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Parents With Enduring Child Disputes: Multiple pathways to enduring disputes
Joan B Kelly
Corte Madera, California, United States of America
Abstract
The normative course of the divorce process is one of heightened anger and conflict, anxiety, diminished communication, and sadness or depression for one or both partners.
Frequently caused by feelings of betrayal, abandonment, suspicion, and sharp disappointment, these emotions are often accelerated by the separation and the adversarial nature of the divorce.
The majority of couples significantly diminish their anger and conflict in the first two to three years following divorce (Hetherington & Kelly, 2002; King & Heard, 1999; Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980). Most of these emotionally disengaged couples will provide parenting in a parallel fashion in each home, or will cooperatively parent their children (Hetherington, 1999; Maccoby & Mnookin, 1992). In either instance, the parents and their children will generally experience low conflict in the ensuing years.
A small percentage of parents, estimated to be between 8 to 12%, continue to engage in conflict in the years following divorce, with little if any diminution of anger and hateful feelings (King & Heard, 1999; Maccoby & Mnookin, 1992).
This relatively small group of chronically contentious and litigating parents utilise disproportionate resources and time of the courts, and their children are very likely to be exposed to emotional and physical interparental aggression (Johnston & Campbell, 1988; Johnston & Roseby, 1997).
Keywords
parental divorce, child disputes, chronic high conflict, marital, separation, and personality factors, adversarial process
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