forebyggelse er der sket en tredobling af tilgangen i psykiatrien af børn/unge i
med diagnoser i skizofreni-spektret. I rapporten er ”enligt forældreskab” anført som en risikofaktor
i lighed med hvad international forskning også har dokumenteret, hvilket nuværende praksis i det
familieretslige system medvirker til at tilføre, herunder som følge af langtrukken sagsbehandling.
Supplerende faktuel information:
• Cirka hvert tredje danske barn oplever, at forældrene bliver skilt
• Cirka 25% af samværsaftaler indgås vha. myndighedsafgørelse (ref. Sundhed.dk)
• Myndighedsudgangspunktet er, at der ikke kan træffes afgørelse om 7/7 eller 8/6 ordninger hvis
der er forældrekonflikt eller samarbejdsproblemer, hvilket er indskrevet i Folketingets indstilling til
etablering af ét samlet familieretligt system i form af Familieretshuset
• Myndighedsudgangspunktet er ikke 7/7 samvær, hvilket udtrykkes ved at kontaktbevarende
samvær er aldersdifferentieret samt spænder fra 1-2 timer ugentligt til 2/12 "ordning"
• 50% at børn i samværsordningen med kontakt 2/12 ordning eller med mindre samvær, mister
kontakt til samværsforælderen.
• Ca. 7% af ca. 350.000 skilsmissebørn har bopæl hos deres far
• Andelen af de unge under 24 år med høj score på stressskalaen er steget til over 31% for de unge
mænd og over 52% for de unge kvinder. Over en tredjedel af kvinderne har desuden decideret
dårligt mentalt helbred, mens det gælder for lidt over en femtedel af de unge mænd. For
befolkningen som helhed er andelen med dårligt mentalt helbred stedet til 17,4% (fra 10% i 2010)
(ref. Den Nationale Sundhedsprofil 2021)
Med venlig hilsen
Jan Bækgaard Nielsen
Gammelgårdsvej 17
3520 Farum
Bilag 1:
Peer review
Når forskere har undersøgt et emne, beskriver de, hvad de har gjort og fundet frem til i et manuskript.
Manuskriptet sender forskerne til et tidsskrift for at få det publiceret, så hele det videnskabelige samfund
(og i nogle tilfælde offentligheden) kan læse om arbejdet i en videnskabelig artikel.
Men før det når dertil, skal andre forskere med forstand på emnet gennemgå manuskriptet med kritiske
briller. De ser blandt andet på:
- Er statistikken i orden?
- Kommer forskerne grundigt og præcist rundt om emnet?
- Er det sproglige helt på plads?
- Har forskerne husket at tage al relevant forskning med i betragtning (lavet de rette referencer)?
Fagfællerne læser en anonymiseret version af manuskriptet og sender deres kommentarer tilbage
redaktøren af tidsskriftet. Kommentarerne kan – i anonymiseret form – blive sendt ud til forfatterne, som
svarer tilbage.
Redaktøren tager derefter stilling til, om tidsskriftet vender tommelfingeren op eller ned til at publicere
studiet.
Der er stor forskel på de videnskabelige tidsskrifters anseelse (ranking), hvorfor dette også er en parameter
der skal vægtes, når den videnskabelige artikel vurderes og inddrages som kilde. En del tidsskrifter er
eksempelvis etableret for at fremme særlige synspunkter, hvorved sandsynligheden for at få optaget en
artikel er større, hvis dennes fund er i overensstemmelse hermed.
Artikel fra 2022: https://videnskab.dk/kultur-samfund/hvad-er-peer-review
Peer review vs. lovgivning
Helt overordnet synes det problematisk af dansk ”forskning” på området ikke er underlagt peer-review,
altså en uvildig gennemgang inden publicering af fund og konklusioner i anerkendt journal. Ligeledes synes
at der i tilrettelæggelse af arbejdet med lovgivning såvel som vejledning hertil, ikke synes at være en
tilstrækkelig kritisk tilgang eller faglig indsigt, men at der gives politiske særsynspunkter eller
interesseorganisationer, mulighed for at sætte et uhensigtsmæssigt aftryk og dermed mulighed for praktisk
udmøntning, hvorved ”til barnets bedste” reelt bliver en tom frase.
I DR2's Deadline indgik direktøren for Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond Maja Horst i debat, hvor hun i
underbyggede synspunktet af vigtigheden af der i dansk forskning anvendes peer-review samt man indgår i
internationalt forskningssamarbejde, idet det medvirker til at løfte kvaliteten (validiteten), giver mulighed
for international faglig sparring/netværk samt inddragelse af nyere udenlandsk forskning, hvor
forskningsresultaterne ofte er baseret på et større datagrundlag samt at disse studier har været udsat for
peer-review.
I debatten om den frie forskning i Danmark, der pågik i 2021, blev det blandt andet bemærket at Danmark
udgør et så lille område, at det at rejse konstruktiv kritik af en fagfælles arbejde, kunne være som at træde
ind i et minefelt – ikke kun af faglige årsager men også med sociale konsekvenser. Et af forslagene for at
imødegå denne problematik lød på etablering af et nationalt forskningsnævn, men som Maja Horst synes
inde på, kunne en mulighed være at sikre at kvalitetssikring af dansk forskning skulle ske ved at indarbejde
forpligtigelser til at indgå i internationalt samarbejde med mål om publicering i internationale journaler.
Bilag 2:
Adskillelse – hvad gør det ved hjernen og hvordan kommer det til udtryk
"Effekterne af følelsesmæssigt misbrug og omsorgssvigt er virkelig, virkelig dyb," siger direktør for
Developmental Biopsychiatry Research Program på McLean Hospital. "De svarer fuldstændig til fysisk
misbrug eller seksuelt misbrug med hensyn til hjerneeffekter."
Nogle ændringer er meget specifikke. For eksempel blev der fundet ændringer i den auditive cortex i
forbindelse med sprogvanskeligheder hos personer, der blev verbalt misbrugt af deres forældre i
barndommen. Bredere effekter omfatter en reduceret hippocampus (en struktur involveret i hukommelse
og indlæring), øget aktivitet i amygdala (et vigtigt center for følelsesregulering) og forstyrrelser i
forbindelserne mellem disse og andre hjerneregioner.
Artikel: https://www.spektrum.de/news/borderline-folge-zwischenmenschlicher-traumata-in-der-
kindheit/1975948
Præsentation:
https://drteicher.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/enduring_neurobiological_effects_abuse_reduced.pdf
(opsummering på side 27-28)
Ud over sin rolle på McLean Hospital er Dr. Teicher lektor i psykiatri ved Harvard Medical School. Han er
medlem af flere redaktioner, herunder Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Dr. Teicher er medlem af
det videnskabelige rådgivende råd for Juvenile Bipolar Research Foundation og SmartFIT-virksomheden og
bestyrelsesmedlem i organisationer, herunder Trauma Research Foundation og bestyrelsen for børn, unge
og familier ved National Academies of Sciences, Engineering og medicin. Han har siddet i eller været
formand for adskillige revisionsudvalg for National Institutes of Health, udgivet mere end 200 artikler og er
blevet tildelt 19 amerikanske patenter.
Om Amygdala: https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala
NOVA er den mest populære primetime videnskabsserie på amerikansk tv, der afmystificerer de
videnskabelige og teknologiske koncepter, der former og definerer vores liv, vores planet og vores univers,
belyser i nedenstående forskning, hvorledes et barns hjernes udvikling påvirkes negativt af adskillelse fra en
forælder eller begge. Desto længere adskillelsen står på desto kraftigere og længerevarende påvirkning af
barnets evne til at knytte trygge bånd til andre, hvilket er en fundamental forudsætning for eksempelvis at
kunne udvikle sit læringspotentiale og indgå i stabile følelsesmæssigt givende relationer.
Artikel: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/psychological-damage-inflicted-by-parent-
child-separation-is-deep-long-lasting/
Video: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/separation-and-childrens-brains/
Dr. Karleen Lyons-Ruth er professor i psykologi ved Harvard Medical School, klinisk vejleder for Cambridge
Health Alliance Psychology and Psychiatry træningsprogrammer. Summa Cum Laude kandidat fra Duke
University og modtog sin PhD i udviklingspsykologi fra Harvard University. Før hun kom til Harvard Medical
School, gennemførte hun et klinisk praktikophold på McLean Hospital og tjente som post-doc forsker ved
Department of Child Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine.
Artikel: https://theconversation.com/a-sudden-and-lasting-separation-from-a-parent-can-permanently-
alter-brain-development-98542
Jacek Debiec, Assistant Professor / Department of Psychiatry; Assistant Research Professor / Molecular &
Behavioral Neuroscience Institute, University of Michigan
2 verdenskrig – bombardementet af London
Under 2. verdenskrig evakuerede man børn fra London, som med deres forældres accept blev flyttet ud på
landet for at undgå belastningerne som de regelmæssige bombardementer indebar. Efterfølgende blev der
udført et studie, hvor man sammenlignende udviklingen for de udflyttede børn, med den langsigtede
udvikling for tilsvarende børn der var forblevet i London sammen med forældrene under
bombardementerne. Trods studiets svagheder fandt man tydelige indikationer på at oplevelsen af
evakuering var forbundet med langvarig psykisk sårbarhed grundet usikker tilknytning (til forældrene som
følge af adskillelsen). Usikker tilknytning indebærer oftest af man som voksen har svært ved at forstå egne
følelser og andres følelser, hvilket begrænser evnen til at opretholde og vedligeholde stabile relationer.
Studie:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5281059_The_evacuation_of_British_children_d
uring_World_War_II_A_preliminary_investigation_into_the_long-
term_psychological_effects
Bilag 3:
Eksempel fra praksis, beskrevet i forbindelse med udarbejdelse af kandidatspeciale.
Indhold er forelagt og godkendt af Familieretshuset 2020.
Situation: Forældre tilbydes 10-15 minutters børnesagkyndig rådgivning (den børnesagkyndige har ikke
mødt forældrene før) i forbindelse med konfliktmæglingsmøde.
Børnenes alder: Et barn i vuggestue (1-3 år), et barn i børnehave (4-6 år)
Citater: Hun (børnesagkyndige) fortæller hvad der lægges vægt på i forhold til børnene, hvis parterne
ikke kommer frem til en løsning selv under konfliktmæglingen.
▪ tilknytningen til barnet fx
o hvem har haft barsel
o hvem tilbringer tid med børnene
o hvem søger de til
▪ kontakt oftere, frem for længere tid
▪ kun har base ét sted = ingen overnatninger hos samværsforælder
▪ samme aftale for begge børn
når børnene ikke er ældre, kan det ikke anbefales, at man har en 7-7 ordning
Kildemateriale kan oplyses
Bilag 4:
”Faste rammer for minimumssamvær:
Hvis barnet ikke er fyldt 1 år
I kan få samvær 1-2 timer hver uge lørdag eller søndag samt 1-2 timer en hverdag hver uge
efter Familieretshusets nærmere bestemmelse.
Hvis barnet er 1-3 år
I kan få samvær hver anden lørdag eller søndag kl. 10-17 samt en hverdag i den modsatte
uge kl. 16-18.
Hvis barnet er 4-6 år
I kan få samvær hver anden uge fra lørdag kl. 10 til søndag kl. 17.
Hvis barnet er fyldt 7 år
I kan få samvær hver anden uge fra fredag kl. 17 til søndag kl. 17. ”
Kilde: https://familieretshuset.dk/foraeldreansvar/foraeldreansvar/samvaer/samvaer-etablering-foraelder-
uenig-ikke-kontakt
Vejledning om forældremyndighed, barnets bopæl og samvær:
https://www.retsinformation.dk/eli/retsinfo/2020/10064
Bilag 5
KiMiss
Tysk studie etableret i 2012:
KiMiss-projektet udført af Universität Tübingen undersøger, i hvilket omfang konfliktfyldt
forældreadskillelse fører til problemer med forældremyndigheden, eller til problemer som forældre-barn
fremmedgørelse eller misbrug af forældremyndigheden. Forskningsprojektet førte til udviklingen af KiMiss-
instrumentet, som kvantificerer belastningen på børn, der vokser op under forældres konfliktfyldte
skilsmisse.
Barnets tarv = barnets livskvalitet
Begrebet barns bedste er juridisk set et ubestemt begreb, hvorfor familieretsafgørelser bør være
underordnet dette udtryk. Den bredt accepterede opfattelse af, at børns trivsel er udefinerbar, overser det
faktum, at begrebet stammer fra et livskvalitetsbegreb: børns trivsel er en barndomsrelateret livskvalitet,
og denne kan bestemmes og måles som andre kvalitets-livsmålinger.
Mål for det relative tab af børnevelfærd gør det muligt at sætte forskellige former for vold i hjemmet i
relation til hinanden med det formål at give beslutningstagere i familiedomstole og i
ungdomsmyndigheder, men også forældre og familier, et redskab, der hjælper med de svære og alvorlige
beslutninger om barnets ve og velvære, metodisk at kunne argumentere korrekt, forståeligt og pålideligt
Fra 2016/2017 analysen:
Den samværstid, der er til rådighed for forældre og børn, må ikke falde under 16 % over tid.
Under en perimeter på 16 % af samværstiden er sandsynligheden for forældre-barn
fremmedgørelse større end sandsynligheden for ikke-fremmedgørelse, hvilket er en
uacceptabel risiko.
'Standardkontaktreglen' (14 dages weekend + halvdelen af ferien) svarer til en andel på cirka
30 % af tiden og er forbundet med en sandsynlighed for fremmedgørelse på (hele) 30 %.
Dette udgør stadig en væsentlig risiko, så 'standard' 30% af sæsonhåndteringsreglen skal
formuleres som en slags minimum.
Selvom begge forældre tager sig af børn på en fuldstændig afbalanceret måde (f.eks.
vekslende samværsmodel), kan der stadig forventes en slags grundrisiko på 10 %
fremmedgørelse. Dette kan tolkes på to måder:
1) Ud fra en sandsynlighed for fremmedgørelse: Ved en balanceret pasning af
børn kan det forventes, at forældre-barn fremmedgørelse vil forekomme i
hvert tiende tilfælde.
2) Med hensyn til en grad af fremmedgørelse: Under afbalanceret omsorg for
børn rapporterer forældrene en gennemsnitlig fremmedgørelsesgrad på 10 %.
Link: https://www.kimiss.uni-tuebingen.de/index.html
Bilag 6
Attachment goes to court: Child protection and custody issues
Principper:
Princip 1: Et barn har brug for at opleve sikre havne fra særlige, velkendte og ikke-
misbrugende omsorgspersoner
.
To overvejelser er centrale:
a) Begrænset kontakt med en omsorgsperson gør det sværere for et barn at
danne, styrke og vedligeholde forventninger til denne omsorgspersons
tilgængelighed i tider med behov.
b) Næsten al ikke-misbrugende og ikke-forsømmende familiebaseret pleje vil
sandsynligvis være bedre end institutionspleje (s. 25).
Princip 2: Sikker, kontinuerlig, "god nok" omsorg er i barnets bedste interesse, og
omsorgspersoner bør hjælpes til at yde den.
Princip 3: Oprethold et barns eksisterende sikre havn, hvis de ikke udgør en trussel.
En beslutning om at opretholde et barns eksisterende sikre havn definerer ikke en plan
for fordeling af tid i samværsordninger. Tiden skal være tilstrækkelig til, at
tilknytningsrelationer kan udvikles og vedligeholdes (s. 28).
Dette princip kan også gælde for plejefamilier, hvor relationer til biologiske forældre
kan opretholdes under pleje. På samme måde kan relationer til plejefamilier
opretholdes efter plejefamilien (s. 29).
Otte specifikke råd til det familieretslige system:
1. Sæt ikke lighedstegn mellem tilknytningskvalitet og omsorgspersonens følsomhed.
2. Sæt ikke lighedstegn mellem tilknytningskvalitet og relationskvalitet.
3. Fortolk ikke børns engangsadfærd som pålideligt indikator for tilknytningskvalitet.
4. The Tender Years Doctrine er forkert.
5. Overnatning med en anden forælder er ikke i sig selv skadelig for børn.
6. At adressere og reducere konflikter er nøglen.
7. Sikre, at fagfolk i familieretten er tilstrækkeligt uddannet i tilknytningsvurdering.
8. inddrag beviser direkte fra eksperter, ikke via repræsenterende parter.
Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616734.2020.1840762
Bilag 7
Metastudie - børn i ligeværdige samværsordninger profiterer på sigt bedst - også trods forældrekonflikt -
publiceret 2018
Professor Dr. Linda Nielsens metastudie er baseret på peer reviewed studier fra 15 OECD lande. Hun
rådgiver og underviser lovgivere, dommere, advokater og andre relevante fagfolk i relation til den
internationale forskning.
Metastudiet kan rekvireres ved henvendelse til forfatteren.
I denne præsentation gennemgås hendes forskningsresultater på området:
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t04rGz1haEs
Kontakt:
Link: https://education.wfu.edu/about-the-department/faculty-and-staff-profiles/dr-linda-
nielsen/
Bilag 8
Longitudinelt studie - samvær som beskyttelsesfaktor
- publiceres 2022
Studiet er et nationalt studie, forankret i organ under U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Der er tale om et banebrydende videnskabeligt studie der dokumenter at en ligeværdig samværsfordeling
udgør en beskyttelsesfaktor, der mere end opvejer den risikofaktor, som oplevelse af indbyrdes
forældrekonflikt, historisk set er opfattet som.
Professor William Fabricius, der har medvirket i delstatslige og nationale projekter, herunder indretning af
lovgivning for det familieretslige system, gennemgår dele af studiet i denne præsentation:
Link: https://youtu.be/6QryEkEcnyw
Kilder:
Fabricius, W.V., Suh G.W., Tyrell, F.A., Sokol, K., Stevenson, M.M., 2022 (in preparation).
Protecting the children of divorce: Shared Parenting Time, Emotional Security, and Well-
Being.
Stevenson, M.M., Fabricius, W.V., Braver, S.L. and Cookston, J.T., 2018. Associations between
parental relocation following separation in childhood and maladjustment in adolescence and
young adulthood. Psychology, public policy, and law, 24(3), p.365.
Fabricius, W.V. and Suh, G.W., 2017. Should infants and toddlers have frequent overnight
parenting time with fathers? The policy debate and new data. Psychology, Public Policy, and
Law, 23(1), p.68.
Diaz, P., Sokol, K.R., Fabricius, W.V. & Braver, S.L. 2012, "Parenting Time, Parent Conflict,
Parent–Child Relationships, and Children’s Physical Health" in Parenting Plan Evaluations
Oxford University Press, .
Fabricius, W.V. and Luecken, L.J., 2007. Postdivorce living arrangements, parent conflict, and
long-term physical health correlates for children of divorce. Journal of family psychology,
21(2), p.195.
Fabricius, W.V. and Braver, S.L., 2006. Relocation, parent conflict, and domestic violence:
Independent risk factors for children of divorce. Journal of Child Custody, 3(3-4), pp.7-27.
Braver, S.L., Ellman, I.M. and Fabricius, W.V., 2003. Relocation of children after divorce and
children's best interests: New evidence and legal considerations. Journal of Family
Psychology, 17(2), p.206.
Andre præsentationer ved professor William Fabricius, som også berører emnet:
Link: https://youtu.be/JfqxbPa6OT4 Link: https://youtu.be/5zBvezI5XkI
Link: https://youtu.be/juWdnsSMQjU Link: https://youtu.be/t95jqvo2f7M
Bilag 9:
Center for Familieudvikling
En betragtelig del af de danske skilsmissefamilier præges af et højt og vedvarende konfliktniveau. De
fastlåste konfliktmønstre ødelægger forældresamarbejdet og skaber et utrygt og usundt opvækstmiljø for
de børn, der vokser op midt i konflikten.
Samtidig er skilsmissefamilier præget af højkonflikt notorisk svære at hjælpe. I Danmark bruger vi enorme
ressourcer på juridiske afgørelser i Familieretten, og vores kommunale hjælpesystemer er ofte på
overarbejde i forsøget på at afbøde den mistrivsel, børn fanget i højkonflikte skilsmisser udviser. Vi savner
gode værktøjer til at hjælpe forældrene med at bryde selve de konfliktmønstre, der ligger til grund for
problemerne.
Behandlingsprogrammet “Sammen Om Børnene”
I perioden 2019-2022 har Center for Familieudvikling med støtte fra Socialstyrelsen udviklet
behandlingsprogrammet “Sammen Om Børnene”. Programmet retter sig mod at hjælpe familierne ud af de
fastlåste konflikter og er baseret på det internationalt anerkendte program “No Kids in the Middle” som
oprindeligt er hollandsk.
Erfaringer præsenteres på konference d. 9. juni 2022.
Link: https://www.familieudvikling.dk/det-goer-vi/konference-hoejkonflikte-skilsmisser/
Bilag 10
Professor i udviklingspsykologi: Mit syn på, hvad fædre og deres børn kan sammen, er blevet
revolutioneret
Den nære aktive fader spiller en helt unik rolle for børns tilknytning og udvikling – hvis han ellers må eller
vil. Nyfødte og spædbørn er ikke forprogrammeret til kun at knytte sig til en mor.
KRONIKEN 27. OKT. 2021 KL. 15.21
DION SOMMER
Dion Sommer er professor i udviklingspsykologi ved Aarhus Universitet. Han har udgivet adskillige bøger om
barndom og børns udvikling og læring.
Jeg er far til to voksne døtre og mindes begge deres fødsler, som var det i går. Også de massevis af nætter
med sutteflasker, gående rundt, så de kunne bøvse, og den slidte mor kunne sove. Aktiv deltagelse i deres
opvækst og liv samt dyb glæde ved stadigvæk at være far for dem er berigende.
Så det har været både lærerigt og udfordrende at komme nogenlunde helskindet igennem ’praksisprøven’.
Samtidig har jeg som forsker arbejdet på at bestå ’teoriprøven’; dvs. at kunne den enestående forskning om
fædre og deres spædbørn udenad. Den har revolutioneret mit syn på, hvad fædre og deres børn kan
sammen. Den nære aktive fader spiller nemlig en helt unik rolle for børns tilknytning og udvikling – hvis han
ellers må eller vil.
Set med et nøgternt forskerblik verserer der for tiden mange myter og stærke følelser om moderskab og
faderskab. Når det kommer til forlænget øremærket barselsorlov til fædre tyr både kvinder og mænd til
biologiske kønsdikotomier.
Sådanne myter har det desværre med at undergrave vores evne til at argumentere for den rigtige
beslutning om barsel.
Mit svar er at gå til den fordomsfri far-barn-forskning og vise, hvad den har fundet. For der mangler ikke
forskning om fædre og deres omsorgsevner. Heller ikke om nyfødte og spædbørn. De er f.eks. ikke
forprogrammeret til kun at knytte sig til en mor.
Men forskningen er desværre relativt ukendt herhjemme. Det gælder også i mit fag, udviklingspsykologien,
hvor der især er problemer i det, der kaldes tilknytningsteorien. Dvs. med hvem og hvornår barnets dybe,
nære, trygge og tillidsfulde følelsesmæssige bånd opbygges.
Her er tilknytningsteoriens ’fader’ John Bowlbys teori særdeles indflydelsesrig, og den er fast pensum på en
række professionsuddannelser.
Bowlbys idé om den unikke moder resonerer endvidere med nogle dybfølte forestillinger i tiden: det
’monotropiske’ tilknytningssyn: Den biologiske moder bør – når alt skrælles væk – være barnets første og
eneste ultimative tilknytningsfigur. Far eller andre, f.eks. bedsteforældre eller plejeforældre, må ikke
komme i vejen som tilknytningsfigurer.
Mandens rolle er derimod at være den gode, opmærksomme partner, der emotionelt og praktisk støtter
den babyopslugte moder. Men far må aldrig bryde ind i og forstyrre det sårbare mor-barn-bånd.
Et centralt argument mod en tidlig nær fader-barn-tilknytning findes i John Bowlbys evolutionstese om
’hormonel sensitivering’: Når det kommer til succesrig reproduktion af slægten, har evolutionen selekteret
således, at homo sapiens’ mænd og kvinder er blevet biologisk og psykologisk grundlæggende forskellige.
Gennem hormonelle forandringer i graviditeten bliver kvinden i særlig grad tunet ind på sit kommende
moderskab.
En mand har ikke de samme hormonelle niveauer. Derfor bliver hans omsorgsinstinkt langt mindre stærkt
og mindre konsekvent udløst af barnet end den biologiske moders instinkt.
Mænd har nemlig to afgørende biologiske og evolutionære handikap: De har ikke været igennem en
graviditet, hvor kvindekroppens hormonologi sensitiverer til det kommende barn. De kan ikke amme og
dermed heller ikke producere den børnesensitiverende laktose.
Løbet er kørt for faderen, da hormonel sensitivering ikke kan ske, når barnet er født – altså ifølge det
monotropiske tilknytningssyn. Købes det argument, står vi med en både naturgiven kønsrolledikotomi og
en modercentrisme.
Det handler om en urokkelig evolutionær arv: Dybt nede i enhver moderne kvinde findes den oprindelige
’stammoder’. Faderen er derimod rangeret ud som tidlig og nær tilknytningsfigur. Hvorfor så give længere
barsel til en sådan inferiør mand? Lad dog familien vælge selv, og send ham på arbejde.
Men at kun moderen hormonelt bliver tunet tidligt ind på sit barn, er nu grundigt blevet skudt ned af en
række undersøgelser. Revolutionerende biopsykologisk forskning i fædres hormonologi har helt
undermineret det modercentriske evolutionsargument.
Evolutionen har faktisk positivt selekteret for en ’homo pater’; dvs. en potentielt omsorgskompetent nær
faderfigur. I aktive involverede fædre stiger nemlig laktose-, prolaktin-, oxytocin- og østrogen-niveauerne
markant. De involverede processer herimellem er på forskellige måder relateret til både omsorgsevne og
sensitivitet over for nyfødte og spædbørn. Niveauerne når endog samme højder i fædre som i biologiske
mødre.
Sagt i al korthed handler det om, at evolutionen tilsyneladende ikke kun har sensitiveret kvinder hormonelt
til moderskabet, men også mænd til faderskabet.
Det er viden, der kan virke temmelig forstyrrende på kønsrolleopfattelsen af ’rigtig’ mandighed og
maskulinitet. Men er det kun den gravide og ammende kvinde, der har ret til at have sine
hormonforandringer? Og bliver nogle mænd ligefrem angstprovokeret af, at de også får dem som fædre?
Evolutionen er dog helt ignorant over for følelsesbelagte argumenter.
At kun moderen hormonelt bliver tunet tidligt ind på sit barn, er nu grundigt blevet skudt ned af en række
undersøgelser
Homo sapiens’ reproduktive succes gennem dens omskiftelige og farefulde forhistorie stiger mere end 60
procent, når barnet har mere en kun én kvalificeret forælder.
Forskning har nu også påvist et markant højere prolaktinniveau i fædre sammenlignet med i ikke-fædre.
Prolaktin kaldes populært omsorgshormonet, da det sensitiverer opmærksomheden og fintuner samspillet
med babyer.
Bemærk ordet ’sensitiverer’. Der står ikke: ’determinerer’ fædres opmærksomhed eller adfærd. Mennesket
er på ingen måde en robot, styret af sine hormoner. Men de kan, ifølge den biopsykologiske forskning,
påvirke, hvad mænd er opmærksomme på i deres nære personomgivelser. Desuden stiger mænds
prolaktinniveau efter barnets fødsel, og det er allerhøjest, når barnet er helt spædt.
Hos de fædre, som er mest kompetente til at dæmpe barnets gråd, ses det højeste prolaktinniveau. Et
forhøjet prolaktin- og oxytocinniveau sensitiverer manden som far og gør ham særlig opmærksom på sit
barns signaler. Det er netop et vigtigt kriterium for tilknytningsfigurens omsorgsevne.
Man har også sammenlignet moderens og faderens oxytocinniveauer. Måske er hendes trods alt højere?
Nej, de to forældres oxytocinniveauer er helt ens. Selv om oxytocinudskillelse finder sted ved fødsel og
amning, er der ingen forskel på moderens og faderens oxytocinkoncentrationer. Det underminerer igen den
montropiske evolutionært baserede idé, at kun en moder er spædbarnets første og eneste omsorgskyndige
tilknytningsfigur.
Ifølge nyere antropologisk forskning er det monotropiske standpunkt endog en myte, helt uden historisk
opbakning: ’Alloparenting’ - dvs. flere omsorgsfigurers pasning af barnet – har faktisk været mest udbredt
gennem menneskehedens historie.
Det eksklusive moder-barn-forhold udgør således en både evolutionær og historisk undtagelse
Det eksklusive moder-barn-forhold udgør således en både evolutionær og historisk undtagelse. Der er f.eks.
også kastet et kritisk blik på den evolutionsidé, at den ældre kvinde uden for den reproduktive alder er
funktionelt unyttig og dermed en cost-benefit-beregnet udgift i forhistoriske epoker.
Men arkæologien har nu indrulleret bedsteforældre som en medforklaring på homo sapiens’ store
reproduktive succes.
Det samme gælder fædre i den klassiske evolutionslære om jæger-samler-kulturer. Dvs. i den forhistoriske
epoke, hvor vores genetiske sammensætning blev grundlagt.
Men nu er periodens kvinde- og manderoller blevet genfortolket: ’Manden-som-kun-jæger’ er kun delvist
korrekt.
Jagten på vildtet var så usikker, at kvinden som den ’sikre samler’ i høj grad bidrog til overlevelsen. Jægeren
befandt sig derfor ofte på bopladsen i umiddelbar nærhed af børnene. I dag finder vi et jæger-samler-
samfund, der ligner:
Enestående observationer af aka-jæger-samler-folket i Afrika viser, at faderen er særdeles involveret i den
primære omsorg. Når moderen ofte er ude at samle, er spædbarnet mindre end en armslængde fra
faderen. Med andre ord har en typisk aka-far årelang ’orlov’ sammen med sine børn, helt fra de er ganske
små.
For aka-folket vil danske fædres langt mere sporadiske kontakt med deres børn være helt uforståelig – ja,
ligefrem unaturlig.
Aka-fædrene sidder oftest med barnet tæt på kroppen og monitorerer dets behov – dæmper eksempelvis
gråd og uro ved at synge, vugge og holde om det. Når de bliver større, bliver kontakten mere legende og
udforskende.
En sådan faderinvolvering kan ikke undgå at få positive konsekvenser for det nære følelsesmæssige bånd
mellem far og barn. Aka-børnene med deres i vores øjne ’unormalt’ tætte og langvarige faderkontakt
vokser op og bliver fuldstændig velfungerende voksne i landsbyen. Den hormonale sensitivering finder da
også sted i den maskuline og veltrænede aka-jæger, som den gør i den danske håndværker, som er aktiv
far.
Så der er rigelig forskning, som underminerer ideen om, at hormonel sensitivering kun sker i en moder, og
at hun er den eneste ene for spædbarnet.
Homo sapiens’ evolution har derfor ikke kun udviklet en ’stammoder’, men også en ’homo pater’. Men der
er mere interessant viden om evolutionens skabelse af den nære, kompetente far: F.eks. falder aktive
fædres testosteronniveau, hvilket dæmper konkurrencelyst, utålmodighed og irritation.
Testosteronniveauet er særlig højt, når manden er involveret i den ’kurtiserende’ partnerorienterede fase,
men falder, når han er sammen med sit spæde barn. Faldet gør dog ikke manden mere feminin.
Testosteronniveauet fluktuerer nemlig, som på et termometer: Er far til konkurrencesport eller i
træningscenteret, er niveauet højt. Når han så er den nære far hjemme, falder det igen.
Far-barn-tilknytningen er unik, da den ikke kun skabes i den stille omsorg, men også gennem fysisk robust
legeaktivitet
Evolutionen har altså sørget for, at mænd, der selv indleder fysisk kontakt med deres nyfødte barn, straks
påvirker deres indre hormonelle termometer.
Med andre ord kan fædre via bevidst målrettet handling aktivt skabe deres egen hormonologi. Dermed
sensitiverer de sig selv som en begyndende kompetent fader. Hvis de altså vil.
Resultaterne viser nemlig, at de endokrine hormonstigninger, som sensitiverer fædre til kompetent
omsorg, ikke som hos moderen starter indefra. Det skabes kun ’by doing’, dvs. i aktiviteten med et barn.
Det er således ikke noget, man kan vente på bare sker.
Empiri viser endvidere: Jo tidligere et far-barn-tilknytningsforhold opbygges, og jo længere det varer, desto
bedre tilknytningssikkerhed opnår barnet. Og desto bedre livslangt forhold får de til hinanden.
Men mor rangeres ikke ud på sidesporet: Selv ganske spæde børn er i stand til at knytte sig nært til flere,
der vil drage kvalificeret omsorg for dem. Flerpersonstilknytninger er i dag faktuelt det typiske mønster for
dagens spædbørn. Ellers ville den udbredte såkaldte alloparenting jo heller ikke have været mulig i
menneskehedens farefulde historie.
Fædre kan således – sammen med mødre – blive barnets nære, tillidsfulde og sikre tilknytningsbase.
Forskningen viser imidlertid, at fædres samværsform med deres børn er ret speciel.
Fædres hormonelle ændringer med fald i testosteron og stigning i prolaktin og oxytocin ses nemlig ikke kun
i sikker-base-rolige omsorgssituationer. En undersøgelse foretaget ved barnets seksmåneders alder påviser
højere niveauer af faderlig oxytocin i legende, stimulerende adfærd (rough and tumble play), som omfatter
både aktiv berøring og leg med legetøj.
Det åbner for en ny antagelse: Far-barn-tilknytningen er unik, da den ikke kun skabes i den stille omsorg,
men også gennem fysisk robust legeaktivitet. Den støttes af, at fædrene med de højeste prolaktin- og
oxytocin-baselines er allermest involveret i legende udforskende samvær med barnet.
Kan trangen til denne lystprægede legende aktivitet hos mænd/fædre forklares (delvist) ved et
belønningssystem i hjernen?
Ja, oxytocin stimulerer nemlig udskillelsen af belønningsstoffet dopamin og fremkalder en slags
’lykketilstand’.
Der udløses således mest dopamin i faderen, når han indgår i oxytocinstimulerende leg og aktivitet med
barnet. Men hvad sker der i barnet?
Man må formode, at barnets lyst til samvær med sin far også stimuleres, idet dets dopaminerge
belønningssystem ligeledes aktiveres. Lad mig give et eksempel på denne type aktivitet: I den vilde leg
kastes barnet op i luften for dernæst at suse ned i fars favn under larm og latter i genforeningen. Barnets
glade hvin, opspærrede øjne og basken med arme og ben opfordrer til gentagelse, hvilket aktiverer
faderens belønningssystem.
Den særlige tilknytning mellem far og barn opstår således i en positiv synkroni, som påvirker og påvirkes af
både fars og barns hormonelle belønningssystemer.
At ’homo pater’, evolutionens nære kompetente fader, også eksisterer i dag, er ligeledes påvist i en række
observationsstudier.
De konkluderer: 1) Involverede fædre er lige så kompetente som mødre til at drage omsorg for spædbørn.
2) Spædbørn knytter sig lige så nært til deres omsorgsfulde far som til deres moder. Men ikke til den
fraværende far. 3) Aktive involverede fædre spiller en fundamental rolle for spædbarnets udvikling. 4) Børn
med mere end kun én nær og tryg tilknytning udvikles bedre.
Vi har nu set, hvordan nøgtern empirisk evidens har forkastet centrale, afgørende argumenter bag en
biologisk/evolutionær kønsdikotomi om mødre og fædre. Er der noget bedre argument for tidlig og
forlænget barselsorlov til fædre? Vel at mærke en orlov, der ikke skal tages fra moderen.
Kilde: Kronik, Politiken 27. januar 2021
Kontakt, Dion Sommer: https://pure.au.dk/portal/da/persons/dion-sommer(73370902-c0fe-4068-
a330-7f24da7bfaa7).html
Tilknyttet Aarhus Universitet, Psykologisk Institut
Særlige interesseområder:
Ny international børneforskning med henblik på konsekvenser for traditionelle børnepsykologiske teorier.
Fødsel- og familiedannelse.
Familie- og daginstitutionsforskning, dansk såvel som internationalt. Legeteorier. Senmoderne faderskab.
Socialpolitik inden for børneområdet: Danmark, Norden og EU. Anvendte aspekter af børneforskning.
Bilag 11
Myter (woozles) i og omkring det familieretslige system
A:
“Stemming the Tide of Misinformation: International Consensus on Shared Parenting and Overnighting”
Af Richard A. Warshak, Ph.D
Gennemgang og analyser af mere end fire årtiers forskning udmøntede sig i 2016 i en peer-reviewet
konsensusrapport om samværsordninger for mindre børn. Som forventet udløste rapporten en bølge af
misinformation, der truede med at genoplive myter om børns udvikling og forankre dem i professionel
praksis og familieret. Listen over de 110 forskere, der har gennemgået og godkendt konsensusrapporten og
deres professionelle erfaringer afspejler den udbredte accept af konsensusrapportens konklusioner, der
favoriserer delt forældreskab og overnatning for små børn under normale omstændigheder. Seks år efter
dens offentliggørelse forbliver konklusionerne og anbefalingerne fra Warshak-konsensusrapporten støttet
af videnskaben."
Link: https://www.ft.dk/samling/20151/almdel/SOU/bilag/273/1628385.pdf
Tilgået Social- og Indenrigsudvalget 2015-16
SOU Alm.del Bilag 273
B:
“Woozles: Their Role in Custody Law Reform, Parenting Plans, and Family Court”
Analyse ved professor Dr. Linda Nielsen, Wake Forest University (Professor, Educational Psychology)
Profil: https://education.wfu.edu/about-the-department/faculty-and-staff-profiles/dr-linda-nielsen/
Liste over publikationer: https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Linda-Nielsen-2002738038
Materiale kan rekvireres ved direkte henvendelse til professor Dr. Linda Nielsen
Analysen er vist i sin helhed, for derigennem at eksemplificere hvorledes myter bliver til og de negative
langtidseffekter de kan afstedkomme.
Analyse i sin helhed:
(A ‘woozle is similar to a ‘factoid’ in that only at its hearts does the grain of truth lie – but as
we shall see from the explanation displayed below, it is also similar to a ‘red herring’,
however, the consequences of woozles are arguably even graver).
“Woozles: Their Role in Custody Law Reform, Parenting Plans, and Family Court”
by Prof. Linda Nielsen, Wake Forest University, NC, USA
Dr. Linda Nielsen is Professor of Adolescent & Educational Psychology and author of “Father-
Daughter Relationships: Contemporary Research & Issues” (Routledge, 2012). She can be
contacted at Wake Forest University, North Carolina. www.wfu.edu/~nielsen and emailed
at: Nielsen@wfu.edu
Online First Publication, February 10, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/law0000004
In the international debates on custody law reform and in individual custody decisions in
families and in courts worldwide, social science research is often misused and abused. In this
article I describe the process by which data can become distorted in ways that steer
policymakers, family court personnel, and parents off course in regard to child custody
decisions. I illustrate this process with a recent study that has garnered international
attention and influence.
Keywords: shared custody, joint custody, parenting plans, overnighting (sleepovers).
One of the most complex and controversial issues confronting the family court system,
divorcing parents, and legislative bodies is: When parents separate, what is best for children
in terms of how much time they should live with each parent? When do children benefit
most from living primarily with one parent or from living with two parents more equally?
Under what circumstances is spending frequent overnight time in their father’s care not
beneficial for children, especially for infants and preschoolers? Given the wide range of
circumstances that can affect family dynamics and children’s well-being, how can it be
determined which overnight parenting plans are best for children? At the legislative level the
question becomes: How should custody laws be revised to better meet the needs of children
in contemporary families?
The debates over questions such as these become especially controversial and heated when
the children involved are infants or children under the age of 5 years. Decisions on these
policy issues can benefit from social science research, if the research is methodologically
sound and properly applied.
The purpose of this article is not to advocate for any particular parenting plan or to present
the research on shared parenting custody controversies. Rather it is to describe the way in
which social science data can be used to steer policymakers, family court personnel, and
parents off course in regard to parenting plans and custody law reform—and to illustrate this
process with a recent study that has garnered international attention in regard to parenting
plans for infants and other children 4-years-old and younger.
The aim is to answer two questions: How can social science data be used to “woozle” us into
believing things that are not true or that are only partially true? Is there any study that
illustrates the process and the impact of woozling with regard to parenting plans or custody
law reform for infants and pre-schoolers ?
What Is a Woozle?
Nearly 30 years ago, Richard Gelles (1980) popularized the concept of the “woozle effect.” A
sociologist whose area of expertise was the research on domestic violence, Gelles (1980) was
concerned about how this research was frequently misrepresented and misused by advocacy
groups for their own political purposes. In particular, he was troubled because only those
studies that supported a particular advocacy position – many of which were seriously flawed
– were being presented as “the” research evidence, while those studies refuting the position
were being ignored. As a consequence, many false beliefs about domestic violence were
perpetuated – beliefs Gelles (1980) referred to as woozles.
Gelles, along with Beverly Houghton who originally coined the term woozle effect
(Houghton, 1979), compared these distortions and manipulations of the data to the
children’s story, Winnie the Pooh (Milne, 1926). In the story Winnie the Pooh dupes himself
and his friends into believing that they are being followed by a scary beast—a beast he calls a
woozle. Although they never see the woozle, they convince themselves it exists because they
see its footprints next to theirs as they walk in circles around a tree. The footprints are, of
course, their own. But Pooh and his friends are confident that they are onto something really
big.
In fact, their foolhardy actions are based on faulty “data—a woozle (Gelles, 1980). More
recently, Gelles (2007) described the process of woozling as “the use, abuse and misuse” of
social science research. As defined by Gelles (1980), a woozle is a belief or a claim that is not
supported—or is only partially or tentatively supported – by the empirical evidence. But
because the claim has been repeatedly cited and presented in misleading ways, the public
and policymakers come to believe it. As a result, data that are not accurate or that are only
partially accurate come to be accepted as the “scientific evidence” on that particular topic.
Put differently, a woozle is a definitive statement based on data that are very limited,
flawed, ambiguous, or erroneous. Through a number of different “woozling” techniques,
these flawed, scanty, or inaccurate data become magnified and widely disseminated,
overshadowing data that would challenge it. Certain aspects of the woozle might be partially
true in that some findings in a few studies can be interpreted in ways that lend some support
to portions of the woozle. That is, there might be a small grain of truth buried in a bushel of
untruths – which is one reason why woozles are so hard to challenge.
Often a woozle also has an inherent appeal to people’s prevailing beliefs or to their personal
feelings about a particular topic, which also makes it difficult to dismantle the woozle.
Eventually the processes that have promoted the woozle are successful enough that the
flawed, limited, or exaggerated data come to have an impact on public opinion and public
policy.
As Winnie the Pooh and his friends who are led astray by their own footprints, we are led
astray by the questionable, limited, or contradictory evidence underlying the woozle.
Describing the woozling process in the field of physics in his book, Voodoo Science, Park
(2000) puts it simply: we have been bamboozled. The woozle itself arises from a pattern of
events and circumstances, not from any single factor. According to Gelles (1980), one of the
most important factors was frequently citing one or two studies in different publications,
even when those particular studies were methodologically flawed and drew questionable
conclusions. But, as will be described shortly, other researchers have described many paths
through which the data from one or two studies can be manipulated, misperceived, and
mishandled in ways that create woozles.
A Famous Divorce Woozle
In the social sciences one of the most well-known examples of a woozle arose from a single
study by the sociologist, Lenore Weitzman (1985), which was widely disseminated in her
bestselling book, The Divorce Revolution: The Unexpected Social and Economic
Consequences for Women and America.
The woozle was this: Weitzman claimed that most American women suffer a 73% decline in
their standard of living after a divorce, while their ex-husbands enjoy a 42% increase. The
ground was fertile for the growth of this particular woozle because Weitzman’s book was
published at a time when the public was worried about the rising divorce rates and about the
possible negative impact that the new and controversial “no-fault” divorce laws might have
on women.
Although her conclusion was based solely on her one study with 228 people from Los
Angeles, and although her data were at odds with the prevailing social science research and
government statistics, her message “went viral” as we would say today. In part the study was
widely accepted because it confirmed what many people already believed: Most men exploit
their ex-wives financially. For more than a decade, the study maintained its popularity and its
influence.
The book was reviewed in at least 22 social science journals, 12 law reviews, and 10 national
magazines—and was cited over 25 times in national magazines, in at least 24 legal cases in
state appellate and supreme courts and once in the U.S. Supreme Court. It received the
American Sociological Association’s 1986 Book Award. From 1986 to 1993, the book was
cited in 348 social science articles and in more than 250 law review articles as evidence that
divorce laws needed to be changed because they discriminated against women financially
(Sommers, 1994).
Some scholars immediately began to question Weitzman’s (1985) conclusions and asked her
to provide the raw data for replication. It took more than a decade for Weitzman to admit
that her conclusions had been wrong. Researchers who tried to reconstruct her database
found that women’s standards of living declined by 27% (not 73%) and that men’s increased
by 10% (not 42%; Peterson, 1996a; Peterson, 1996b; Weitzman, 1996). Keep in mind that
the defining hallmark of a woozle is not whether the authors of the original study made
errors in analyzing their data or whether they misrepresented their data.
The Weitzman study exemplifies a woozle because seriously flawed data from a single study
became an international sensation and had a widespread impact on divorce laws and on
public opinion. It is the process by which Weitzman’s limited and flawed data became so
widely accepted and so influential that characterizes this study as one of the more infamous
examples of a woozle in social science. Keeping the Weitzman (1985) woozle in mind, the
question is whether something similar might be occurring in regard to the current debates
over custody law reform and parenting plans for children under the age of 5 years. Among
others, Johnston (2007) noted that family law is an area in which woozling might be
especially likely to occur:
“Distortions and misuses of social science data in family law matters derive partly from the
political nature of the issues and from gender wars” (p. 16).
How Are Woozles Born and Raised?
Before illustrating how one particular woozle has arisen in regard to child custody, we have
to be able to recognize the manyways in which woozling occurs. How do studies become
part of a woozle ? How do data from a study get misrepresented into something that barely
resembles the researchers’ original findings? As we will see, no one person or no one event
can be held accountable for creating or for promoting a woozle.
The process involves a constellation of factors, interacting with one another in ways that
often are unpredictable and unforeseen. As described below, academicians have expanded
on Gelles (1980) original ideas about how woozles are created – describing numerous ways
in which data become distorted into woozles. Many are beyond the control of the authors of
the original study, whereas others clearly involve their intentional or unintentional
participation.
Evidence by Citation
According to Gelles’s (1980) original description of woozles, they often began when one or
two studies are frequently and repeatedly cited in articles or at conferences and seminars –
while the bulk of the research is ignored or rarely mentioned. The more frequently the study
is cited, the more credible it becomes. In other words, people naively assume that just
because a particular study is being widely cited and discussed, its conclusions are valid and
reliable. Gelles (1980) referred to this process as “evidence by citation.”
Misrepresenting Other Researchers’ Data
Woozles also are linked to professionals’ discussing and writing about a study’s findings
without ever having read it—or having read only a synopsis or an abstract. In this way, the
data become misrepresented and studies are cited in support of positions that are directly
opposite to their conclusions. The sociologist Johnston (2007) called these
misrepresentations “scholarly rumors” – erroneous beliefs that arise when scholars
misquote data from a study and then quote one another without checking back to the
original source. For instance, the authors of the original study may have stated clearly that
their data were not statistically significant and that their conclusions were speculative and
inconclusive. But the data can end up being reported as unequivocal and significant. Another
way of misrepresenting data is to report several studies as having reached similar
conclusions, when in fact they did not. This buttresses the findings of a single study by
creating the impression that there is an emerging consensus, a pattern, or a trend, when
there is not.
Cherry Picking
Moreover, writers or speakers may choose to report only a few studies or only some of the
findings from a particular study – a bias referred to as “cherry picking” (Johnston, 2007). For
example, articles claiming to be reviews of the literature may report very little of the existing
data, choosing only to report those studies that support one view. Johnston (2007) also
noted another version of cherry picking: Researchers’ acknowledging the limitations of their
own study when writing in professional journals or speaking to other researchers— but not
when discussing their study with the media or with audiences where other researchers are
not there to challenge them. In other words, the researchers take a far more moderate
position in the presence of scholars who are knowledgeable on the topic than they do with
audiences who are more naïve and more easily misled. By cherry picking, only those studies
or only those interpretations of ambiguous and contradictory data that support the woozle
are presented.
The White Hat Bias
Another version of cherry picking is the “white hat bias” – a phrase coined by public health
researchers Cope and Allison (Cope & Allison, 2010) to describe the bias in reporting the data
on soft drinks and obesity. As with the ‘good guys’ wearing the white hats in the cowboy
movies, well-intentioned authors can be biased in reporting the research because they are
trying to achieve a “righteous end.” For example, in their meta-analysis, Cope and Allison
found that the impact of consuming sugared drinks was far smaller than reported in the
academic literature on obesity. Attributing this error to the white hat bias, Cope and Allison
urged authors to be more humble and urged journals to set higher standards when reporting
the research literature.
Confirmation Bias
A woozle also is more likely to arise and to spread when it confirms beliefs that people
already hold—an effect known as “confirmation bias” (Chabris & Simons, 2010). We are
overly critical and dismissive of data that contradict our existing beliefs and are too willing to
accept data that confirm them. Confirmation bias might be especially relevant in research
related to child custody because most people have strong beliefs and feelings related to
gender roles and parenting. For example, people may believe that females have a maternal
instinct that makes them better suited than males to raising children. This belief, in turn,
would tend to make them more receptive to believing research studies – or woozles – that
confirm that particular belief.
Researchers’ Contributions to Woozling Their Data
Researchers themselves can also inadvertently— or in some cases intentionally— contribute
to the woozling of their data. For example, when presenting their findings, researchers might
not report the data that contradicted their hypothesis. Or the researchers might exaggerate
the significance of their data, present their findings in ways that are misleading, put
disproportionate emphasis on some of their findings while ignoring others, or make policy
recommendations that overreach their findings.
They might also frame their research questions and interpret their data to support the
desired conclusions or from only one theoretical position. Researchers also might create
their own measures, use unorthodox or invalid procedures, or rely on abridged versions of
standardized scales that have no established validity or reliability. As a consequence, data
that are uninterpretable or ambiguous are presented as if they are valid and reliable.
Researchers also might minimize or ignore, rather than acknowledge and address, the
ambiguous or contradictory data in their study.
Or they might generalize their findings to populations that have little in common with the
sample in their study. Finally, researchers might mislead people to believe that their study
was based on large numbers of people when in fact it was not. For example, they can inflate
the numbers by alluding to the total number of people in the large database from which
their data were taken, diverting attention away from the fact that the actual samples in their
study were much smaller.
Researchers may also contribute to the woozling of their own data by trying to silence or to
demean their critics. One technique is to claim they are being unfairly “picked on” by their
peers, or that other scholars are “conspiring” against them or trying to “polarize” people
(Park, 2000).
Another technique is to try to discredit critics by attacking their character—for example,
accusing them of being fathers’ rights activists or feminists (Johnston, 2007). Another way to
discredit critics is to present oneself as the “protector” of or the “spokesperson” for the
disadvantaged, the victimized, or the weak. For example, in regard to custody issues, some
researchers might claim that they are the ones who are speaking on behalf of the children
and who are putting the children’s needs first—implying that those researchers who do not
share their point of view are not equally concerned about the children and are foolishly
putting the parents’ needs and wishes ahead of the children’s needs.
The sociologist, Joel Best, wrote extensively about the misuse of statistics and research that
is part of the woozling process (Best, 2001, 2008, 2013). In regard to researchers’ biases, he
explained (Best, 2001) that we mistakenly assume that research data:
” . . . simply exist, like rocks, completely independent of people; and that people gather
statistics much as rock collectors pick up stones. This is wrong. All statistics are created
through people’s actions: people have to decide what to count and how to count it. People
have to do the counting and have to interpret the results and to decide what the numbers
mean.” (p. 27)
Given this, Best (2001) suggested we ask ourselves: Is the author of this study someone who
has any stake in its outcomes? In a similar vein, researchers may inadvertently contribute to
the woozling of their data through the media. For example, Park (2000) noted that physicists
sometimes contributed to distortions of their data by presenting their findings directly to the
media and by using dramatic anecdotal stories to make their data more memorable.
It is ironic that academicians may inadvertently contribute to other researchers’ woozles by
not being engaged enough with the media. Lilienfeld (2012) who wrote extensively on how
flawed social science data contributed to popular myths, pointed out that most university
researchers were reluctant to devote their time to disseminating data through the media,
even though doing so would help to combat the most flawed data that tended to attract the
most media attention.
Not only do most universities not reward this type of public service, disseminating research
through the media is often frowned on by academicians. The unfortunate result is that the
media end up having to rely on data from people who are not full-time university
researchers which, in turn, can contribute to woozles (Lilienfeld, 2012).
Compelling Stories, Confidence, and Credentials
Both Best (2001) and Kahneman (2011), also remind us that how the data were presented
can contribute to distortions. For example, when a study is presented along with compelling,
personal stories, we are more likely to remember it, to repeat it, and to believe it.
These anecdotal stories or dramatic case studies are often exaggerated and generally not
representative of the problem at hand (Best, 2001). Having aroused people’s emotions,
these techniques increase the odds that the data will be more widely disseminated and, in
too many cases, more widely woozled (Kahneman, 2011). For example, an actress who
repeatedly claimed on TV that her child had become autistic after being vaccinated was cited
by some parents as the reason for not vaccinating their children, despite the fact that the
scientific literature shows no connection between autism and vaccinations (Chabris &
Simons, 2010).
The use of dramatic anecdotes or emotionally laden personal stories is a well-known
technique in the art of persuasion, often used by politicians, for example. Unfortunately
anecdotal stories and case studies can contribute to people’s misunderstandings of the data,
especially if the data are related to controversial issues such as child custody. Case studies
and anecdotes also make it easier for advocacy groups to misuse data to suit their own
agenda.
Given this, researchers can reduce the odds of their data being woozled by presenting case
studies or anecdotes only within the context of empirical data—and by steering clear of
dramatic stories that might convey an unbalanced view of unresolved issues or ambiguous
data.
Cognitive psychologists also have demonstrated that we are more likely to believe data
presented by a confident or a well-known person (Chabris & Simons, 2010). For example, we
find data more credible coming from people with important sounding titles or prestigious
institutional affiliations: “Dr. X, executive director of the prestigious Y institute and one of
the world’s experts on . . . explains that . . .” (Johnston, 2007, p. 18).
Simple Explanations and Neuroscience
We are also more likely to accept data that offer relatively simple explanations for
complicated questions (Kahneman, 2011).
Our preference for simplicity may be one of the reasons why it has become increasingly
popular to cite neuroscience data to buttress the findings of social science studies (Lilienfeld,
2012).
As Lilienfeld (2012) explained, neuroscience data are appealing because they tend to be
relatively simple and because we assume they are more objective and more “scientific” than
social science data. For example, experimental subjects were more likely to accept the
findings of a social science study as true when the words “brain scans indicate” or other
phrases from neuroscience were included in the description.
Even when the interpretations of the data were illogical, and even though there was no
demonstrated link between the behavior under study and the neurological data, the subjects
were more willing to accept the results of the social science study (Weisberg, 2008). This
finding alerts us to the possibility that when social scientists invoke neuroscience data in
support of their study’s findings, their data might garner more credibility than it actually
warrants—and might consequently be more easily incorporated into an existing woozle.
Policy Recommendations and Organizations’ Guidelines
The final hallmark of a woozle is that the limited, ambiguous, or flawed data that underlie it
become the basis for public policies and guidelines for professional organizations. In a recent
American Psychologist article (Rosik, Jones, & Byrd, 2012), the authors pointed out that
accuracy and precision in reporting data are of utmost importance when those findings are
being used to write guidelines or to make pronouncements that affect practitioners.
No organization’s guidelines or policy recommendations should be based on only a few
studies or issued in the absence of conclusive evidence. When policies or guidelines are
based on only a few studies, we have reason to suspect that woozling may be at work.
Characteristics of Woozles
To summarize, many scholars in the social sciences and in other disciplines have written
extensively about the ways in which data can become distorted into woozles. Among the
most common processes that have been discussed by these scholars are the following:
▪ In articles and in seminars a few studies are cherry-picked to support one position.
▪ Two or three studies are repeatedly cited and discussed as “the research” on a topic.
▪ Reviews of the research, especially those making policy recommendations, are based
primarily on the same few studies, ignoring the bulk of the research.
▪ The data are often presented in dramatic ways with anecdotal stories, case studies,
or emotionally laden pictures and graphics.
▪ The significance of the findings are overstated while the limitations are understated.
▪ Data from small or non-representative samples are generalized to the general
population.
▪ Only one theoretical perspective is used to frame the question and interpret the
data.
▪ The data are based on measures with no established reliability or validity.
▪ Media reports, synopses, abstracts, or press releases overstate or misrepresent the
actual data in the study.
▪ Data that are not statistically significant or that are contradictory and ambiguous are
reported as important.
▪ The authors promote their own study as a basis for a particular position without
putting their data in the context of the larger body of evidence.
▪ Studies are presented together as if they reached the same conclusion, when in fact
they did not.
Woozles Versus Data: How to Convince Winnie There Is No Woozle
In regard to the current debates over custody law reform and parenting plans, the woozle
we are going to examine is this: Infants and children 4 years and younger who spend
overnight time in their fathers’ care are more irritable, more severely distressed and
insecure in their relationships with their mothers, more poorly behaved with their peers,
more stressed and thus more likely to wheeze, more easily distracted (less persistent), and
more likely to have trouble regulating their emotions. In short, overnighting has a
deleterious impact on infants and other children under the age of 4 years.
This particular woozle attracts the attention of the public, policymakers, and family court
professionals for at least two reasons.
First it relates to two controversial custody questions: How much time should infants and
preschoolers spend with each parent after their separation? Do children this young need to
sleep in the same home every night and, if not, how many nights should they spend in each
parent’s care? More specific, at what age are shared parenting plans (35%–50% time with
each parent) appropriate for children?
Second, this woozle arouses many people’s emotions because it affirms a belief that some
people hold dear, but that others find insulting, outdated, and irrational: the belief that
women are better suited than men to raise children— especially infants and toddlers. While
the woozle appeals to people who believe females have a maternal instinct or neurological
structures in their brains that better equip them to bond and communicate with infants, it
offends people who believe that men and women are equally capable of parenting their
children, including their infants.
The woozle is related to two separate custody issues: overnighting and shared parenting. The
term overnighting is typically used only when referring to infants and to preschool children.
Overnighting literally means how many nights these very young children spend away from
their mother in their father’s care.
When the number of nights that children (of any age) spend with their fathers exceeds 30%,
the parenting plan is generally referred to as “shared parenting,” “shared care,” or “shared
residence.” In older studies shared parenting plans were referred to as joint or shared
physical custody. In contrast, the terms primary care or sole custody are used
interchangeably when children live primarily – or exclusively – with their mother and spend
less than 30% of the time with their father.
Typically primary care/sole custody parenting plans allot only two weekends a month (4–6
overnights) and one midweek visit of a few hours to the father, for a total of roughly 20% of
the parenting time. Unlike these social science definitions, the legal definitions of shared
care/shared parenting/shared physical custody that are used to determine child support
payment vary from country to country and from state to state.
To determine whether this statement is a woozle and, if it is, to challenge it, we have to
know the results of the other studies that have gathered data about children under the age
of 5 years whose parenting plans involved overnighting. We also need a description of the
samples to know which findings are applicable to the general population of divorced parents
and which are not.
There are currently 31 studies that have compared the ‘outcomes’ of children who live in
shared parenting families (30% – 50% of the time) to children who live with their mother and
spend varying amounts of overnight time with their father. Only eight of these 31 studies
have included infants and children under the age of 6 years.
Of those nine, only four focused exclusively on infants and children under the age of 5 years.
More detailed discussions of most of these studies are available elsewhere (Lamb, 2012a;
Pruett, Cowan, Cowan, & Diamond, 2012). But a brief summary shows how little support
these nine studies lend to the woozle that spending overnight time in their fathers’ care has
a deleterious impact on infants and toddlers.
The studies are presented in three distinct groups: all formerly married parents, largely
formerly married parents, and rarely formerly married. There are likely to be significant
differences between these three groups in terms of socioeconomic variables, age, ethnicity,
longevity of their relationship, and factors such as incarceration, poverty, and parenting skills
that are generally associated with poor outcomes for children.
For these reasons, overlooking or minimizing these differences in the research studies can
contribute to inappropriate custody decisions and to misguided recommendations regarding
custody law reform. Data from studies with high numbers of never married parents,
especially when many of them were not even living together when their child was born,
should not be applied to formerly married parents who were raising their child together
before their separation.
The Formerly Married
Three of the eight studies only included parents who had formerly been married, meaning
these data are the most applicable to divorced parents. The first study compared 58 children
who lived with their mother and 35 who lived at least 35% time with their father, with half of
them being 4-years-old or younger (Kline, Tschann, Johnston, & Wallerstein, 1989).
One to 2 years after their parents’ separation, there were no differences in social or behavior
adjustment between the two groups. The frequent overnighters, however, had better
relationships with their fathers and were better adjusted emotionally.
The second study, the Stanford Custody Project, followed children from 1,100 divorced
families in California over a period of 4 years (Maccoby & Mnookin, 1992). What made this
study so unique for its time was that the children in 150 of these families were overnighting
30% to 50% time with their fathers. In these families, 125 of the children were infants or
preschoolers younger than 5 years.
At the end of 4 years, the frequently overnighting children were better off than the others on
all of the standardized measures of their academic, emotional, physical, and behavioral well-
being. Three years after the parents’ divorce, only 1.6% of the frequent overnighters’ fathers
were seeing less of their children compared to 56% of the other fathers.
The third study assessed children from nearly 600 shared parenting and 600 primary care
families in Wisconsin (Melli & Brown, 2008). Roughly 40% of the children were under the age
of 5 years. Three years after their parents’ divorce, the frequently overnighting (35% – 50%
time) children had better relationships with their fathers, were happier and less depressed,
and had fewer health problems than the less frequently overnighting children.
There were no differences on measures of emotional health. Moreover, 82% of the frequent
overnighters’ fathers were spending just as much time with their children as they had 3 years
earlier, in contrast to only 55% of the other fathers.
Majority Formerly Married
In three other studies the majority, but not all, of the parents had been married before
separating. A sizable minority had separated before the child was born; and others had never
lived together at all.
The first study merits careful attention because it is so frequently and mistakenly cited as
evidence that overnighting interferes with infants’ attachments to their mothers. The
limitations of this study have been pointed out by a number of scholars (Cashmore &
Parkinson, 2011; Lamb & Kelly, 2001; Pruett et al., 2012; Warshak, 2002). Because a sizable
minority of the parents had never been married or lived together, many of the infants had
no relationship with their fathers before the overnighting began.
Moreover, all of the infants, even in the married families, had exceptionally high levels of
disorganized attachments. Then too, the overnighting infants’ parents were far more
combative, less communicative, more violent, more likely never to have lived together, and
more likely to have children from several different relationships than the parents of infants
who did not overnight.
For many reasons then, caution should be exercised before generalizing these data to
separated parents in the general population.
The researchers compared infants 12- to 20-months-old in three types of families: 52 in
intact families, 49 who never overnighted, and 44 who occasionally overnighted (Solomon &
George, 1999).
Only nine of the 44 overnighters spent more than four nights a month with their father. The
only factors assessed were how securely the infants were attached to each parent and, 1
year later, how well the toddlers performed on a challenging task with their mother in a
laboratory playroom. Compared to non-overnighters, the overnighters were no less securely
attached to their mothers:
“Neither the particular pattern of overnight visits nor the total amount of time away from
the mother predicted disorganized attachment. Insecure attachment in the overnight group
was associated with high parent conflict and low parent communication” (Solomon, 2013, p.
269).
The fact that the overnighters had more disorganized attachments than infants in married
families was attributed to the fact that their parents had so much more verbal and physical
conflict and much worse communication than the non-overnighters’ parents.
In the second part of the study 1 year later, the overnighters did as well as the non-
overnighters on the challenging task with their mothers. There was no way to determine
whether the overnighting toddlers were more distressed than the non-overnighters when
separated from their mothers because these two groups were never compared. The non-
overnighting and the intact family toddlers were combined into one group. Almost one third
(27%) of this “combined” group were upset after a second brief separation from their
mothers in the laboratory, compared to 50% of the overnighting infants.
This finding was difficult to interpret because the overnighters and nonovernighters were
not directly compared and because some overnighters had only recently begun overnighting,
while others had been overnighting for a year. Solomon and George (1999) also cautioned
that the infants’ behavior in a contrived situation in a laboratory playroom should not be
generalized to shared parenting families:
We tentatively conclude that overnight visitation schedules can disorganize the child’s
attachment strategies, but that such disorganization does not necessarily pervade or reflect
the overall quality of the mother-child relationship . . . Whereas there is now considerable
research demonstrating poor developmental outcomes for children in normative and other
kinds of high risk samples who are classified as insecure-disorganized, based on our finding,
the same prognosis should not necessarily apply to disorganized and unclassifiable children
who are participating in overnight visitation schedules. (Solomon & George, 1999, p. 258)
Even more recently Solomon (2013) reiterated the study’s original conclusions: “When
parents have open lines of communication about their infant, there is little or no reason to
be concerned about the long term developmental outcome for such children” (p. 276). In
sum, this study did not find a significant link between overnighting and difficulties in
emotional regulation or insecure attachments.
In the second study (Pruett, Ebling, & Insabella, 2004) the researchers assessed 132 children
between the ages of 2 and 6 years on several standardized measures of well-being. Most
(75%) overnighted at least once weekly, even though 25% of their parents had not been
married before separating (Pruett, Ebling, & Insabella, 2004).
For the 2- and 3-year-olds, the overnighters were no different from non-overnighters in
regard to: sleep problems, depression, anxiety, aggression, or social withdrawal. Their
fathers, but not their mothers, said the overnighting toddlers were somewhat more irritable.
For the 4- to 6-year-olds, especially for the girls, the overnighters were better off in regard to
attention problems and social withdrawal and were no different from the non-overnighters
on the other measures. It is also worth noting that having several different adults taking care
of them throughout the day had no negative impact on the infants or toddlers, but having an
inconsistent, erratic parenting schedule did—especially for the boys.
In the third study involving 7,118 separated Australian parents, only 50% had formerly been
married and 12% never lived together – meaning more caution should be exercised before
applying these findings to divorced parents (Kaspiew et al., 2009).
For children under age 4 years, there were 3,513 children overnighting less than 35% time
and 480 overnighting 35% to 50% time, 201 under the age of years, and 266 ages 3 to 4
years. The mothers reported no differences between the two groups of children on
measures of physical health or socio-emotional well-being. In contrast, the fathers of the
frequent overnighters rated their children higher on health, learning skills, and overall
progress than the other fathers. Overall the frequent overnighters had marginally better
outcomes, even after accounting for parents’ levels of violence, conflict, and education.
More important, violence between the parents had no worse impact on the frequent
overnighters than on the other children.
Never Married Parents
The last two studies are distinct because so few of the parents had been married and so
many had never lived together. The one study (McIntosh, Smyth, Kelaher, & Wells, 2010) will
be discussed in the next section because it forms the basis of the woozle.
The final study (Tornello et al., 2013) should not be generalized to divorced parents or to the
vast majority of never married parents because the data were from the Fragile Families and
Child Wellbeing database (McClanahan, 2011). All of these parents lived in the inner cities of
America’s 20 largest cities; 65% had no high school degree; 85% were African or Hispanic
American; and 60% were below the poverty level.
Slightly more than 85% were not married when their children were born. Of these, 30% were
not living together and 20% no longer had a relationship with each other when their child
was born. Before their children’s fifth birthday, 50% of these fathers and 10% of these
mothers have served time in jail (Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, 2013).
For these reasons, any study using this database should take care not to generalize the
findings to families who do not fit this unique profile—not even to other never married or
impoverished Americans.
Using the Fragile Families database, the study (Tornello et al., 2013) examined two samples
taken 2 years apart: 384 one-year olds and 608 three-year-olds who overnighted were
compared to 1,062 who did not overnight and had infrequent daytime contact with their
fathers. For the infants, occasional overnights meant anywhere from one to 51 nights a year;
and frequent meant anywhere from 51 to 256 nights. The toddlers were categorized
differently: rare overnights meant one to 12 nights a year, occasional meant 12 to 127
nights, and frequent meant 128 to 256 nights.
Consistent with the seven studies already described, there were virtually no differences
between the overnighters and non-overnighters.
On 14 regression analyses for the seven measures of well-being, only one statistically
significant difference emerged:
The children who frequently overnighted at age 3 years displayed more
positive behavior at age 5 years than the rare or no overnights groups. In
regard to children’s attachments to their mothers, based on reports from only
60% of the mothers, the 51 frequently overnighting infants had more insecure
attachments (43%) than the 219 occasional overnighters (16%) and the 364
non-overnighters (25%).
However, in contrast to the hypothesis that overnighting would be linked to insecure
attachments, the infants who never overnighted were more insecure than infants who
occasionally overnighted. The data also failed to support the attachment hypothesis for the
3-year-olds. The 60 frequent and 171 rare overnighters had virtually the same ratings (37%,
33% insecure, respectively), as did the 171 occasional and 320 non-overnighters (22%, 18%
insecure, respectively).
Even if there had been a clear pattern between overnighting and the attachment ratings,
interpreting the data would have been problematic for several reasons, some of which have
been noted in a recent critique of the study (Milar & Kruk, in press).
First and foremost, regardless of how frequently they overnighted, these infants and
toddlers did not have alarmingly high rates of insecurity compared to children from similar
backgrounds in the general population.
On the Toddler Attachment Q Sort (TAQ), which was an abbreviated version of the
standardized Attachment Q Sort (AQS; Waters & Deane, 1985), in the general population,
49% of infants and toddlers who were living in poverty, or who were African American, or
who had mothers without high school degrees were rated as insecurely attached—a number
that increased dramatically to 61% insecure attachments for children younger than 21-
months-old (Andreassen & Fletcher, 2007).
Second, 26 of the 51 infants and 45 of the 60 toddlers in the frequent overnights group were
actually living with their father 55% to 70% of the time. These children should not have been
included in an analysis of attachment because their mothers were not providing most of
their care. In that vein, many of these infants and toddlers may have been living mainly with
their fathers because their mothers had psychological, behavioral, or substance abuse
problems—the types of problems that would undermine secure attachments independent of
overnighting.
But the greater problem is that the attachment data came from the mothers’ ratings on the
TAQ. Unfortunately, in a meta-analysis of 139 studies with 13,835 children, the AQS was only
found to be valid when trained observers did the rating after observing the mother and child
interact for several hours:
“It is concluded that the observer AQS, but not the self-reportedAQS, is a valid
measure of attachment” (van IJzendoorn, Vereijken, Kranenburg, & Walraven,
2004, p. 1188).
“The convergent and discriminant validity of the self-reported AQS does not
yet warrant its use as a measure of attachment security” (van IJzendoorn et
al., 2004, p. 1206).
Waters (2013) who developed the AQS also expressed his concern over mothers’ ratings:
“I am embarrassed to say that I was surprised when most of the people who
contacted me wanted to have mothers do the sorting.”
“If you are interested in correlations, I would avoid mothers” (Waters, 2013, p.
1).
Unfortunately, because observer ratings would have been too expensive, the TAQ ratings in
the Fragile Families study had to be done by the mothers. As a result, it was not clear what
was being measured by the TAQ scores in this study.
This problem has been acknowledged by other researchers who have used the TAQ data
from the Fragile Family database (Pudasainee-Kapri & Razza, 2013). Overall then,
overnighting had one positive impact and no negative impact on the well-being of these
infants and toddlers.
In sum, the woozle finds little, if any, support in seven of these eight studies. It is also
important to note that three of the eight studies (McIntosh et al., 2010; Solomon & George,
1999; Tornello et al., 2013) were predicated on assumptions about mother–infant
attachment that many contemporary attachment researchers and recent empirical studies
do not support.
First, these three studies assume that infants form one “primary” attachment to only one of
their parents; second, that the quality (security) of this one relationship largely determines
infants’ abilities to regulate their emotions; third, that this attachment takes precedent over
the father – infant bond especially in the first year of the infant’s life; and fourth, that
overnight time away from the mother, unlike daytime separation, is particularly stressful and
undermines the security of their attachment. For these reasons, these three studies assumed
that infant–mother attachment should be a primary measure of infants’ well-being and the
central focus of parenting plans.
In fact, however, many researchers do not agree with these assumptions about attachment
largely because they are not consistent with recent empirical data (Cashmore & Parkinson,
2011; Garber, 2012; Hynan, 2012; Lamb, 2012a; Ludolph, 2012; Ludolph & Dale, 2012;
Warshak, 2012).
The woozle is further undermined by the consensus of a large group of social scientists:
“No sufficient evidence exists to support postponing the introduction of regular and frequent
involvement, including overnights, of both parents with their babies and toddlers. The
theoretical and practical considerations favoring overnights for most young children are
more compelling than concerns that overnights might jeopardize children’s development”
(Warshak, in press).
Goals and Outcomes of the Woozled Study
The woozle that overnighting causes a host of problems for infants and toddlers—notably,
undermining their secure attachments to their mothers—is largely based on one study that
has captured more of the public’s attention and exerted more influence than the seven
studies previously discussed.
The study, which will be referred to as the “preschooler study” to distinguish it from a
second study that was published in the same document, was part of a report commissioned
by the Australian Attorney General’s office (McIntosh et al., 2010).
The central question of the preschooler study was: What impact does spending overnight
time in their father’s care have on infants and other children 5-years-old and under?
(Because 95% of the non-residential parents were fathers, they will be referred as such). The
underlying policy question was: ‘Should custody laws allow or should parenting plans include
overnights for children this young?’
Again, it is important to keep in mind that these researchers approached the question of
overnighting from only one perspective: that infants form a “primary” attachment to only
one parent and later form a “secondary” attachment to their other parent.
The study was also based on the hypothesis that being separated from their mothers
overnight was especially stressful for infants, making it more difficult for them to be securely
attached to her and to regulate their emotions. “In this light our core question was whether
the frequency of overnight care was linked to emotional regulation and stress in infants and
young children” (McIntosh et al., 2010, p. 143). Although the researchers clearly stated that
they only framed their questions and only interpreted their data through this particular
“attachment lens,” the woozle fails to acknowledge this important limitation.
The data for the pre-schooler study were taken from the Longitudinal Study of Australian
Children (LSAC) database, an on-going national survey that, at that time, had collected data
on almost 10,000 children (AIFS, 2012). The pre-schooler study, however, only included the
2,052 children under the age of 5 years whose parents were separated. But because half of
these children never spent any overnight time in their father’s care and because many
overnighting children were not assessed on all of the measures, the sample sizes were often
quite small.
For example, there were as few as 14 and never more than 20 infants in the occasional
overnights group on all six measures. These small sample sizes are important because, as we
will see, the study is sometimes presented in ways that imply the data came from thousands
of overnighting children. In fact, the negative data on which the woozle is based came from
some of the smallest samples in the study.
The pre-schooler study compared three age groups: infants under 2 years, 2- to 3-year-olds,
and 4- to 5-year-olds. The three family types were:
No overnights,
Occasional overnights (1–3 nights monthly for infants and 1–9 nights for the 2- to 5-year-
olds) and shared care (4–15 nights monthly for infants and 10–15 nights for 2- to 5-year-
olds).
It is especially important to note that “shared care” (the terminology used for “shared
parenting” in this study) for the infants was not defined as 30% to 50% time, as is defined in
the literature. Because there were only 11 infants who were in their fathers’ care 35% to
50% of the time, these researchers decided to define shared care as spending as few as four
nights a month with their father.
As with the Tornello et al. (2013) study, the study focused primarily on parents who had not
been married or living together before separating – 30% of whom had never lived together.
The small number of married parents is important because, as we will see, the study is often
cited as evidence against overnighting and shared parenting for all parents – not just for
parents who have never been married or never lived together.
According to the 15 page synopsis of the 169 page report, the overall impact of overnighting
for children ages zero to 4 years – even overnighting as little as once a week—was largely
negative (McIntosh et al., 2010):
Young infants under two years of age living with a nonresident parent for only one or more
nights a week were more irritable, and were more watchful and wary of separation from
their primary caregiver than those primarily in the care of one parent. Children aged 2–3
years in shared care . . . showed significantly lower levels of persistence with routine tasks,
learning and play than children in the other two groups. Of concern, but as predicted by
attachment theory, they also showed severely distressed behaviors in their relationship with
the primary parent (often very upset, crying or hanging onto the parent and hitting, biting or
kicking) feeding related problems (gagging on food or refusing to eat) and not reacting when
hurt. Such behaviors are consistent with high levels of attachment distress . . .. Thus,
regardless of socioeconomic background, parenting or inter parental cooperation, shared
overnight care of children under four years of age had an independent and deleterious
impact on several emotional and behavioral regulation outcomes. (p. 9)
It is also important to know that there were no significant differences between the 4- and 5-
year-olds in the different overnighting groups, which is why the woozle restricts itself to
children 4 years and younger.
The preschooler study’s researchers (McIntosh et al., 2010) reinforced the study’s
conclusions with the views of the neuroscientist, Allan Schore (Schore & McIntosh, 2011),
who believes that female brains are neurologically equipped for communicating with and
forming attachments to infants. Schore further states that:
“Science suggests that one primary caregiver needs to be the constant source
of bedtime routines” (Schore & McIntosh, 2011, p. 508).
Contributions of the Study
As already noted, a study is not without merit merely because its data have become part of a
woozle. The preschooler study has made several contributions to the field. It has revived
interest in looking more carefully at how parenting plans affect children at very young ages.
It also proposed factors related to children’s well-being and parenting plans that need to be
examined in future research. Given its focus on attachment theory, it is of particular interest
to researchers in that field.
Because the frequency of overnighting was considered, more detailed information could be
gathered about the linear effects of overnighting. Moreover, the researchers focused mainly
on children whose parents had never been married to one another – and in many cases had
never lived together.
This underscores the importance of gathering data about an increasingly large group of
children who are born out of wedlock and whose parents live together only briefly, if at all.
By raising many unresolved and controversial issues, the study serves as a reminder that
more research is needed on overnight parenting plans for the youngest children.
Limitations of the Study: What the Woozle Ignores
One of the fundamental features of a woozle is that it ignores or minimizes the limitations of
those studies on which it is founded.
Even when the researchers themselves have pointed out the limitations of their study, the
woozle ignores them. Since the publication of the report in which the preschooler study first
appeared (McIntosh et al., 2010), a number of social scientists have noted the study’s
shortcomings and have cautioned against generalizing its results or using its data as the basis
for parenting plan recommendations (Cashmore & Parkinson, 2011; Lamb, 2012b; Ludolph &
Dale, 2012; Nielsen, 2013a; Nielsen, 2013b; Parkinson & Cashmore, 2011; Pruett et al., 2012;
Warshak, 2012).
Understanding these limitations helps us appreciate how large the gap is between the
woozle and the actual data in the study. To begin, the preschooler study was limited by the
sample, the sample sizes, and its atypical definition of shared care for infants.
Most of these parents had never been married to one another (90% for infants and 60% for
toddlers) and 30% of the infants’ parents had never even lived together. This means the
findings should not be generalized to the general population of divorced parents. And in
contrast to all other studies where shared care/shared parenting is defined as 35% to 50%
time sharing, this study categorized the 48 infants who spent as few as four nights a month
in their father’s care as being in shared care.
The researchers did this because there were only 11 infants who actually were spending 35%
or more time overnighting. As a result of this unusual way of categorizing the infants, there
was no way to assess the impact of overnighting only once a week versus overnighting more
frequently – and no way to assess the impact of shared care as it is always defined in the
literature. Another limitation was that the number of overnighting infants was very small on
many measures.
For example, in the occasional overnight group, there were as few as 14 and no more than
20 infants measured on any of the six outcomes. Of greater concern and in contrast to the
woozle’s claim that overnighting as little as once a week had a negative impact, this study
never compared the children who never overnighted to the children who only occasionally
overnighted. That is, the study never addressed the question: ‘Is occasional overnighting
better or worse than never overnighting?’
Further limiting the study, there was no established validity or reliability for four of the six
measures: irritability, persistence, wheezing, and wariness/watchfulness about the mother’s
whereabouts (AIFS, 2012). Unfortunately without reported validity and reliability on these
adapted versions of standardized measures, the data cannot be interpreted with any
confidence.
This problem is especially noteworthy because these are the four measures that form the
basis of the woozle’s claim that overnighting creates physical stress, emotional regulation
difficulties, lack of persistence, and wariness/watchfulness in regard to he mother’s
presence.
The “visual monitoring scale” was created by the authors solely for this study (McIntosh et
al., 2010) with no reported reliability or validity. The authors chose three questions from the
Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales (CSBS) that LSAC had used to assess infants’
communication skills and readiness to learn language (Wetherby & Prizant, 2001).
The mother was asked how often her infant: looked at her to see if she was watching, tried
to get her attention when she was being inattentive, and tried to get her to notice or look at
interesting objects without trying to get her to do anything with them (p. 94). The
researchers used these three questions to assess how watchful and wary the infants were in
their mothers’ presence. Their rationale for choosing these three questions was that gazing
frequently at the mother and trying to stay close to her were signs of insecurity and anxiety
about the mother’s emotional availability according to some attachment theorists (p. 115).
On the CSBS, however, these three behaviors indicate that the infant has more highly
developed ways of communicating and is readier to begin talking. In other words, the
frequent overnighters were the most advanced. In contrast, the preschooler researchers
concluded that because the frequent overnighters gazed and tried to get their mothers’
attention more often, they were significantly stressed, were having to work harder to
monitor her presence and had “an added degree of vulnerability” (McIntosh et al., 2010, p.
144).
This interpretation is problematic on two counts. First, the three questions have never been
established as valid or reliable measures of insecurity, anxiety, stress, or attachment. Second,
there are reasons other than insecurity or stress why infants might engage in these three
behaviors—one of which is being readier to learn to talk.
The second measure was the mother’s yes or no answer to one question: ‘Does your child
wheeze at night more than four times a week?’
The LSAC researchers had used this question as part of a scale to assess health or sleep
problems. The study’s authors, however, used this one question as a measure of children’s
stress because they classified wheezing as a “psychosomatic” variable: “Higher rates of
wheezing in the shared care group are congruent within the attachment/stress hypothesis”
(McIntosh et al., 2010, p. 147).
Further they assumed that the stress was caused by a “negative emotional environment” in
the shared care families:
“As outlined in the literature review, several studies confirm a link between a
negative emotional family environment and onset of asthma and wheezing in
infancy” (p. 147).
These assumptions and interpretations are questionable for several reasons. To begin, using
a single question is not a valid or reliable method for assessing any factor (Carmines &
McIver, 1981).
“With a single measure of each variable, one can remain blissfully unaware of
the possibility of measurement error, but in no sense will this make his
inferences more valid” (Blalock, 1970, p. 111).
Also, classifying wheezing as a psychosomatic reaction to infant stress is unwarranted for at
least three reasons (Carmo, 2009; NCHS, 2010; Reyes, 2011). First, parents’ reports are not
reliable measures of children’s wheezing. Indeed, infant wheezing can be difficult even for
physicians to detect.
Second, wheezing in and of itself is not a validated measure for assessing stress because
wheezing can be caused by environmental, genetic, and physio- logical factors having
nothing to do with stress or family dynamics. Even the authors briefly acknowledged this
fact:
“Wheezing was independently predicted by low parental income” (McIntosh
et al., 2010, p. 148).
Third, the link between wheezing and family stress is not as simple or as straightforward as
implied, as evidenced by the three studies cited by the authors to support their hypothesis –
none of which confirmed a significant link between family stress and wheezing. In the first
study cited (Berz, 2007) the factors predicting asthma or wheezing for the 2- to 3-year-olds
were: gestational age, the mother’s having asthma, the child’s being male, adults’ smoking in
the home, parents not having social support, parent having seen violence in the
neighborhood or family, and high maternal anxiety.
These researchers pointed out, however, that highly anxious mothers may be overly
sensitive to infants’ breathing difficulties, meaning we cannot determine whether mothers’
anxiety contributes to infants’ wheezing. In the second study cited (Shankardass, 2009) pre-
schoolers were at greater risk for developing asthma if their mothers scored in the top
quartile on a stress questionnaire. However, asthma was only more likely when the children
were being exposed to traffic air pollution:
“We observed little effect of stress in the absence of exposure to oxidant pollutants” (p.
12410).
More important still, this study actually addressed the question: Is living in two homes
associated with more asthma or wheezing? The answer was no. Residing in two homes was
not linked to the children’s asthma or wheezing and had less impact than: people’s smoking
in the home, living in a trailer or an apartment, and having a pet, cockroaches, mildew, or
bedroom carpet in the home. In the third study cited (Klinnert, Kaugars, Strand, & Silveira,
2008) in which all of these 4-year-olds were at risk for developing asthma because they had
been diagnosed by doctors with wheezing illnesses as infants, the authors concluded;
“The contribution of the family stress composite was attenuated when other
variables were taken into account” (p. 51).
In sum, using mothers’ reports on one question about wheezing as an indication of infant
stress, and then attributing that stress to a negative emotional environment in shared care
families—a variable that was never assessed in the study – is unwarranted.
The fourth and fifth measures, the irritability scale and the persistence scale, also had
problems related to validity and interpretation. The irritability scale only had an alpha of .57
(Sanson & Mission, 2005), which is considered “questionable” reliability (George & Mallery,
2003). No reliability or validity was reported for the persistence scale (Sanson, Prior, &
Garino, 1987).
Moreover, the persistence and the irritability scores are difficult to interpret as “good” or
“bad” because the scales provide no way to differentiate healthy/normal scores from
unhealthy/abnormal ones.
Equally important, although the researchers interpreted irritability and lower persistence as
signs of the child’s inability to regulate emotions, other interpretations are equally plausible,
among them: intestinal problems such as colic, attention deficit disorders, or the baby’s
difficult temperament. In short, the irritability and persistence scales were not validated
measures for assessing infant stress, or developmental problems, or emotional regulation
difficulties.
It is also worth noting that these measures were based entirely on the mothers’ reports,
even though the researchers have reported elsewhere that these data came from
independent observers’ reports of the babies’ general day to day behavior (McIntosh &
Smyth, 2012, p. 178).
Again, these shortcomings do not mean the study should be dismissed. All studies have
shortcomings. Then too, these authors had no control over the lack of validity and reliability
for the measures used by LSAC. The point is that the woozle overlooks this study’s
limitations. As Warshak (2012) stated:
“It is somewhat surprisingly that this heavily flawed study from Australia is
being raised in serious debates about family law reform” (p. 12).
Likewise, other scholars have concluded that the study made only a limited contribution to
the debate on overnighting (Parkinson & Cashmore, 2011). Lamb, an internationally
recognized expert on early childhood development, also concurred that the study was
relatively insignificant given the statistical insignificance and ambiguity of most of the
findings (Lamb, 2012b).
To be more blunt, other scholars have stated that this study should never have been used to
make policy recommendations cautioning against overnighting (Ludolph & Dale, 2012).
[emphasis added – RW ]
The Data Versus the Woozle
One defining hallmark of a woozle is reporting and exaggerating some findings while ignoring
others. The question, therefore, is how much of a discrepancy exists between the actual data
from the study and the woozle: Overnighting even as little as once a week increases infants
and toddlers’ problems in regard to: irritability, persistence at tasks, stress induced
wheezing, behavioral and emotional regulation problems, and distressed behavior and
insecure attachments to their mothers.
First and foremost, there were no significant differences between overnighting and non-
overnighting infants on four of the six measures of well-being: their mothers’ concerns about
the infants’ development, overall physical health, wheezing, and negative responses to
strangers.
Second, there were no consistent relationships between overnighting and the outcomes on
any of the measures other than persistence at tasks.
Third, in regard to trying to get their mothers’ attention (which the researchers interpreted
negatively as being watchful and wary), the infants who frequently overnighted were no
different from infants who occasionally overnighted.
Fourth, not only were frequent overnighters not more whiny and irritable than infants who
never overnighted, they had exactly the same mean irritability score as infants living in intact
families. Because these researchers were interpreting irritability as a sign of poor stress
regulation related to insecure attachment, this would mean that most Australian infants
from intact families also had insecure attachment and emotional/stress regulation problems.
In short, there appears to be a “whining woozle” when the data are presented as if frequent
overnighting contributes to abnormally high levels of irritability.
Ignoring these findings, the woozle focuses solely on the three negative outcomes for the
frequently overnighting infants – outcomes that largely failed to show consistent
relationships.
First, for irritability, the 43 frequent overnighters were more irritable than the 14 occasional
overnighters— but not more than the 115 who never overnighted. Second, for wheezing
(interpreted as a psychosomatic reaction to stress), the 38 frequent overnighters wheezed
more (p.=.08, approaching but not achieving significance) than the 18 occasional
overnighters— but again, not more than the 121 who never overnighted. Third, for gazing
and trying to get their mothers’ attention (interpreted as signs of insecurity and anxiety), the
59 frequent overnighters gazed and sought attention more often than the 141 infants who
never overnighted – but again, not more than the 18 infants who occasionally overnighted.
In short, there was no clear connection between overnighting and wheezing, irritability, and
attention seeking – all of which were based on measures with no reported reliability or
validity. Similar patterns emerged for the 2- and 3-year-olds. There were no differences
between the frequent and the occasional overnighters on three of the seven measures:
emotional functioning, conflict with caregivers, negative responses to stranger. On overall
health, the frequent overnighters were healthier than the non-overnighters.
Likewise, on wheezing (interpreted as a sign of stress) the frequent overnighters had better
outcomes than both the occasional and the non-overnighters. Completely ignoring these
positive data, the wheezing woozle focuses instead on the less significant negative finding (p.
= .08) for the infants: the 38 frequent overnighters wheezed more often than the 18
occasional overnighters.
Moreover, the 2- to 3-year-olds did not have more problems interacting with their peers or
in overall social adjustment (McIntosh et al., 2010, p. 137). Their difficult behavior was
limited to their interactions with their mothers. The researchers interpreted this finding
negatively:
“Of concern, but as predicted by attachment theory, they also showed
severely distressed behaviors in their relationship with the primary parent”
(McIntosh et al., 2010, p. 9).
In fact, however, these types of behaviors were relatively common in the general population
of Australian children. In the LSAC survey from which the preschooler data were taken, 4,400
mothers reported that 50% of their 2- to 3-year-olds cried, whined and hung onto her when
she tried to leave, 50% sometimes refused to eat, and 40% often got very upset with her.
According to the preschooler researchers, this would mean that half of all Australian toddlers
were exhibiting “severely distressed behaviors” due to attachment distress with their
mothers. Equally important, the frequent overnighters’ mean score (32.82) on the behavioral
problems scale was well within the normal range (scores ” 36 ! high/abnormal; Smart, 2010),
meaning they were not “severely distressed.”
In other words, babies and toddlers who frequently overnighted were no more irritable and
no more difficult with their mothers than infants and toddlers in married families. Given this,
drawing negative conclusions about shared care parenting plans based on these two
measures is unwarranted.
It is true, however, that the 19 frequent overnighters had worse scores on the five item
persistence scale than the toddlers who occasionally or never overnighted. This finding is
worth noting as long as several limitations are kept in mind. First, this five item scale that
was adapted from a longer standardized scale has no reported validity or reliability;
therefore, it is not clear what is being measured. Second, there is no way to interpret these
scores because the scale does not provide a way to differentiate healthy / normal scores
from unhealthy/abnormal ones.
In other words, there is no way of knowing whether the shared care children’s mean score (X
= 3.93) indicated that they had any more significant or more noticeable problems than the
toddlers with rare overnights (X = 4.24) or with occasional overnights (X = 4.13).
Without knowing whether the shared care children’s mean was within a normal range, there
is no basis for contending that shared care has a more negative impact than the other
parenting plans. Despite these limitations, we will now see that the study ended up being
presented and perceived as valid, reliable, and unequivocal evidence to support the woozle.
Evidence by Citation: “Reviews” of the Research
As previously explained, a woozle often begins when one or two studies are repeatedly cited
as if they represented all, or almost all, of the research on a particular topic—and when
those few studies are then used as the basis for policy recommendations. Shortly after the
preschooler study was published in May, 2010, two articles (Fehlberg, Smyth, Maclean, &
Roberts, 2011b; Trinder, 2010) purporting to be general reviews of the research on children
of all ages in shared parenting families (referred to as shared care / shared residence in these
articles) and one (Rathus, 2010) claiming to “examine the contemporary social science
literature” (Rathus, 2010, p. 165) were published.
It should also be noted that the second author of the Fehlberg et al. (2011b) paper was the
second author of the preschooler study. The three articles made custody law
recommendations for all children—not just for children under the age of 5 years. All three
articles included the pre-schooler study, while none included more than five of the other 28
empirical studies that had compared the outcomes for children in shared parenting families
to children in sole physical custody families.
In this way, the preschooler study was given more attention and disproportionate weight in
regard to custody recommendations than the other 23 studies. Rather than basing their
recommendations on the 28 studies that had compared the outcomes for the children in
primary care and in shared parenting families, the authors cherry-picked only those few
studies that supported their recommendation against shared parenting legislation.
The first article (Fehlberg et al., 2011b) recommended that the British parliament not enact
laws that would prioritize shared time over other parenting arrangements—a
recommendation the authors reiterated in a policy paper (Fehlberg, Smyth, Maclean, &
Roberts, 2011a). The section on young children (p. 8) reported only the negative data from
the preschooler study, ignoring the fact that there were no differences on most measures,
and never mentioning the better outcomes for the shared care children on several
outcomes.
The article also ignored Pruett’s (2004) study that found equal or better outcomes for infants
and toddlers who overnighted and failed to mention that the Solomon and George study
(1999) found no differences in attachments between the overnighting and the non-
overnighting infants. The second article (Trinder, 2010) also advocated against shared
parenting legislation in the United Kingdom.
As with the Fehlberg article, the section on “younger children” (pp. 491–492) reported only
the negative data from the preschooler study, entirely ignored Pruett’s study (Pruett et al.,
2004) and mistakenly reported the Solomon and George (1999) study as having found higher
rates of insecure attachment in
infants who overnighted. Likewise the third article (Rathus, 2010) concluded that the 2006
custody law reforms in Australia were ill-advised for two reasons.
First “the reforms were driven by fathers’ rights groups” (p. 164). Second “shared time
orders have created a ‘lego-science’ that shared parenting is almost always good for
children, but this lego-science is a pseudoscience which is not consistent with the complex
reported social science about shared parenting” (p. 164).
In sum, within a short period of time the hallmarks of a woozle were emerging: putting
considerable emphasis on only one or two studies to the exclusion of the others and making
policy recommendations on the basis of only that portion of the available data that could be
used to advocate for a particular position – in this case, to advocate against shared parenting
legislation for children of all ages and to advocate against overnighting for infants and
toddlers.
Misrepresentations of Similar Studies
Another situation that contributes to the creation of a woozle is claiming that several studies
reached the same conclusion, when in fact they did not. This makes it appear as if the woozle
is based on a wider base of empirical evidence than is actually the case.
In that regard, the Solomon and George study (1999) and the preschooler study are often
cited together as having reached similar conclusions about infant overnighting (McIntosh,
2011c; McIntosh, 2011f; McIntosh, 2012a; McIntosh, 2012c; McIntosh, Burke, Dour, &
Gridley, 2009). As previously explained, however, Solomon and George (1999) concluded
that there were no significant differences in attachment classifications between the
overnighters and non-overnighters, regardless of frequency of overnighting.
Moreover, Solomon and George concluded that the overnighters’ having more disorganized
(unclassifiable) attachments than the infants in married families (but not more disorganized
than infants who did not overnight) was due to the negative characteristics of their parents’
relationship, not to the overnighting.
Woozle Fertilizers: From Academia to Media
The Media
One of the richest fertilizers for a woozle is repeated andwidespread exposure over an
extended period of time – especially in the media and especially when the topic is a
controversial one.
The pre-schooler study illustrates this pattern. In the years before the study was released in
2010, Australians were debating whether to reform their custody laws in ways that would be
more supportive
of shared parenting (referred to as “shared care” in Australia when children live with their
fathers more than 35% of the time).
In 2006 these controversial reforms were enacted, but the debates continued. This is
important because, as already noted, woozles are more likely to arise when the public has
strong feelings about the controversial issues underlying them.
The lead author of the preschooler study was often quoted – correctly or incorrectly—as
saying that research showed that shared care for preschoolers and overnighting for infants
and toddlers had a deleterious impact on children. It was not clear what research McIntosh
was referring to in some of her older interviews.
For example, in “Trouble Ahead for Babies of Divorce” the article began:
“The majority of babies who live alternately with their divorced parents
develop long-lasting psychological problems, new research has found. Such
arrangements cause enduring disorganised attachment in 60% of infants
under 18 months, says clinical psychologist and family therapist, Jennifer
McIntosh” (Martin, 2003, p. 1).
In later interviews, however, McIntosh was specifically referring to the preschooler study
(Horin, 2010; “Infants Struggle in Shared Care,” 2010). Although some reporters may not
have accurately represented what was said to them, there was nonetheless a consistency in
what they reported (Biggs, 2009; Clinton, 2008; Kissane, 2007).
More recently, after interviewing McIntosh about the preschooler study, the interviewer
wrote that shared care was a “developmental disaster” and that attachment studies “from
around the world” showed babies cannot cope with a change of their primary caregiver
without suffering physical and psychological problems (Jackman, 2010). Illustrating how
grossly distorted data can become, one reporter wrote that there were indications of
“violent behavior” in the shared care toddlers (Diwan, 2010).
In and of themselves, media reports cannot create a woozle. But in combination with other
factors, the media can prime the public to accept woozles.
Academic Journals and Conferences
Along with the media exposure, the study received considerable attention in academic
journals and at conferences. The largest organization for family court professionals, the
Association of Family and Conciliatory Courts (AFCC), put McIntosh in charge of editing a
special issue on attachment, which included recommendations on parenting plans for infants
and toddlers (McIntosh, 2011a).
Many of the statements in her introductory summary reinforced the conclusions of the
preschooler study and the particular version of attachment theory on which it relied. Among
these conclusions were:
“Overnight care is not essential to an infant or child’s ability to form a healthy
attachment to the second parent.”
“All contributors agreed on the essential role of a “primary” attachment figure
in the first year or two of life.”
“In normal development, the female brain is specifically equipped for the
largely non-verbal, affiliative, nurturant aspects of attachment formation with
an infant.”
“Overnight stays away from the primary caregiver in early infancy are
generally best avoided, unless of benefit to the primary caregiver (McIntosh,
2011a, p. 423).
McIntosh (2011a) reassured readers that she had presented a balanced and thorough
overview of the current research:
“Anyone in the know about attachment will agree: this is a stellar,
comprehensive line-up of experts” (p. 421).
Many scholars, however, did not agree with the theoretical perspectives or the conclusions
in the special edition and also expressed their concerns about the preschooler study itself
(Garber, 2012; Hynan, 2012; Lamb, 2012a; Ludolph, 2012). Their primary criticisms were that
McIntosh chose to include only those researchers who agreed with her points of view and
who thereby endorsed the preschooler study, that current research on attachment had been
ignored, and that the recommendations against overnighting far over reached the empirical
data.
In response, McIntosh replied,
“Although some may want to continue to shoot me as the messenger, I stand
by this special issue for the answers it offers at this point in time, while
recognizing that some questions it raises may ultimately prove more
important” (McIntosh, 2012c, p. 500).
Likewise, in response to another critique (Parkinson & Cashmore, 2011), neither of the lead
authors of the pre-schooler study acknowledged the validity of any of the criticisms (Smyth,
McIntosh, & Kelaher, 2011).
Receiving further attention, the preschooler study was the focus of the plenary address that
McIntosh and George (coauthor of the study with Judith Solomon) presented at the
Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) national conference in 2012, which was
attended by more than 1,000 people (McIntosh, 2012b).
In contrast to the earlier summaries of the study with Solomon, George now stated that their
study reached the same conclusion as the preschooler study: Overnighting interferes with
infants’ attachments to their mothers. McIntosh then mistakenly stated that Pruett’s (Pruett
et al., 2004) study had reached similar conclusions to their two studies:
“To cut a long story short, we took these findings, looked at the other studies,
saw a pattern” (p. 5).
As previously explained, however, Pruett did not find significant differences between the
overnighting and the non-overnighting two to three year-olds (Pruett et al., 2004). Further,
McIntosh stated:
“There have been attempts throughout the field to polarize us and our
studies” (p. 3). “We have found the purpose, designs and findings of our
respective studies twisted beyond recognition, and motivations and intent
attributed to us that defie belief ” (p. 4).
Given her concerns about the woozling of their data, it is unfortunate that McIntosh
inadvertently may have misled the audience to believe that thousands of overnighting
children had been in the preschooler study, when in fact there were as few as 14 children in
some of the groups:
“We explored a large randomly selected general population dataset. This
amounts to 10,000 children 0–5 years” (p. 4).
Throughout 2011 and 2012 the study’s findings were further disseminated through
international seminars. These included the lead author’s presentation to the New Zealand
Psychological Society (McIntosh, 2010a), her video on shared parenting for the Minnesota
Bar Association, an interview for their newsletter
(Jeske, 2011; Waggoner, 2011), a seminar hosted by the Guardian Ad Litem Association in
Massachusetts (McIntosh, 2011d), and a seminar in London hosted by Liz Trinder who had
written the “research review” article advocating against shared parenting custody reform in
the United Kingdom. The seminar was sponsored by the Nuffield Foundation, which had
published reports and co-authored letters to the Prime Minister opposing custody reform
(CYPFD, 2012).
The brochure stated that the seminar was “based on the highest quality research evidence
available internationally.” “McIntosh is widely acknowledged as the leading international
expert on the effects on children of shared care” (McIntosh, 2011e, p. 1). There is certainly
nothing unprofessional about researchers’ presenting their data to audiences around the
world.
Disseminating data is commendable as long as the data are not being presented in a way
that gives an unbalanced view of the literature or that advocates for a particular position
that is not supported by the literature. But in regard to what the woozle was claiming about
overnighting and about shared parenting, the problem was that the other six studies that
had included children under the age of 5 years (two of which focused exclusively on children
as young as the children in the preschooler study) were not receiving this type of public and
international attention.
The Woozle’s Emotional Hook
As explained earlier, presenting case studies, hypothetical situations, and anecdotal stories
that the audience might misperceive as being representative of the general body of research
can contribute to a woozle.
For example, in a 2-day seminar in Australia with McIntosh, George (2012) offered a
hypothetical example of a child in shared care. The child, Frankie, was being taken care of
every week by a cadre of adults: both parents, four grandparents, two sets of
stepparents/partners, the staff in two different day care centers (because the parents could
not agree on a day care center) and the tot care staff at church (p. 13).
By providing such an atypical and negative example, George might have inadvertently led her
audience to believe that this was the typical situation for most preschoolers in shared care
families. Moreover, this hypothetical example directly contradicted the empirical data from
Pruett’s (Pruett et al., 2004) study: Having multiple caretakers was not related to negative
outcomes for infants or toddlers – and was, in fact, related to even better outcomes for girls.
Similarly, McIntosh wrote an article for the AFCC newsletter that reaches thousands of family
court professionals – a story about a teenage mother (that McIntosh had met by accident in
a train station) who
was ordered by the court to have her 1-year-old baby live on alternate weeks with its father
(McIntosh, 2010b). Although such anecdotal stories and case studies are compelling, Emery
(2005) is among those social scientists who caution:
“We all have to recognize and admit that clinical experience, including case
studies, prove nothing” (pp. 9–10).
And as explained earlier, anecdotal stories and dramatic case studies can trigger emotional
response that threaten to override critical thinking and empirical data.
The Impact of the Woozle
Through many pathways over recent years, the pre-schooler study has morphed into the
woozle: infant or toddler overnighting and shared parenting for preschoolers have a
deleterious impact on infants and other children under the age of 4 years.
But is there any evidence that this particular woozle has had any impact on public policies or
public opinion? The answer appears to be yes. In Australia the report containing the pre-
schooler study and a second study with older children was delivered to Attorney General
Robert McClelland in May, 2010. Six months later he cited the report as part of the “strong
evidence base” for his proposed amendment to revoke the 2006 shared parenting laws
(Jackman, 2010).
Just weeks before the national elections, Fehlberg, whose review of the research article had
largely excluded all studies except the preschooler study, also spoke out against the 2006
custody law reforms in Sydney’s Morning Herald (Fehlberg, 2010). In the same year, the
study was also presented at the national conference of the Australian Family Law Association
(McIntosh, 2010a).
The study also had an impact on three influential organizations in Australia: the Australian
Psychological Society, the Association for Infant Mental Health, and the National Council for
Children Post Separation (2013). All three recommended or warned against overnighting for
infants and shared care for other children under the age of four, citing only two empirical
studies: the pre-schooler study and the study by Solomon and George (1999).
McIntosh was the lead author of the infant overnight care paper (McIntosh, 2011c) which
was the background paper for the AAIMH guidelines (AAIMH, 2011) and was lead author of
the position statement paper for the Australian Psychological Society (McIntosh et al., 2009).
Many of the statements in these documents were similar to statements that McIntosh made
one year later in the special issue of Family Court Review—statements that other scholars
criticized for misrepresenting and overreaching the research, as previously discussed
(McIntosh, 2011a). The Infant Mental Health guidelines were disseminated by the Australian
media (Griffin, 2011; Overington, 2011), as well as by law firms’ web sites that warned
against overnighting and shared care (Magee, 2010; O’Loughlin, 2011).
In the United States the study has also had an impact – in some instances, an impact limited
to recommendations against over-nighting for infants and toddlers, but, in others, extending
to custody recommendations for children of all ages. Among the articles citing the pre-
schooler study as the basis for warning against overnighting and shared parenting for
children under the age of four were: an article in the Huffington Post by a professor of
human development (Hughes, 2011), another in the Minnesota Bar Association’s newsletter
(Jeske, 2011), and another in the Wisconsin Journal of Family Law (Zirkel, 2012).
An article in the Maryland Bar Association Journal cited only two studies in expressing its
opposition to legal presumptions of shared parenting for children of all ages—one being the
pre-schooler study (Fait, Wills, & Borenstein, 2012). The “no overnighting” message has also
been posted on at least one national parenting web site (Markham, 2013).
The study also has had an impact in some states on proposed shared parenting legislation, as
well as on overnight parenting plans for the very youngest children. In Oregon the legislative
advisory committee’s report on custody reform recommended against considering a shared
parenting bill. The “Summary of current information and research” report included only four
of the 28 available empirical studies on outcomes for children in shared parenting families –
one of which was the preschooler study (Scher & Vien, 2011).
Likewise, the Minnesota Matrimonial Lawyers Association, after having watched a taped
presentation by McIntosh at their conference, concluded that overnighting for infants and
toddlers was ill advised (“Splitting the Baby,” 2011).
The taped presentation was also discussed by members of the Minnesota Family Law
Association (Waggoner, 2011). More recently in Alabama, a children’s advocacy organization
presented a series of public seminars throughout the state, explaining their legislative
priorities for 2014—one of which is to oppose the proposed shared parenting legislation.
One of the handouts states:
“Neuroscience shows that consistency is critical especially for young children (0 –3) and the
developing brain. Moving from place to place, even when there are two loving and fit
parents, is not good for young children” (Voices, 2013, p. 6).
The one source cited as the basis for the handout was the article about the pre-schooler
study, “Infants Struggle in Shared Care” (2010), posted on the web site of an Australian
university where the lead author is an adjunct teacher.
Moving beyond the United States, in Israel during the time the government was holding
legislative meetings about reforming custody laws, McIntosh was the keynote speaker at a
video conference sponsored by female leaders at Bar Llan University’s gender studies
program (Whiston, 2012). What McIntosh actually said in her speech and whether the video
was ever used to try to persuade legislative committees to vote against shared parenting
custody laws is known only to the people involved. But regardless of its intent or its content,
the presentation was interpreted as supporting the woozle: Infants and toddlers should
spend little, if any, overnight time with their fathers and women, unlike men, have brains
that are “hard wired” to form the primary attachment and to communicate with infants.
The ire aroused by the speech was evident in headlines such as this on the Internet:
“Australian male bashing guru Jennifer McIntosh calls Israel to avoid shared parenting”
(“Australian Male Bashing,” 2012). Many scholars and policymakers were concerned enough
about the possible impact of the seemingly one-sided presentation of current research that
they invited Warshak (2012) to present a balanced overview of the literature relevant to
parenting plans for very young children.
Likewise, in the United Kingdom the study has played a role in current debates over custody
reform. The committee that was assigned to make custody reform recommendations to the
British Parliament (Norgrove, 2011) cited only three of the 28 studies that had compared
outcomes for shared parenting children and for other children with separated parents.The
pre-schooler study was one of the three (Rhoades, 2011).[emphasis added – RW ]
The committee recommended that Parliament not consider shared parenting legislation:
“Drawing on international and other evidence we oppose legislation to encourage shared
parenting. The detailed information from Australia showed the damaging consequences for
many children” (p. 138). Trinder, who was well acquainted with the pre-schooler study
because she had hosted McIntosh’s 2011 seminar in London, (McIntosh, 2011e), also
provided a consultation response to the committee, stating her approval of their decision
and claiming it was consistent with the research (Norgrove, 2011, p. 138).
[See also Men’s Aid rebuttal of Trinder’s somewhat dated citations, circa 1980s. (Ref CF100
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmpublic/childrenandfamilies/memo
/cf100.pdf) – RW]
Even more recently in a letter to the prime minister, the directors of eight counseling and
advocacy centers voiced their opposition to shared parenting legislation, all citing the
preschooler study without citing any of the other 28 studies (CYPFD, 2012). This is not to say
the preschooler study was the pivotal factor in these policy recommendations.
But because it was cited in all of these documents to the exclusion of almost all of the other
studies that have examined outcomes for children in shared parenting families, it serves as
yet another example of the extent to which the preschooler study was being presented
internationally to policymakers.
In sum, as is characteristic of woozles, the findings from the preschooler study seem to have
grown larger and to have become more significant with the passage of time, while its
limitations seem to have all but disappeared from view.
How to Corral a Woozle: Damage Control
Once a woozle is on the loose, how can it be corralled? One approach is for researchers to
point out the limitations of the data on which the woozle is predicated. As already noted, a
number of researchers have written about the limitations of the preschooler study. All of
these critiques, however, have been published in academic journals—meaning they are
unlikely to attract any public attention, let alone the attention of the media.
Given this, a more effective approach might be to involve the media in disseminating the
research that contradicts the woozle. Likewise, researchers could share more of the research
with those organizations and legislative committees whose reports or policy
recommendations have been based on woozled data.
Researchers whose studies are being used to support a woozle can also take steps to limit or
to repair the damage. By persistently and publicly correcting the misunderstandings of their
data, they can counter some of the misleading reports in the media and in academic and
professional settings. Likewise, they can respond to critiques of their work by de-
personalizing the debates and welcoming academic disagreements, never attempting to
interfere in any way with anyone’s candid expressions of their views.
In the same vein, willingly sharing seminar and conference materials reduces the odds of
being misperceived as having contributed to the woozling of one’s own data. Authors can
also refrain from
using case studies and personal anecdotes or from presenting their data in overly dramatic
ways that can easily be misused by advocacy groups to promote a particular position.
Finally researchers should exercise caution when reporting their data when their findings are
not consistent with the existing body of research, or when there are still very few studies on
the topic.
Authors of studies that have already been woozled—or studies that stand a good chance of
becoming woozled because of their controversial findings—also need to be consistent and
unambiguous when presenting their study’s findings and when using their own data to
support their own positions on matters of policy.
Authors should ensure that their synopses, abstracts, summaries, speeches, and seminar
materials consistently correspond to their study’s full report and to the full analyses of their
data. Likewise all of their published work and recommendations should be consistent with
what they say in their seminars and at conferences.
By sending conflicting or ambiguous messages to different audiences, researchers are
equivocating in ways that may inadvertently fortify woozles based on their data. In contrast,
by presenting the same summaries and making the same recommendations to all audiences,
researchers reduce the chances of having their data distorted into woozles.
Being clear and consistent also protects researchers from being perceived as being
disingenuous or as intentionally woozling their own data. Likewise, researchers can protect
their data from being woozled by realizing that whether they couch their comments as
“advice,” “recommendations,” “guidelines,” “contraindications,” or “rules,” they are likely to
be perceived in the same way by the general public, practitioners and policymakers – even if
experts and scholars are able to make these distinctions in nomenclature.
In closing, several points are worth repeating. First, the particular study presented in this
article is only one of many studies that could be used to illustrate the process that leads to a
woozle. I chose this particular study to illustrate how woozles are created and the impact
they can have because this is an area where I am familiar with the research—and because
the topic is currently in the forefront of worldwide debates on custody law reform, infant
overnighting and shared parenting plans for the very youngest children. Second, no single
person or no one event can be held responsible for the creation or the promotion of a
woozle. A constellation of factors, including the media and advocacy groups, carry the
woozle along its path. Finally, in regard to custody law reform and parenting plans, we need
to ensure that all of the available data are widely disseminated to the public, policymakers,
and practitioners.
To do otherwise is to do a grave disservice to the millions of children whose parents are no
longer living together. We want to be sure that, unlike Winnie the Pooh, we do not base our
decisions or our opinions on a woozle.
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Australian Association of Infant Mental Health. (2011). Infants and overnight care: post
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