Aussie Paper Misrepresents Study in Order to Oppose Shared Parenting

05/27/2010 • Fathersandfamilies.org

Equally-shared parenting is, above all, an effort to maintain two parents in a child’s life after a divorce or separation has occurred. The concept acknowledges what we know to be true about what promotes child wellbeing. So when an article flickered across my screen entitled “Study finds shared parenting detrimental to children,” I was immediately interested. It’s a piece out of Australia and refers to a study done by Dr. Alan Campbell of the University of South Australia. Well, it seems to say that (a) there were changes to the Family Law of Australia in 2006 that encouraged equally shared parenting, (b) Dr. Campbell did a study of children inquiring into the effects of shared parenting on child wellbeing, (c) the results tell us something about the new law and (d) the results show that shared parenting is detrimental to children. However, you might be surprised to learn that only (a) above is true.