children are "damaged" by shared care

This story broke over the weekend - timely considering Sunday was Fathers'' Day - a day that often only serves as a painful reminder to separated Dads that they are apart from their children.

Separated parents who share the care of their young children and allow them to stay overnight at both of their homes are damaging them, a parenting expert has claimed.
Penelope Leach, one of Britain''s leading childcare experts, said shuttling children backwards and forwards between two homes and allowing them to ''sleepover'' with the parent they do not normally live with can affect the development of their brains.
Her comments have angered fathers'' rights groups as children usually stay primarily with their mothers when their parents divorce or separate.
Ms Leach, a former president of the National Childminding Association who has written a number of books about caring for children, says allowing under fives to spend a night with one parent when they primarily live with another creates “unhealthy attachment issues.”
She also claims in her latest book, Family Breakdown, that there was “undisputed evidence” that a period of separation from the parent they normally live with - typically their mothers - can adversely affect a child’s brain development.
She argues that “When people say that it’s ‘only fair’ for a father and mother to share their five-year-old daughter on alternate weeks, they mean it is fair to the adults – who see her as a possession and her presence as their right – not that it is fair to the child.”
Ms Leach said when lawyers bid for their client to have overnight access with their young children they are ignoring evidence about the distressing and damaging impact on the child.
Leach said the rights of the child must always outweigh those of the parents and added: “It can be damaging to the child to divide time equally between the parents.”
Ian Maxwell, from Families Need Fathers, told the Independent on Sunday that society had moved on from classic attachment theory when bonds between mother and child were seen as the strongest.
He added: “The bond between fathers and children is just as important and we would question the evidence Ms Leach is citing for the primacy of the maternal bond.”
He said her argument did not accord with common sense was described her claims as “worrying.”
Leach has previously drawn criticism for her previous bestselling book, Your Baby & Child: From Birth to Age Five, published. In this she claimed only mothers could care properly for their children.
She has also attracted controversy after she claimed scientific evidence showed that leaving a baby to cry could affect the development of its brain and make it prone to anxiety in later life.
It comes as a think tank suggested that working fathers should be given the chance to play a bigger role in early parenting, through an entitlement to four weeks of paid leave following the birth of their child.
The IPPR argues that this doubling of the current paternity leave entitlement of just 2 weeks should be combined with a doubling of the level of pay and paid at least the national minimum wage.
They claim that more than 400,000 working dads a year would benefit.
Only 55 per cent of fathers take the full 2 weeks off work when their child is born and one third of eligible fathers do not take any of their statutory leave at all. Most state this is because they can’t afford to take the entitlement.
The proposed 4 weeks of paternity leave would be a period of leave specifically for fathers that cannot be taken by mothers. The IPPR also argues that working dads should also be able to get twice as much paid time off to go with their parenters to hospital scans and midwife appointments.
Kayte Lawton, IPPR Senior Research Fellow, said: “New parents need time away from work to care for their young children, and to strengthen their relationship with each other at what can be a hugely enjoyable but also very stressful time. However, this is often difficult for fathers because they have limited entitlements to paid leave, and so they often assume the role of breadwinner while their partner is on maternity leave.
"Fathers who take more than a few days off around the birth of their child are more likely to be actively involved in raising their child than those who do not. Fathers’ greater involvement in family life can make it easier for mothers to return to work after taking maternity leave, which helps to raise the family’s income and lessen the impact of motherhood on women’s careers.”

Original source - Sunday Telegraph

Normally, when I post media articles, I don''t comment, but there are a few points about Ms Leach''s comments and claims I would like to make.

Separation/divorce is emotionally difficult enough as it is, without so-called experts making unsubstantiated claims that separated parents who are doing their damnedest best for their children are damaging them. Ms Leach is referring to research by Schore who is not an attachment theorist but a neuroscientist. Importantly, his work doesn''t look at overnight stays for children, and therefore doesn''t say no to overnights for young children. So a massive leap has been made by Ms Leach.

This claim in her new book is damaging for parents - if overnights with both parents don''t happen during the early years, then they certainly aren''t going to magically happen once the child is 5 years old - it is likely that they will never happen - thus meaning that (usually) fathers and children will never have the opportunities to form close attachments with each other and therefore have a rather dysfunctional relationship with each other.

What do you think?

Oh Ruth....arrgghhhhhhhh.

These so called well educated experts
Well they know Jack Shite of life,and how us the mere mortals live it...

Luckily for me,my daughters are a lot older,not needing sleepovers,and old enough to make up their own minds regarding their Dad... But I can honestly say,that he was a fantastic father to them,yes he worked a lot when they were children,very long hours,but the time they spent together was magical.

Whatever contact all kids have with the NRP is valuable,and yes sleepovers are needed,my girls would have thought 2 homes to mess up anyway;)There are enough people on here and in the non wiki domain,who are constantly fighting for such access,paying the justice system thousands,and all the irrational spoutings of someone like her,cold seriously damage their cases...
Wait now for the glory gang who will support her in her mission,they will be onboard soon,whilst the kids and NRP are fighting to spend time together..

A rather p----ed off Afon Xxx

I''d be curious to know on what basis she makes those claims that a sleepover with their own parent is harmful? As Ruth suggests, not having a chance to build a strong relationship with the NRP seems likely to cause a lot more harm longterm. Its sounds all rather sensationalist, with an eye for profiting from the guilty parents market, or am I being a bit too cynical?

It was discussed on the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 yesterday maybe worth having a listen to

It takes a lot of organisation and co-operation to have shared care and for it to work well.

I work in a school and the children with "shared care" are the ones that do not have the right things for school as whatever they need is at the other parents house. Especially where changeover is during the week. Also, where letters and reply slips are concerned there is confusion over who is responsible for signing and returning the slips.

It is also usually the "bitter" separations that demand the shared care so that in itself causes problems.

I only speak from my own experience, but from what I see the ones with shared care have the saddest home life situation and are torn between both parents.

Sorry Deedum but are you really suggesting that a child not having contact or limited to a couple of hours a week with one parent is a better situation?

If shared parenting was the default rather than something that had to ''fought'' over then it would less likely to be conflict situations. At the moment its perceived that share caring is the worst option because it means one side ''won or lost'' a court case.It might be the conflict from the situation that is damaging rather than ''shared'' care.

Article like this based on poor research can be extremely harmful. Lets hope it quickly gets discredited and seen for what it is.

No, I''m talking about where the care is something like 50/50 (my definition of shared care). I''m in no way suggesting children don''t see the other parent or stay with them.