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Edward Kruk Ph.D.
Co-Parenting After Divorce
Equal Parenting and the Quality of Parent-
Child Attachments
The Link Between Quantity of Time and Quality of Parent-Child Relationships
Posted Mar 09, 2013
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Although the term, "shared parenting" is usually used to describe arrangements where parents share child care
responsibilities following divorce as much as possible, the notion of "equal parenting" refers to parenting
arrangements after divorce where parents seek to fairly and equally divide their post-divorce responsibilities
toward their children. Although shared parenting provides a number of benefits to children, it is equal parenting
that is the optimal arrangement for most children of divorce. This includes children caught in the middle of high
parental conflict. Recent research has shown that conflict is reduced in equal parenting households, from the
perspective of both children (Fabricius, 2011) and parents (Bauserman, 2012), and in cases where inter-parental
conflict is not reduced, equal parenting seems to ameliorate most of the negative effects of such conflict on
children (Fabricius, 2011).
Child development experts have written that psychologically, the quality of attachment relationships is a major
factor associated with the well-being of very young children. Thus some believe that the quality of parent-child
relationships counts for much more than merely quantity of time that children spend with each parent after
divorce. But children form close bonds with those who care for them, in their first year of life and beyond. This
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