The dilemma of equal time sharing: A social science view

This article was reproduced with permission from The Commentator, a publication of the Family Law Section of The Florida Bar. The statements or expressions of opinion within it are those of the author(s), and should not be attributed to The Florida Bar or its Family Law Section.

The dilemma of equal time sharing: A social science view
by Jerome H. Poliacoff, Ph.D., P.A., Coral Gables

It is this writer’s observation, supported by epidemiological data, that despite stated public policy¹ the imposition of a tender years doctrine remains the de facto standard for the award of child custody and access decisions in most child custody disputes.² That standard when applied, like a Procrustean³ solution, to all litigants is not in the best interests of the children whose future contact with their parents is being decided in the courts.

It is this writer’s belief, based on empirical research, that a more equitable starting point (i.e., a presumption in favor of equal access and timesharing for divorcing families) will lead to better post-divorce outcomes for the children of divorce and their parents, and will result in reduced demand on the courts to micromanage familial conflicts post divorce.

The purpose of this article is to offer a view of some of the social science findings, which when given due consideration may lead public policy makers, legislators and the judiciary to make better informed, and therefore better implemented, custody and access award decisions that will better serve the offspring of divorcing parents.

To that end this presentation begins with a review of the evolution of the rationale and forces behind custody award policy. We follow with a presentation of social science research in support of a more equitable starting point for making custody award decisions and end with a parenting plan based on equitable time sharing that will work both for parents who are in agreement and for families that may be in conflict.

The evolution of custody award decisions
The law of child custody in the United States has evolved from paternal custody, through maternal custody, to a gender-neutral evaluation of the best interests of children, and, as in the current debate, it is often a reflection of changes in societal values and of economic considerations.

American child custody law is rooted in Roman law and English common law. Under Roman law, fathers had an absolute right to custody of their children. This right sprang from the view of the father as head of the family, with unlimited authority over its members.

Fathers had near absolute custody rights under English common law as well. They were given the right to the services and earnings of their children and the right to pursue legal action for seduction of their daughters or enticement from home of their sons. However, courts awarded mothers custody of their children if the fathers were bankrupt, treated their wives poorly or contributed nothing to the family.

The American Colonies adopted the common law paternal right to child custody, but few disputes arose because divorces were hard to obtain. Even in early divorce cases, children were rarely mentioned.

Historical and sociological developments surrounding women’s rights in the early 1800s laid the groundwork for changes in child custody law. Under the common law of coverture, a married woman was legally one with her husband; she was not a legal person and could not own many forms of property. Children were considered assets in which their fathers had property rights.

Wives, limited by coverture, had no economic or familial rights to the custody of their children. However, as married women gained property rights in the 1800s, the divorce rate increased sharply, and with it the frequency of child custody disputes.

During this period, courts replaced absolute paternal custody rights with a discretionary appraisal of the parents’ qualifications and the children’s best interests. Northern states abandoned the paternally based common law of child custody earlier than did southern states. Mothers most often received custody if they were the innocent party to the divorce, if the father was a drunkard or the children were young.

The earliest of such cases that considered a parent’s qualifications was in Pennsylvania, a state known for judicial precedents favorable to mothers. Commonwealth v. Addicks⁴ introduced the idea that the “best interests” (as defined by the society of the time) of children should count as well.

On June 12, 1813, Joseph Lee divorced his wife, Barbara, because she had entered into an adulterous relationship with another man named Addicks. Barbara Lee and Addicks had a child together and later married. They ignored a 1785 law that prohibited a partner who was guilty of adultery from marrying his or her paramour during the lifetime of the spouse.

After Barbara remarried, Joseph went to court to gain custody of his two daughters, now ten and seven. His lawyer said that a father was the “natural guardian” of his children under common law. He also maintained that it would be improper to permit the children to remain with their adulterous mother.

While the court refused to decide who should win guardianship, its Chief Justice William Tilghman opined: “We cannot avoid expressing our disapprobation of the mother’s conduct, although as far as regards her treatment of her children, she is in no fault. They appear to have been well taken care of in all respects. It is to them that our anxiety is principally directed; and it appears to us, that considering their tender age, they stand in need of that kind of assistance, which can be afforded by none so well as a mother. It is on their account, therefore, that exercising the discretion with which the law has invested us, we think it best, at present, not to take them from her. At the same time, we desire it to be distinctly understood that the father is not to be prevented from seeing them. If he does not choose to go to the house of their mother, she ought to send them to him, when he desires it, taking it for granted that he will not wish to carry them abroad, so much as to interfere with their education”

The court overlooked Barbara Addicks’ adultery and changed the common law. It introduced the idea that children of “tender years” needed the special nurturing of their mother.

In 1860, New Jersey turned the “tender years” doctrine into law, requiring prepubescent children to remain in the custody of their mother unless she was “unfit.” In the 1879 Rhode Island trial McKim v. McKim,courts began treating mothers as separate legal entities from their husbands, best able to care for the emotional needs of their children.

By the turn of the twentieth century, courts no longer viewed children as property, and children’s rights were the focus of custody disputes; and by the turn of the century, most separated or divorced mothers received custody of their children– though often not the funds to care for them.

For more than a century the “tender years” doctrine dictated that small children needed the nurture and stability of a primary parent, and that parent was most likely to be the mother. The child then was assigned a single primary residence and a single primary parent — nearly always the mother. While this rule undoubtedly caused some unfairness, it did focus on the child’s need for nurture and stability rather than on the parents’ rights to access. It also discouraged dispute, since society’s attitudes were aligned with the law’s judgment about what was best for children.

As a society we no longer agree on what is good for children. We are more focused instead on the political rights of parents. None of these radical swings in the law was prompted by new research findings about what is good for children. Each emerged from a skirmish in the larger arena of gender politics.

The “tender years” doctrine, in place for more than a century, was swept away largely as a consequence of the feminists’ drive for equal treatment in the 1970s. Men and women, they believed, must be treated equally in this and all other matters before the law. Many feminists feared that the motherhood connection would restrict their opportunities for equal treatment in the workplace. Asking for special Consideration for motherhood could shut the door to the male professions even tighter.

The next round was won by men. In the 1980s, fathers’ rights groups pushed for and won laws favoring joint physical custody, replacing the tradition of a primary custodian and a single residence for the child.

Perhaps because each side has gotten what it wished for⁵ — or because the law, despite the assertion of public policy, has in practical effect retained the “tender years” doctrine— we come now, at the turn of a new century, to examining the proposal of making equality of access the new standard.

The dilemma of determining time sharing schedules
Unfortunately, decision makers in family law and mental health fields remain largely ignorant about several decades of research on child development. Kelly and Lam⁶ argue strongly that decisions regarding custody and access are most often made without reference to the research on child development.

The courts typically (1) do not assess the entire family⁷ or the family process; (2) do not attempt to preserve what is sound and successful within any given family system⁸; or (3) do not consider the needs of a particular family member in the context of the needs of other family members⁹.

Rather, in making their determinations about issues related to the “best interests of the child” the courts typically apply the law in a binary choice fashion (Mom or Dad?, parent or non-parent?,) and put decisions into rigid categories (custody or visitation?, shared parental responsibility or sole custody?) without considering the relevant empirical research bearing on the issue at hand.

The empirical research perspective
In the ideal situation, living a few minutes apart would enable the nonresidential parent to continue to be involved in his or her children’s lives in a more spontaneous way. The nonresidential parent could attend school functions as well as pick up the children at school. Older children might be able to visit on their own, making “dropping by for a visit” possible. And, also important, children could maintain the same peer networks whether they were with the mother or the father.

Most divorces and subsequent access arrangements, however, are not ideal. For the newly designated residential parent, a larger burden of childcare falls on his or her shoulders. He or she must now assume responsibilities that were the realm of the now absent parent. For the child, brief visits may no longer be possible. The child has a qualitatively different relationship with the nonresidential parent, one in which the nonresidential parent is now an outsider. Spending time together requires serious planning and interferes with the child’s routines.

The effects of divorce
As every reader is aware, the divorce of parents significantly undermines a child’s sense of security and stability, and poses significant long-term adverse risks for children as they develop and mature.

There is ample research evidence that parental divorce can have detrimental effects on school-age children and adolescents. National surveys, other large-scale studies, research reviews and meta-analyses all¹⁰ have revealed negative associations between divorce and children’s school achievement, self-esteem and psychological adjustment.

Children from divorced families have more behavioral problems, more social difficulties, more psychological distress and poorer academic performance; adolescents from divorced families are more likely to engage in delinquent behavior and early sex and to exhibit emotional distress and academic difficulties.

In addition, adults who experienced their parents’ divorce when they were children, compared with those from continuously intact two-parent families, score lower on indicators of psychological, interpersonal and socioeconomic well-being, such as educational attainment, non-marital childbearing and early labor force participation.¹¹

The impact of access arrangements
Kelly and Lamb¹² argue strongly that decisions regarding custody and access are most often made without reference to the research on child development, although this literature can be useful in conceptualizing children’s needs after separation and divorce.

Given that divorce may have such a deleterious impact on child development, does research tell us anything about the salutary effect of access arrangements that favor frequent contact?

In the general divorce literature, Pearson and Thoennes¹³ note that along with visitation, favorable adjustment patterns were associated with fewer changes in the child’s life (e.g., moving, changing schools).

Another study¹⁴ of a group of 79 school-aged children, 40 from divorced mother-custody homes, reported that more environmental changes in the divorce group were associated with more problems in the areas of depression, social withdrawal, aggression and delinquent behavior.

A later study by Stolberg and his colleagues¹⁵ concluded that children’s life changes, which included changing schools, mother starting work, and moving to a new house are the “most significant determinants of children’s post-divorce adjustments.”

Contact with the nonresidential parent
When one talks about “contact with the nonresidential parent” one is typically talking about father-child contact¹⁶, contact which has been the focus of much of the research on the post-divorce adjustment of children.

Considering the large volume of studies¹⁷ documenting the detrimental effects of a father’s absence on his children’s moral, intellectual and social development, it would seem obvious that fathers play a determinative role in their children’s development. That role is all the more crucial when parents divorce.

Where low conflict exists between the parents, contact with the noncustodial father appears to have a positive impact on children.¹⁸ Under conditions of low conflict, the involvement of authoritative non-custodial fathers can enhance children’s adjustment¹⁹, especially that of boys.²⁰ It can even, to some extent, protect the children from the adverse consequences of rejecting or incompetent non-custodial mothers.²¹ When non-custodial fathers are not just “tour guide” or “weekend” fathers but maintain more parent-like contact and share in a variety of activities, including the routine, everyday activities with their children, the well-being of children is promoted.²²

Guidubaldi and his colleagues²³ studied a large, randomly selected nationwide sample of children living in divorced families from the general population (rather than a “clinical” population) and included a control group of children from intact families. Using objective psychological tests, teacher rating scales and parent- child interviews (rather than parental report alone), they found a positive association between visiting frequency and child adjustment, an association that is stronger when the custodial mother supports the father’s continued contact.

The consensus of these studies is that “Nonresidential parents who maintain parental roles (providing guidance, discipline, supervision and educational assistance) may affect their children more profoundly than those who are limited to functioning as the occasional visiting companions.”²⁴

Writing on behalf of 18 nationally recognized experts on the effects of divorce and custody arrangements Lamb²⁵ and his colleagues wrote: “To maintain high quality relationships with their children, parents need to have sufficiently extensive and regular interaction with them, but the amount of time involved is usually less important than the quality of the interaction that it fosters. Time distribution arrangements that ensure the involvement of both parents in important aspects of their children’s everyday lives and routines—including bedtime and waking rituals, transitions to and from school, extracurricular activities—are likely to keep nonresidential parents playing psychologically important and central roles in the lives of their children. (p. 400).”

Advantages of equal access arrangements
Parents play a crucial role in shaping children’s emotional, personal and cognitive development. Children who are deprived of meaningful and close relationships²⁶ with one of their parents are at greater risk psychosocially, even when they are able to maintain relationships with the other of their parents. Parent-child contacts that are restricted to weekends (and in many relocation cases to only school vacation periods) are generally not conducive to “full service” parenting. They only decline in the depth and richness of the relationship.

The studies discussed above support the premise that the highest quality relationships are maintained with access arrangements that promote a breadth of involvement between parent and child. While this is not tied to a perfect linear relationship to the frequency or amount of contact, the schedule of contacts does need to afford opportunities for each parent’s involvement in the child’s daily life and routines, including supervision of homework and chores, setting and enforcing limits, arranging and supervising interactions with peers and dealing with conflicts.

Unfortunately, custody decisions (despite public policy claims to the contrary) tend to emphasize the preservation of the infant-mother relationship²⁷— the “typical” arrangement being that children who saw one parent (typically the father) daily prior to divorce now see that parent only once or twice a week post divorce. This arrangement is often represented by professionals as “being in the best interests of the child” (following untested psychoanalytic theory).

Nonetheless, empirical studies²⁸ show that children do best when they maintain rich, close relationships with both parents following divorce. They are more likely to escape psychological harm than children who are denied the chance to maintain relationships with both parents.

High-quality relationships are best achieved when children experience each parent participating in all aspects of daily life, including getting up in the morning, preparing for the day, preparing for daycare, dropping off at daycare, feeding, bathing, preparing for bed, playing, putting to bed, soothing when the child wakes in the middle of the night, etc.

Implementation of equal access arrangements
A “typical” judicial circuit “standard” visitation schedule²⁹ provides for weekend visitation in which the nonresidential parent “… shall be entitled to alternate weekend visitation…” and weekday visitation of “… every Wednesday from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.”

This is clearly a uniform arrangement from which any deviation must be litigated. It does not take into account individual family needs or the needs of individual family members. Coupled with the current “40-percent rule” in which child support is based on time spent with either parent, it is no wonder the family courts are overburdened with litigation concerning access and time sharing. The following is offered as a socially informed and beneficial alternative:

5/5/2/2 time share arrangement (see chart at end of page)
Obviously, individualized determinations achieved by parental agreement, with or without mediation, are preferred, but the following “5/5/2/2” time sharing arrangement is a viable default plan, absent either distance or a strong parental deficit that would otherwise support a restricted role for one of the parents.

The 5/5/2/2 plan is a structured parenting plan, which, along with some parenting coordinator interventions for high conflict families or when parents hit rough spots, (1) is minimally intrusive; (2) promotes parental complementarily (rather than competition); and (3) protects the child against the loss of a parent.

With sufficient structure and support this plan may work well for many families for whom others would never have suggested joint custody.

Among the advantages are (1) parents don’t have to mark up a calendar in advance to make plans; (2) parents can predict the schedule; and (3) parental identity and participation is preserved. Neither parent is treated as secondary in the life of his or her child, which avoids the potential for continued conflict, or abandonment.

The underlying assumption is that it is important to have the same days of the week with each parent so that less coordination is needed and so adults can plan for predictable “nonkid” days. A major benefit of the 5/5/2/2 is that the child is in each parent’s care on the same days of the week, which requires far less coordination and negotiation between the parents than other schedules (including alternate weekend or other traditional plans) require.

The plan provides a structure that encourages the kind of “involved parenting” the literature increasingly suggests is necessary for a parent to make a difference in a child’s life.

It creates a balance between parenthood and other dimensions of life, which reduces the overload of single parenthood, helps people balance work and home, and places less stress on new marriages, particularly in the early years when they are fragile. This balance is critical—even older kids think alternating weeks (or alternating weekends) create separations from each parent that are way too long—after a week you are really out of the loop of what has been happening with school, friends and enrichment activities. What happened when the child was last with you is ancient history.

Many children (and many parents who find separation from their children painful and anxiety producing) really do not do well with limited access or with prolonged separations.

The proposed 5/5/2/2 plan is practical for children old enough for a five-day separation. With younger children a modified variation of the schedule can work fine (the third day, or middle day of the five, the child goes with/stays with the non-five-day parent, effectively making the “5” a “2/1/2” plan).

In addition there should be five or so “special days”³⁰ (short notice with detailed rules), a few holidays and protected special days. It would be helpful in planning to make sure there are some traditions that get celebrated every year in the same home. Alternating all holidays dilutes their meaning, since so much of the event is eating the same foods, dragging out the same decorations and seeing the same people.

Transitions on the day of the holiday should be avoided where possible because part of the holiday is the time preparing for the holiday. Transitions have the potential to cause too much tension and travel and thereby wipe out the pleasure of the day.

For those families where one parent’s role will be smaller, a plan that has the child spending every Thursday overnight and alternate weekends (Thursday-Monday) works really well, for many of the same reasons. There are fewer long separations, and the parent and child can enroll in a Thursday activity that occurs every week. The child is really a member of the household, not an awkward “visitor.”

For a more complete discussion about the various parenting plans the reader is urged to go to Joan Kelly’s model parenting plan publication for the state of Arizona.³¹ The following calendar demonstrates clearly an example of how the “5/5/2/2” may work:

Jerome H. Poliacoff, Ph.D., was trained at the University of Miami as a child and adult psychologist. He has previously authored articles on a variety of clinical and forensic matters, is a frequent speaker at legal and professional seminars, and has served as an expert witness psychologist in numerous state and federal cases. Licensed since 1984, Dr. Poliacoff’s private practice provides clinical and forensic services in both Coral Gables and Boca Raton, Florida.
Endnotes:
1 F.S. 61.13(2)(b) “The public policy of this state is to assure that each minor child has frequent and continuing contact with both parents after the parents separate or the marriage of the parties is dissolved and to encourage parents to share the rights and responsibilities of childrearing.”
2 In about 80 percent of divorce situations the residential parent is the mother, and the nonresidential parent is the father, in Maccoby, Eleanor E.; Mnookin, Robert H.; Depner, Charlene E.; & Peters, H. Elizabeth (1992). Dividing the child: Social and legal dilemmas of custody. Cambridge, MA, US: Harvard University Press.
3 Procrustean (American Heritage English Dictionary): ADJECTIVE: Producing or designed to produce strict conformity by ruthless or arbitrary means; ETYMOLOGY: After Procrustes, a mythical Greek giant who stretched or shortened captives to make them fit his beds.
4 Commonwealth v. Addicks, 2 Sergeant & Rawle 174, 175 (Pa. 1816).
5 From the admonition “Don’t wish for something. You may get it.”
6 Kelly, Joan B. & Lamb, Michael E. (2000). Using child development research to make appropriate custody and access decisions for young children. Family & Conciliation Courts Review. 2000 Jul Vol 38(3) 297-311.
7 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (1994). Model standards for practice for child custody evaluation, in Resource Guide for Custody Evaluators: A Handbook for Parenting Evaluations.
8 Saunders, Richard (1996). Should psychotherapists be concerned about the new APA child custody guidelines? Psychotherapy Bulletin, 28.
9 Shear, Leslie (1996). Life stories, doctrines and decision making: Three high courts confront the move-away dilemma, 34, Family and Conciliation Courts Review, pp. 439-460.
10 National Surveys:
• Allison, P.D. & Furstenberg, F.F. (1989). How marital dissolution affects children: Variations by age and sex. Developmental Psychology, 25, 540-549.
• Cherlin, A.J.; Furstenberg, F.F.; Chase-Lansdale, P.L.; Kiernan, K.E.; Robins, P.K.; Morrison, D.R.; & Teitler, J.O. (1991). Longitudinal studies of effects of divorce on children in Great Britain and the United States. Science, 252, 1386-1389.
• Downey, D.B. (1994). The school performance of children from single-mother and single-father families: Economic or interpersonal deprivation? Journal of Family Issues, 15, 129-147.
• Guidubaldi, J.; Perry, J.D.; & Nastasi, B.K. (1987). Growing up in a divorced family: Initial and long-term perspective on children’s adjustment. (In S. Oskamp (Ed.), Annual review of applied social psychology (Vol. 7, pp. 202—237). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Other large scale studies:
• Simons, R.L. (1996). Understanding differences between divorced and intact families: Stress, interaction, and child outcome. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Research reviews:
• Amato, P.R. (1994). Lifespan adjustment of children to their parents’ divorce. Future of Children, 4, 143-164.
• McLanahan, S. & Teitler, J. (1999). The consequences of father absence. In M.E. Lamb (Ed.), Parenting and child development in“nontraditional” families (pp. 83-102). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Meta Analyses:
• Amato, P.R. & Keith, B. (1991). Parental divorce and the wellbeing of children: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 26-46.
• Love-Clark, P.A. (1984). A meta-analysis of the effects of divorce on children’s adjustment. Dissertation Abstracts International, 45, (09), 2807A.
• Cherlin, A.J.; Chase-Lansdale, P.L.; &McRae, C. (1998). Effects of parental divorce on mental health throughout the life course. American Sociological Review, 63, 239-249.
• Conger, R.D. & Chao, W. (1996). Adolescent depressed mood. In R.L. Simons (Ed.), Understanding differences between divorced and intact families: Stress, interaction, and child outcome (pp. 157-175). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
• Hetherington, E.M.; Bridges, M.; & Insabella, G.M. (1998). What matters? What does not? Five perspectives on the association between marital transitions and children’s adjustment. American Psychologist, 53, 167-184.
11 Kelly, Joan B. & Lamb, Michael E. (2000). Using child development research to make appropriate custody and access decisions for young children. Family & Conciliation Courts Review. 2000 Jul Vol 38(3) 297-311.
12 Pearson, Jessica & Thoennes, Nancy (1990). Custody after divorce: Demographic and attitudinal patterns. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 60, pp. 233 ff.
13 Stolberg,, Arnold L. & Anker, James (1983). Cognitive and behavioral changes in children resulting from parental divorce and consequent environmental changes. Journal of Divorce, 7, pp. 23 ff.
14 Stolber, Arnold; Camplair, Christopher; Currier, Kathleen; & Wells, Mary (1987). Individual, familial and environmental determinants of children’s post-divorce adjustment and maladjustment. Journal of Divorce, 11, p. 51-65.
15 National estimates in the 1970s and 80s indicated that women had sole custody of the children approximately 85% of the time, and men retained sole custody 10% of the time, with the remaining 5% spread over a variety of custody arrangements, including grandparent, split or joint custody. More recent data sets indicate that father custody figures may be closer to 15%. All these data are based on census and survey data, rather than court records, and reflect actual physical living arrangements.
16 Biller, Henry B. (1993). Fathers and families: Paternal factors in child development. Westport, CT, US: Auburn House/Greenwood Publishing Group Inc.
17 Amato, Paul R. & Rezac, Sandra J. (1994). Contact with nonresidential parents, inter-parental conflict, and children’s behavior. Journal of Family Issues. Jun Vol 15(2) 191-207.
18 Hetherington, E.M. (1989). Coping with family transitions: Winners, losers, and survivors. Child Development, 60, 1-14.
19 Lindner-Gunnoe, M. (1993). Noncustodial mothers’ and fathers’ contributions to the adjustment of adolescent stepchildren. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of (Virginia).
20 Wallerstein, J.S. & Blakeslee, S. (1989). Second chances: Men, women, and children a decade after divorce. New York: Ticknor & Fields.
21 Clarke-Stewart, K.A. & Hayward, C. (1996). Advantages of father custody and contact for the psychological well-being of school age children. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 17, 239-270.
22 Guidubaldi, John & Perry, Joseph D. (1985). Divorce and mental health sequelae for children: A two-year follow-up of a nationwide sample. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry. Sep Vol 24(5) 531-537. Guidubaldi, John & Perry, Joseph D. (1984). Divorce, socioeconomic status, and children’s cognitive-social competence at school entry. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. Jul Vol 54(3) 459-468.
23 Lamb, Michael E.; Sternberg, Kathleen J.;& Thompson, Ross A. (1997). The effects of divorce and custody arrangements on children’s behavior, development, and adjustment. Family & Conciliation Courts Review. Oct, Vol 35(4) 393-404.
24 Lamb, M.E.; Sternberg, K.J.; & Thompson, R.A. (1997). The effects of divorce and custody arrangements on children’s behavior, development and adjustment. Expert Evidence, Vol. 5, p. 83-88; and Family and Conciliation Courts Review, Vol. 35, p. 393-404.
25 Berscheid, B. & Peplau, L.A. (1983). The emerging science of relationships. In H.H. Kelly; E. Berscheid; A. Christensen; I.H. Harvey; T.L. Huston; G. Levinger; E. McClinlock; L.A. Peplau; & D.R. Peterson (Eds.). Close relationships, p. 1-19. New York: W.H. Freeman. Berscheid and Peplau define meaningful or close relationships as ones involving a high degree of interdependence, which are reflected in four relationship processes: (a) Individuals have frequent contact; (b) The relationship is of long duration; (c) The degree of mutual impact is strong; and (d) The relationship involves diverse kinds of activities. Close relationships are also characterized as commonly (but not always) involving strong emotions, although these emotions can be negative as well as positive.
26 Justice Shaw, writing in Mize V. Mize, 621 So.2d 417 [Fla. 1993], at 425: Today’s majority opinion is a throwback to those days—in fact today’s opinion actually expands the “tender years” doctrine to hold that the convenience of the custodial parent is tantamount to the best interest of the child. This mindset virtually ignores the entire weight of social and psychological data in the intervening half century … which indicates that the interests of the child are best served by shared parenting and “frequent and continuing contact with both parents”—a fact long recognized by our legislature.
27 Lamb, M.E.; Sternberg, K.; & Thompson, R.A. (1997). The effects of divorce and custody arrangements on children’s behavior, development, and adjustment. Family and Conciliation Courts Review, 35, pp. 393-404.
28 Standard Visitation Schedule, Eleventh Judicial Circuit In and For Dade County, Florida, ¶2, ¶3.
29 Special days: Each of the parents may preempt the base schedule or reserve days (protect them from being designated by the other parent for vacations or special days) up to five 24-hour periods each calendar year, subject to the following conditions: (a) Written notice must be delivered to the other parent no more than one year in advance and no less than ten days in advance. (b) The notice must designate the specific period (i.e., pickup and return times). (c) Special days may not be scheduled on the other parents’ holidays, (including three-day weekends), birthday celebrations, vacations or designated special days. (d) Special days may not be combined so as to separate the children from the other parent for more than the maximum amount of time permitted for vacations as defined below. (e) The parent exercising a special day must provide all transportation. Who knows when a parent will be given an award, a child will be invited to a special event, a family wedding or bat mitzvah will be scheduled, etc.? This gives flexibility without placing parents at one another’s mercy, and promotes a power balance.
30 http://www.supreme.state.az.us/dr/Pdf/parenttime/parenttime1a.pdf