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Books, Articles, Videos, and Speeches by Dr. Richard A. Warshak

These links go to pages with information about each item: CR01 | CR03 | CR04 | CR05 | CR07 | CR08 | CR09 | CR12 | CR13 | CR14 | CR15 | CR16 | CR17 | CR18 | CR19 | CR20 | CR21 | CR22 | CR23 | CR24 | CR25 | CR27 | CR28 | CR30 | CR31 | CR32 | CR37| CR41 | CR43 | CR44 | CR45 | CR48 | CR52 | CR53 | CR54 | CR55 | CR56 | CR57 | CR61 | CR62 | CR63 | CR64 | CR66 | CR68 | CR71 | WBP01-02 | WBP-DL | WPQ | DP 

CR21 - Blanket Restrictions: Overnight Contact Between Divorced Parents and Young Children

In attempting to fashion developmentally-sensitive residential schedules, some courts, with the endorsement of mental health professionals, routinely deprive infants and toddlers of overnights with their fathers.

This article describes the specific type of overnight restrictions which some therapists have promoted, and the reasoning behind such guidelines. It analyzes the contributions, misuses, and limitations of theory and research relevant to overnight restrictions and discusses their scientific status with respect to current knowledge about child development.

The analysis concludes that blanket restrictions requiring young children to spend every night with the same parent after divorce are inconsistent with current knowledge about the needs and capacities of young children and their parents, and that the practice of discouraging overnight contact cannot be supported by appeals to theory, research, clinical experience, common experience, or common sense. This article was published as the lead article in a professional journal. Includes citations to 84 references. For a follow-up to this article, see CR25 below. Excerpts

CR21, journal article