A Presumption Against Shared Parenting for Family Court Litigants

Abstract

Shared parenting is the most beneficial model for planning the future of many separating parents and their children. Shared parenting needs to be crafted, for appropriate cases, by willing parents on their own or through coaching by responsible lawyers, counselors, or mediators. Shared parenting is not an outcome that should be forced on high‐conflict parents against their will as a compromise in the hopes that they will grow into the plan. Separating parents with a history of domestic violence need to receive appropriate screening and assessment on the nature of the violence, the impact of the violence on the adult victim and children, and the interventions required by the perpetrator before a safe parenting plan can be designed. The Think Tank Report on shared parenting is to be commended for its work. The Report acknowledges some of the limitations of shared parenting in situations that pose risks to children and/or inadvertently promote ongoing conflicts between parents. My concern is that domestic violence victims will be forced into shared parenting or fear being labeled as “hostile” and “unfriendly parents” or accused of alienation. There continues to be a need for much more professional education on the ongoing risks of domestic violence and the implications for differentiated parenting plans. Key Points for the Family Court Community: Shared parenting is not for everyone. Litigating parents are unlikely to make shared parenting work. Case of domestic violence require screening and a differentiated parenting plan that recognizes safety, accountability and healing.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 21 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.