Category: Blog

January 17, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

All those who reflexively oppose shared parenting should read this article (ABC, 1/16/18). It tells the story of equal parenting from the perspectives of one mother and one father, each of whom has that arrangement with a former spouse. Unsurprisingly, what they report is what equal parenting promises – children’s welfare and better parenting from both Mom and Dad. What’s not to like?

When her relationship with her husband broke down five years ago, they agreed splitting the time with their two daughters 50/50 was the best option.

Not only does she treasure having both her own space and one-on-one time with the kids, she believes the girls have better relationships with her and their dad because of it.

"When in a partnered relationship you may have a break here and there, but it’s limited to a few hours," the Noosa mum of two said.

"With co-parenting, having that ‘me time’ is extremely valuable, not only to recharge and just take a break, but it enables you to work on yourself — whether that is health, career or just concentrating on the future."

That about says it. As is so often the case, given the biology of human parenting, mothers tend to do most of the hands-on parenting during a marriage. Fathers’ doing the bulk of the earning allows them to do that. The downside to that is that the kids’ relationships with their fathers are limited. With 50/50 parenting post-divorce, fathers do half the hands-on parenting so their relationships with their kids become fuller, more complete.

Meanwhile, with Mom relieved of full-time parenting, she becomes less stressed, no longer “on call” 24 hours a day. To an extent, that’s what she was during marriage, but as well, it’s what family courts order in far, far too many cases. When a mother has the kids 75% – 80% of the time post-divorce, parenting takes away a lot of her opportunity to work, earn, save for retirement and advance in her career. It also limits her “me time” in which she can expand beyond her roles of mother and earner.

With 50/50 parenting, Dad improves his relationship with his children and more fully realizes his role as father, a role that most dads see as deeply important, even to the extent of its being their primary reason for existing.

And, as reams of research demonstrate, children do better emotionally, psychologically, educationally and in other ways when they don’t lose one parent to the whims of a divorce court.

Lucy, who writes a blog with the aim of supporting other single mums, said if she had continued her marriage, she would have remained "just mum".

"But instead I’ve had the space to start my own business and be my own person again," she said.

"It’s something your kids watch you do and learn from."

Good point. Kids with parents with equal parenting time see each parent in the role of parent and earner. They see that men can be good, effective parents and women can be relied on to earn the family living. There was a time when feminist organizations saw that as a good thing, but that was a long time ago. Since then, i.e. the early 80s, they’ve stridently opposed shared parenting in favor of the sole/primary model that ensures that transfers of wealth from men to women will continue. Former German feminist and family attorney Hildegard Sunderhauf said exactly that at the conference on shared parenting put on by the National Parents Organization in Boston last May. Those organizations should realize that, if they truly support women’s welfare, they should do a sharp about face and start supporting shared parenting.

Plus,

Child psychologist Kimberley O’Brien said shared custody allowed parents who were not in a relationship together to give their full attention to the children.

"There are lots of benefits to having one-on-one time," she said.

"They [the children] aren’t competing with the other parent for attention."

Dr O’Brien said it could be a point of tension in a nuclear family when it can often be "all about the kids", and when parents were taking care of themselves, they had a lot more energy to give.

"They aren’t feeling tired or resentful of their own time being eaten into by children’s needs," she said.

As I said, what’s not to like?

 

Donate

 

National Parents Organization is a Shared Parenting Organization

National Parents Organization is a non-profit that educates the public, families, educators, and legislators about the importance of shared parenting and how it can reduce conflict in children, parents, and extended families. Along with Shared Parenting we advocate for fair Child Support and Alimony Legislation. Want to get involved?  Here’s how:

• Become an official member of the National Parents Organization team.
• Join our Facebook Page.

Together, we can drive home the family, child development, social and national benefits of shared parenting, and fair child support and alimony. Thank you for your activism.

#sharedparenting, #NationalParentsOrganization

By: Ned Holstein, MD, MS
Founder, Chair of the Board and Acting Executive Director

Martin Luther King, whose birthday we celebrate today, was a true hero of the twentieth century. He devoted his life to correcting an enormous injustice. Like George Washington during the American Revolution, he knew his life was on the line. In fact, in King’s case, it is clear that during the last few years of his life, he knew for a fact that he would be assassinated sooner or later.

Yet he persisted.

We too can win our struggle to “right an unbearable wrong.” To do so, we must avoid two errors, each the opposite of the other.

First, when King claimed that the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice, he did not intend to imply that good things are predestined to occur. The good guys do not automatically win. Justice does not always prevail. Bad things happen — all the time.

Instead, the full context of his sermon makes it clear that it requires our effort and sacrifice to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice. It will not be done for us, and we cannot sit back and do nothing.

The opposite error is to succumb to despair, to believe that the task is so hard that we cannot possibly do it. Deuteronomy 30:13-14 expresses this error with eloquence: “Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’14“But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.”

As we enter into 2018, let us remember that we must act, each of us, to right the wrongs of family law. The arc of the moral universe will not bend by itself, automatically. Yet extreme sacrifice is not required of us, to give up our lives, or our fortune (what is left of it), or to be imprisoned, nor to go “beyond the sea” for it. It is as close to you as your breath. It is easily within our power working together. All that is needed is to occasionally attend a meeting, or visit a legislator, or write a letter, or write a check to National Parents Organization.

Let us take our inspiration from Dr. King today, while realizing that we are not called upon to sacrifice so dearly as he was.

And much less is required of us

January 15, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

This excellent piece by the equally excellent Ray Keiser demonstrates what we’ve learned from custody and parenting time data out of North Dakota (Lincoln Star Journal, 1/10/18). I refer of course to the fact that one’s outcome in a custody/parenting time case depends, not on the best interests of the child, but on which judge decides the case. The simple fact is that some judges understand the need for shared parenting and some don’t.  Each judge intones the mantra that, whatever the final order, it’s all in “the best interests of the child.” But some orders do and some don’t actually promote that.

So, we find in one court a judge issuing a week-on/week-off parenting order and in another, with equally fit parents, the standard, off-the-shelf order giving every other weekend visitation to Dad. More than anything else, the extreme and entirely random differences in parenting time orders reveal that judges are acting on something other than children’s interests. That in turn teaches us that perhaps the most important reform is in how judges are educated about what really promotes children’s well-being and what doesn’t. Overwhelmingly, that means maintaining meaningful relationships with both parents.

Here’s Keiser:

Judges are the single biggest cause of fatherlessness. Every year, defective child custody decisions hurt thousands of Nebraska children. Based on Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services data, we estimate these decisions cost Nebraska taxpayers more than $500 million every year.

Now, I don’t know where he got that $500 million figure, and I’d like to. If any reader knows where I can find that information, by all means send it to me. But however it was derived and whether $500 million is an accurate figure, it’s unquestionable that fatherlessness costs us plenty. It costs us in police resources, prisons, productivity lost due to drug and alcohol dependency issues, treatment of those problems, treatment for depression, lower employment, poorer educational outcomes, higher welfare costs, etc. How one goes about putting a figure on all that, I have no idea, but the fact remains that it costs us.

Meanwhile,

Our judges have shown some improvement in recent years. Last November, the Nebraska Court of Appeals ordered a trial judge to adopt a week-on/week-off parenting plan. Consistent with the research, the court held that “modifying custody to a week on/week off parenting schedule is in the children’s best interests.”

A month earlier, the Court of Appeals affirmed a parenting plan that involved two children, including one with special needs; a mother who was a nurse with specialized training and a flexible work schedule; and a father who traveled frequently for work. In response to these facts, the trial judge created a 10-day/four-day schedule for the special needs child and a week-on/week-off schedule for the second child.

A year earlier, the Court of Appeals reversed a cookie-cutter, every-other-weekend schedule and ordered the trial judge to more equally divide the parenting time.

Every-other weekend plans are problematic because the child has less than half the minimum recommended parenting time with the non-custodial parent. This case involved a firefighter father who lived only a mile from the mother and could exercise significant parenting time. The appeals court held “awarding [the father] only two weekends of parenting time per month … was an abuse of discretion” by the trial judge.

So there are some judges, including those occupying appellate benches, who are coming to understand the value of shared parenting and the detrimental effects of the “cookie-cutter” every other weekend approach.

Still,

Last month, the Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed a decision that rewarded a parent who engaged in parental alienation. Among other things, this case involved a parental child abduction, a name change of the child to eliminate all references to the targeted parent and complete denial of access to the child. Another affirmed a decision that refused to remove two teenage girls from the home of their mother and stepfather, a registered sex offender who served four years in prison for molesting a teenage stepdaughter from a previous relationship.

In the last two months, the Court of Appeals has three times affirmed cookie-cutter, every-other-weekend parenting plans. In one such case, the court affirmed a decision that gave a father an every-other-weekend parenting schedule despite the fact he lived less than a mile from the mother in a small town. The trial judge in this case was the same judge who earlier refused to remove the teenaged girls from the home of their sex offender step-father.

In addition, the trial judge who was reversed in the firefighter case has resisted the Court of Appeals order. He stalled six months before creating a new parenting plan and, when he finally did so, gave the father only 30 percent of the parenting time, far less than what the appeals court ordered.

It’s a roll of the dice. Get a sensible, educated judge and your chance of maintaining a strong relationship with your kid is pretty good; get the opposite and you’re all of a sudden a visitor who’s told that it’s in his child’s best interests to not see his/her father much. This is true despite the fact that, as Canadian researcher Paul Millar has commented, there is literally no evidence for the proposition that sole/primary custody is in children’s interests and a great deal that it’s not.

What can be done? First, the state should collect and publish parenting time data, by judge, in every child custody case. DHHS already collects related data in these cases, so this would add one additional question to an existing questionnaire.

Second, judges who consistently make biased or defective decisions should be barred from hearing child custody cases and should be accountable to the same extent as other government employees.

Finally, the state should adopt parenting time guidelines that reflect the best available research and direct judges to equalize the parenting time of both parents whenever possible.

I would add a fourth. Judges should be trained in the science on shared parenting. My guess is that there are few judges who hate fathers or consciously believe that they should be sidelined in their children’s lives. My guess is that most are at least well-intentioned. Whatever the case, all judges should be given the opportunity to know and understand the overwhelming scientific evidence that shared parenting is the best arrangement for kids short of intact families.

Well done, Ray Keiser and well done Lincoln Star Journal for running the unvarnished truth about the scandal that is ongoing in Nebraska’s family courts.

 

Donate

 

National Parents Organization is a Shared Parenting Organization

National Parents Organization is a non-profit that educates the public, families, educators, and legislators about the importance of shared parenting and how it can reduce conflict in children, parents, and extended families. Along with Shared Parenting we advocate for fair Child Support and Alimony Legislation. Want to get involved?  Here’s how:

• Become an official member of the National Parents Organization team.
• Join our Facebook Page.

Together, we can drive home the family, child development, social and national benefits of shared parenting, and fair child support and alimony. Thank you for your activism.

#sharedparenting, #children’sbestinterests

A Personal Message from Ned Holstein

National Parents Organization has launched a nationwide search for a new, full time, professional Executive Director! Having an experienced, accomplished, full time, well-paid Executive Director will vastly improve our strength and effectiveness. If you like NPO now, wait til you see 2018!

At considerable expense, we have contracted with a major national executive search firm in New York City that specializes in non-profits. Known as DRG, they have successfully placed high executives ranging from non-profits smaller than ours to behemoths. DRG has thousands of nationwide contacts they can tap to locate good candidates. And they are experienced in how to use social media for maximum effectiveness in recruiting.

We hope to have chosen a candidate and reached an agreement with her/him by the end of January, 2018. We are excited that the Search Consultant we will work with at DRG already understands the family law issues and does not need an education in these matters.

We will be offering a substantial salary, because NPO’s success will hinge on the quality of the Executive Director we are able to attract. Candidates will be able to stay where they currently live, if they so desire. Our key people are already distributed around the country, and we work from a “virtual office.” With growth, we may need to establish a central office, but that is for the future.

Since I work without compensation, this change will cause a substantial increase in our expenses. So we do need you to continue and to even increase the gifts you have made to support this organization.

Imagine: many more media appearances; much more social media action; many more interactions with thought leaders in the areas of family court, child development and justice; much more lobbying; many more online and in-person campaigns; many more state affiliates getting much more support from the national organization; many more meetings and rallies; in short, much more of everything!

That is, much more of everything if you support us, which you can do by clicking here.

If you are interested to learn about this position, click here to see the job posting that has already gone out through multiple platforms. If you are personally interested in the position, please note that you should reply to our Search Consultant, Sara Lundberg, not to me.

Which brings up a personal note. I have been running National Parents Organization off and on since 1998 — with lots of help from many others. During these years, we have also had Dan Hogan, Glenn Sacks and Rita Fuerst Adams as Executive Directors for many of those years. Now we are taking a major step upwards towards more highly paid, experienced and professional non-profit leadership. The time is ripe for renewal, new blood, and change.

I will continue on the Board of Directors for at least one year, to ensure continuity and success with our new Executive Director. I will also lead a few specific projects, with the agreement of the new leader. So you can be sure there will be continuity, effectiveness and dynamism at the top.

We ain’t seen nothing yet!

Looking forward with excitement to the next chapter…

Together with you in the love of our children,

Ned Holstein

January 14, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

By contrast to Risa Garon’s, Terry Brennan’s response to the Washington Post editorial opposing shared parenting in Maryland is a model of factual accuracy and cogency (Washington Post, 1/9/18). Too bad it was Garon instead of Brennan who served on the legislative commission tasked with making recommendations about reform of child custody and parenting time laws. Garon’s letter is misinformed in all the ways the commission was.

Where Garon claims there’s science to back her opposition to shared parenting laws, but cites none, Brennan cites the rich and varied research that supports them. What a concept. Of course Garon’s failure to provide a single citation is understandable, given that there is essentially no such research and what there is was so shoddily done no sensible opponent of shared parenting would risk giving readers access to it. Proponents of shared parenting aren’t so restricted as Brennan demonstrates.

In 2014, 110 world experts on child custody, child development, attachment and domestic violence endorsed a paper calling for shared parenting in family law… There are also more than 50 peer-reviewed papers supporting shared parenting.

See how easy that was? See how Brennan provided links to the research so readers can check his claims? See how Garon didn’t?

Then there are the issues Brennan raised that went completely ignored by Garon.

Citizens also support shared parenting, with poll after poll showing 70 percent favorability and women and men supporting it in roughly equal numbers.

Yes, when it comes to thwarting the will of the people, it doesn’t pay to let readers know you’re doing so. The simple fact is that the commission on which Garon served made recommendations that are dramatically at odds with the expressed wishes of Marylanders.

The off-stage drama being played out is the legislature pretending to take an even-handed approach to family court reform, but appointing a commission to look into the matter that was anything but unbiased. The result, that was written in stone long before the commission completed its work, was not only to deny two fit parents to children of divorce, but also to give the familiar digital salute to the people who pay the salaries of legislators. That’s not something they want to draw attention to, so, needless to say, Garon kept mum on the subject.

Then of course the Post editorial parroted the claim that a presumption of equal parenting constitutes a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Garon parroted it right back to them in her letter referring to shared parenting as “cookie-cutter” approach. It’s pure nonsense.

It is exceedingly rare to see a bill take a one-size-fits-all approach. Indeed, “shared parenting” is defined as allowing children a minimum of 35 percent time with each parent, with the remainder of the child’s time individualized to each case. I’m unaware of any bill without exceptions for issues such as abuse, neglect and abandonment.

Plus of course if anything is a “cookie-cutter” approach to parenting time, it’s the system we have now. People familiar with family law know the outcome of most cases by heart: every other weekend, with a couple of hours during the week, a few weeks in the summer and Christmas and Spring Break in alternating years. Opponents of shared parenting raise the “cookie-cutter” argument in the hope no one will notice the obvious contradiction.

Finally, there’s this:

Within Leading Women for Shared Parenting, psychologists, medical doctors, lawyers, elected officials, journalists, researchers, therapists, domestic-violence experts and other prominent women are promoting what’s right for children, as fatherlessness is an epidemic and family courts are a significant contributor.

Fatherlessness is indeed a major social problem; I argue that it’s our most pressing one. The anti-father bias of family courts is perhaps the single greatest contributor to fatherless children. It is because it routinely marginalizes fathers in the lives of their children, for no apparent reason. It is the point of shared parenting to allow both parents to play a meaningful role in their children’s upbringing post-divorce.

So what do opponents of shared parenting have to say about fatherlessness and how to stem its tide? Not one word. Garon didn’t and they never do. Where are their studies that demonstrate that the current system well serves children, parents and the public purse? Nowhere. There are none. The current system avidly promotes fatherlessness and opponents of shared parenting avidly promote the current system. They disgrace themselves. The Washington Post’s editors disgraced themselves and their publication.

 

Donate

 

National Parents Organization is a Shared Parenting Organization

National Parents Organization is a non-profit that educates the public, families, educators, and legislators about the importance of shared parenting and how it can reduce conflict in children, parents, and extended families. Along with Shared Parenting we advocate for fair Child Support and Alimony Legislation. Want to get involved?  Here’s how:

• Become an official member of the National Parents Organization team.
• Join our Facebook Page.

Together, we can drive home the family, child development, social and national benefits of shared parenting, and fair child support and alimony. Thank you for your activism.

#sharedparenting, #WashingtonPost

A Personal Message from Ned Holstein

National Parents Organization has launched a nationwide search for a new, full time, professional Executive Director! Having an experienced, accomplished, full time, well-paid Executive Director will vastly improve our strength and effectiveness. If you like NPO now, wait til you see 2018!

At considerable expense, we have contracted with a major national executive search firm in New York City that specializes in non-profits. Known as DRG, they have successfully placed high executives ranging from non-profits smaller than ours to behemoths. DRG has thousands of nationwide contacts they can tap to locate good candidates. And they are experienced in how to use social media for maximum effectiveness in recruiting.

We hope to have chosen a candidate and reached an agreement with her/him by the end of January, 2018. We are excited that the Search Consultant we will work with at DRG already understands the family law issues and does not need an education in these matters.

We will be offering a substantial salary, because NPO’s success will hinge on the quality of the Executive Director we are able to attract. Candidates will be able to stay where they currently live, if they so desire. Our key people are already distributed around the country, and we work from a “virtual office.” With growth, we may need to establish a central office, but that is for the future.

Since I work without compensation, this change will cause a substantial increase in our expenses. So we do need you to continue and to even increase the gifts you have made to support this organization.

Imagine: many more media appearances; much more social media action; many more interactions with thought leaders in the areas of family court, child development and justice; much more lobbying; many more online and in-person campaigns; many more state affiliates getting much more support from the national organization; many more meetings and rallies; in short, much more of everything!

That is, much more of everything if you support us, which you can do by clicking here.

If you are interested to learn about this position, click here to see the job posting that has already gone out through multiple platforms. If you are personally interested in the position, please note that you should reply to our Search Consultant, Sara Lundberg, not to me.

Which brings up a personal note. I have been running National Parents Organization off and on since 1998 — with lots of help from many others. During these years, we have also had Dan Hogan, Glenn Sacks and Rita Fuerst Adams as Executive Directors for many of those years. Now we are taking a major step upwards towards more highly paid, experienced and professional non-profit leadership. The time is ripe for renewal, new blood, and change.

I will continue on the Board of Directors for at least one year, to ensure continuity and success with our new Executive Director. I will also lead a few specific projects, with the agreement of the new leader. So you can be sure there will be continuity, effectiveness and dynamism at the top.

We ain’t seen nothing yet!

Looking forward with excitement to the next chapter…

Together with you in the love of our children,

Ned Holstein

January 12, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

Back on January 8, I posted a piece on the badly misinformed editorial in the Washington Post opposing shared parenting and promoting the work of a legislative committee that, in 2013, was tasked with studying the matter of child custody and parenting time among other things. Like Joan Meier’ letter to the editor and Terence Mentor’s op-ed, Post editors demonstrated a profound lack of basic information about shared parenting and the bills that seek to make it law.

Now we have letters to the editor of the Post responding to its editorial (Washington Post, 1/9/18). The first is by friend of NPO and co-founder of Leading Women for Shared Parenting, Terry Brennan. It is characteristically informed, informing and to the point. I’ll get back to it, but for now I want to focus on the second LTE.

It’s by Risa J. Garon who proudly announces, “I was honored to serve on a committee of the Maryland Commission on Child Custody Decision Making.” I believe it. Garon’s letter is so chock full of error and disinformation that it would be an embarrassment to those better informed. Of course, I don’t know the opinions of the other members of the committee, but if Garon’s are any indication, it’s no wonder it failed the children of Maryland as badly as it did.

Garon asks why there aren’t more states with a presumption of shared parenting. Her “answer?”

Speak with the children and parents who struggle with joint legal custody. Their experience may incorporate a parent who refuses to support children’s activities, special needs and communication with their co-parent. Some parents suffer from untreated mental illness or continued substance abuse and refuse to be treated.

Hmm. It’s funny that Garon has no idea about the difference between legal and physical custody. That’s about as basic a concept as we’re likely to find in this area, but Garon hasn’t a clue. Joint legal custody is nothing more than the right to be consulted on important decisions about a child’s schooling, medical care, etc. Joint legal custody is quite common and we see essentially no problems with it. But a non-custodial parent who doesn’t cooperate in deciding about soccer vs. basketball quickly finds himself ignored. If Garon knew what legal custody is, she’d know that, but she doesn’t.

As to parents suffering from mental illness or substance abuse, there’s never been a shared parenting bill that didn’t allow judges to make exceptions for those and other situations that militate against shared parenting.

Parents who remain in high conflict with joint custody become toxic to their children.

They can, but Garon assumes that only joint custody produces conflict. That of course is so much nonsense. Indeed, shared custody can actually reduce conflict over time. By contrast, due to its winner-take-all approach to custody, the current system invites parents to fight to the bitter end and continue fighting after the order is signed.

Research shows that it is not about the quantity of time or overnights that children spend with a parent; rather, it is about their attachment and trust of that parent, and how that parent meets their child’s developmental needs and works constructively with their co-parent.

Citation? Garon offers none for the good and sufficient reason that there are none to offer. Dr. Linda Nielsen analyzed all 52 peer reviewed/government conducted studies of shared parenting in the English language. Fifty-one of them found shared parenting to be vastly better for children’s welfare. A single one had ambiguous findings. There are plenty of others. For example, Malin Bergstrom’s work in Sweden consistently demonstrates shared parenting to be second only to intact families at promoting children’s mental health.

The commission respects the involvement of both parents in a way that meets children’s needs.

No, it doesn’t. If it did, it would have taken steps to encourage the state legislature to change Maryland’s laws to promote the health and well-being of its children. Instead it opted for a status quo that routinely sidelines fit fathers in their children’s lives. It did so despite the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence that the current system of sole/primary custody is bad for kids, bad for fathers, bad for mothers and bad for society generally.

There are entrenched, monied forces that invariably resist shared parenting initiatives for their own self-interest. If they had some principled objection, they’d have produced it by now, but they haven’t. They never do. Garon’s is just one more example.

I’ll write about Terry Brennan’s letter next time.

 

Donate

 

National Parents Organization is a Shared Parenting Organization

National Parents Organization is a non-profit that educates the public, families, educators, and legislators about the importance of shared parenting and how it can reduce conflict in children, parents, and extended families. Along with Shared Parenting we advocate for fair Child Support and Alimony Legislation. Want to get involved?  Here’s how:

• Become an official member of the National Parents Organization team.
• Join our Facebook Page.

Together, we can drive home the family, child development, social and national benefits of shared parenting, and fair child support and alimony. Thank you for your activism.

by Dr Craig Childress

The Petition to the APA received 10,000 signatures on its first day. You breath, and your power pulses. You are more powerful than you know. Come together into a single voice.

Petition to the American Psychological Association

I will begin my work on formal submission of the Petition to the APA. In the meantime, continue recruiting allies. We want to find all of your allies in this battle. And toward that end I have something for you to do – find and bring your allies.

We want to leverage the Petition to the APA to call forth current allies and educate future allies. I want you to continue to recruit signatures to the Petition, each signature represents a voice, an ally. But let’s also identify your organizational allies, beginning with all state psychological associations.

We are going to identify your current allies and begin recruiting your future allies by asking these organizational entities to formally endorse the Petition to the APA.

The remedies sought by the Petition to the APA are entirely reasonable. The Petition is simply asking the APA to provide statements affirming the Standards of its own ethics code. This is an entirely reasonable request.

Supporting professional knowledge and professional competence is something every professional organization should be able to endorse.

So then, let’s ask all professional organizations to please formally endorse the Petition to the APA. Let’s identify your current allies, voices who will stand with you.

But even if they don’t endorse, simply reading the Petition to the APA will educate them. That is a very good thing. We are recruiting them as your future allies. The world is changing.

Start with your state’s psychological organization (such as the Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the New York Psychological Association, the Oregon Psychological Association, the North Carolina Psychological Association…)

I want you to ask all of your state psychological organizations to formally endorse the Petition to the APA. Master’s level psychological organizations as well. Every mental health organization, ask them to formally endorse the Petition to the APA.

Internationally, I would ask the same. Ask your national and regional psychological organizations in your country to formally endorse the Petition to the APA. (the British Psychological Association, the Australian Psychological Association, the Canadian Psychological Association, the Nederlands Instituut van Psychologen, the Polish Psychologists’ Association…). Ask them to endorse the Petition to the APA.

We are identifying your current allies and bringing their voices to yours, and we are educating your future allies. This is all good.

And let’s not stop at the mental health system. Let’s seek the endorsement of legal organizations as well. Let’s ask all of your state bar associations to endorse the Petition to the APA. Will any of them endorse the Petition? I don’t know. Let’s find out.

How about law schools and graduate psychology programs at universities… would any of them formally endorse the Petition to the APA? I don’t know. I do know that they won’t endorse the Petition if they’re not asked.

What about all of your state licensing boards? I doubt that they’ll take an official position on the Petition to the APA, but they will at least know about the issues. Statement of Concern 4 speaks directly to licensing boards. We are not only calling for current allies, we are educating future allies.

What about your state legislators… will they introduce legislation to endorse the Petition to the APA? Maybe not, but at least its an opportunity to educate the office of your state legislator about the trauma to families and the unchecked professional ignorance and incompetence. Ask for a formal statement from the office of the representative endorsing the Petition to the APA.

What about the media? Do you think journalists and the media might be interested in the story of the Petition to the APA?

Parents seeking professional competence from a broken mental health system. Family’s destroyed by rampant and unchecked professional ignorance and incompetence in professional psychology.

Parents calling out to the APA for relief, calling for the APA to affirm its support for their own professional standards guaranteeing parents their foundational right to professional knowledge and professional competence in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of their children and families.

Do you think the media might be interested in that story? I don’t know. Let’s ask.

The Petition to the APA is on Change.org. A pdf copy of the Petition to the APA is on my website, right at the top of the Parental Alienation section. In seeking formal endorsements from organizations, you can link your request to the Petition directly or you can send a pdf of the Petition as part of your request.

I’d suggest writing a cover letter saying something like:

The lives of children and families experiencing attachment-related family pathology surrounding divorce are being destroyed by professional ignorance and incompetence.

A Petition to the American Psychological Association signed by over X0,000 is gathering voices of support for the APA to affirm its Standards guaranteeing parents the right to professional competence in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of their children and families (Standard 2.01a of the APA ethics code).

I am requesting that the xyz organization also add its voice to this call for professional competence by formally endorsing the Petition to the APA regarding standards of professional competence in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of attachment-related pathology surrounding divorce.

You will find a copy of the Petition to the APA attached.

Thank you for your consideration of this request that xyz organization provide a statement of support endorsing the Petition to the APA.

Emails to organizations may be one approach. I think postal mail is always more powerful. Even if they don’t formally endorse the Petition, or even if their endorsement takes ages to work its way through their endorsement process, these organizations become educated by simply reading the Petition. The knowledge will percolate, embed itself, and they will become our future allies.

Every professional quote in the Petition is a seed of knowledge planted in the mind of the reading mental health professional. In the fertile soil of an authentic professional mind, each seed of knowledge will grow. And just look how many seeds of knowledge the Petition contains, each quote is a seed.

All of Article 3 is a valuable seed of knowledge for licensing boards, with Statement of Concern 4 amplifying the message to licensing boards.

Articles 1 and 2 provide an unraveling of the pathology for legal professionals and CPS social workers, familiarizing them with the vocabulary and concepts; a cross-generational coalition, pathogenic parenting, pathological mourning by a narcissistic/(borderline) parent, the psychological control of the child.

Education requires repeated exposure to familiarize the construct and begin to embed and anchor the information. Each source of information, the Petition and the booklets – The Narcissistic Parent, the Assessment of Attachment-Related Pathology, the Contingent Visitation Schedule – provides a repetition and slightly varied extension of the information. Through each source of information the knowledge becomes increasingly anchored and reinforced.

It’s time for all of your allies to join us on the battlefield. The time is now. The battle to recover your children, all of your children, is now. Let’s identify your current allies and bring them to the field to join us, and let’s begin to recruit your future allies.

For individuals, ask every person you know to sign the petition. For organizations, ask every organization you can identify to endorse the petition.

Professional psychology associations. Professional legal associations. All licensing boards (CPS agencies?). Media outlets. Your extended family. Your friends. Identify all of your allies and bring them to the field, and begin to recruit your future allies.

Organizations won’t endorse the Petition if they’re not asked. No harm in asking:

“Please endorse… attached is the Petition to the APA. Thank you.”

Craig Childress, Psy.D.
Clinical Psychologist, PSY 18857

A Personal Message from Ned Holstein

National Parents Organization has launched a nationwide search for a new, full time, professional Executive Director! Having an experienced, accomplished, full time, well-paid Executive Director will vastly improve our strength and effectiveness. If you like NPO now, wait til you see 2018!

At considerable expense, we have contracted with a major national executive search firm in New York City that specializes in non-profits. Known as DRG, they have successfully placed high executives ranging from non-profits smaller than ours to behemoths. DRG has thousands of nationwide contacts they can tap to locate good candidates. And they are experienced in how to use social media for maximum effectiveness in recruiting.

We hope to have chosen a candidate and reached an agreement with her/him by the end of January, 2018. We are excited that the Search Consultant we will work with at DRG already understands the family law issues and does not need an education in these matters.

We will be offering a substantial salary, because NPO’s success will hinge on the quality of the Executive Director we are able to attract. Candidates will be able to stay where they currently live, if they so desire. Our key people are already distributed around the country, and we work from a “virtual office.” With growth, we may need to establish a central office, but that is for the future.

Since I work without compensation, this change will cause a substantial increase in our expenses. So we do need you to continue and to even increase the gifts you have made to support this organization.

Imagine: many more media appearances; much more social media action; many more interactions with thought leaders in the areas of family court, child development and justice; much more lobbying; many more online and in-person campaigns; many more state affiliates getting much more support from the national organization; many more meetings and rallies; in short, much more of everything!

That is, much more of everything if you support us, which you can do by clicking here.

If you are interested to learn about this position, click here to see the job posting that has already gone out through multiple platforms. If you are personally interested in the position, please note that you should reply to our Search Consultant, Sara Lundberg, not to me.

Which brings up a personal note. I have been running National Parents Organization off and on since 1998 — with lots of help from many others. During these years, we have also had Dan Hogan, Glenn Sacks and Rita Fuerst Adams as Executive Directors for many of those years. Now we are taking a major step upwards towards more highly paid, experienced and professional non-profit leadership. The time is ripe for renewal, new blood, and change.

I will continue on the Board of Directors for at least one year, to ensure continuity and success with our new Executive Director. I will also lead a few specific projects, with the agreement of the new leader. So you can be sure there will be continuity, effectiveness and dynamism at the top.

We ain’t seen nothing yet!

Looking forward with excitement to the next chapter…

Together with you in the love of our children,

Ned Holstein

January 11, 2018 by Robert Franklin, Esq, Member, National Board of Directors, National Parents Organization

Last time I commented on a bill before the Nebraska Legislature to gather and disseminate basic information about the custody and parenting time decisions made by family courts in the state. I mentioned that it’s based on a similar law in Washington State that’s been on the books since at least 2008. The Nebraska bill would gather somewhat more information and, most importantly, the data would be reported by judge. That way, Nebraskans could know how each judge in the state is ruling. That’s important because, as we saw in North Dakota, there’s no rhyme or reason to the rulings. In a remarkably homogeneous state, some judges order equal parenting fairly often while others never do.

So I thought it would be a good idea to examine some of the data that Washington collects. Now, despite the fact that the law requiring collection has been on the books for many years, the reporting agency, the Washington State Center for Court Research, has simply not produced any figures for 2011, 2012, 2015 and 2016. The reason for those lapses is anyone’s guess.

Whatever the case, what follows are some of the interesting data from the most recent year for which we have published figures, 2014.

First, the good news. The parenting time arrangement that tends to produce the salutary outcomes of shared parenting, i.e. at least 35% of the time for each parent, occurred in 28% of the cases reported. Compared to other states, that’s a pretty good showing. However…

Mothers receive the majority of the parenting time in about 60% of cases, while fathers do in only about 13%. So, while there’s a fair number of shared parenting cases, there are still far, far too few. And maternal bias on the part of judges still appears to be prevalent.

That’s made clearer by other data. For example, equal parenting orders all but invariably came about because the parents agreed with each other to arrange it that way. That’s the upside of that datum. The downside is that judges almost never ordered equal parenting. So parents agree on that arrangement despite the known proclivities of judges. And of course fathers often agree to less time in all likelihood for that very reason, i.e. that judges seldom grant equal time and almost never give fathers the lion’s share of the parenting time. We’ve seen that often before.

As I mentioned before, the Washington data aren’t broken down by judge, but they are broken down by county. Like North Dakota, the chances of receiving an equal parenting time order depend a great deal on which county the suit is filed in. So, for example, in Benton County, over 28% of cases result in 50/50 parenting time, but in Cowlitz County, only 7% do.

Again, that likely makes no sense. How is it that Benton County fathers are four times more deserving of time with their kids than are Cowlitz County dads? Unless there’s something in the water in Cowlitz County, they’re not. The difference between the two isn’t the parents, it’s the judges.

Finally, Washington keeps track of what it calls “risk factors,” i.e. factors that militate against a parent having custody or parenting time. In Washington, those are child abuse or neglect, chemical dependency, domestic violence, mental health problems and other risk factors. To be reported, a risk factor had to have been found by a court to exist or have occurred.

Only 13.7% of cases had any risk factor at all. About 4.3% had a finding of child abuse or neglect, 7.4% had chemical dependency, 5.1% had domestic violence, 1.8% had mental health problems and 4.5% had some other risk factor. Obviously, some cases had more than one risk factor.

In short, the fevered claims by many who oppose shared parenting have little-to-no basis in fact. I refer of course to domestic violence organizations that invariably claim that bills to equalize parenting would only give custody to abusers who, in their minds, are invariably fathers. The fact that, much like we saw in the study done four years ago of Nebraska courts, there’s little DV claimed or found in divorce matters gives the lie to the DV industry narrative. Courts are fully equipped to deny or limit custody to abusive parents of either sex, and of course that’s just what Washington courts do.

As in past years, when one parent had risk factors and the other did not, the vast majority of residential schedules involved children spending most or all of their residential time with the parent with no risk factors. For example, mothers with no risk factors obtained full custody 39.7% of the time when the father had one risk factor, 59.6% of the time when the father had two risk factors, and 73.1% of the time when the father had three risk factors; fathers with no risk factors obtained full custody 36.0%, 51.9%, and 50.0% of the time when the mother had one, two, or three risk factors, respectively (see Exhibit 5).

The type of risk factor had differing impacts on whether a parent received any residential time with a child and that impact also varied by the gender of the parent (see Exhibit 6). For example, abuse or neglect of a child was associated with a ruling of zero residential time for 73.5% of fathers and 54.1% of mothers with that risk factor. Gender-related differences in the likelihood of receiving zero residential time also occurred with mental health, domestic violence, chemical dependency, and “other” risk factors.

Note that, even when considering risk factors, mothers were favored over fathers. But the fact is that courts examine risk factors and reduce parenting time accordingly.

Knowledge is a good thing; we should have more of it. That’s what Senator Laura Ebke’s bill in Nebraska would provide. It would pull back the curtain from the murky doings in family courts. We can’t improve matters for kids if we don’t know what the status quo is.

 

Donate

 

National Parents Organization is a Shared Parenting Organization

National Parents Organization is a non-profit that educates the public, families, educators, and legislators about the importance of shared parenting and how it can reduce conflict in children, parents, and extended families. Along with Shared Parenting we advocate for fair Child Support and Alimony Legislation. Want to get involved?  Here’s how:

• Become an official member of the National Parents Organization team.
• Join our Facebook Page.

Together, we can drive home the family, child development, social and national benefits of shared parenting, and fair child support and alimony. Thank you for your activism.

#childcustody, #parentingtime, #WashingtonState, #childabuse, #childneglect