By Joan Leah Middleton

Judith S. Wallerstein, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized authority of the effects of divorce on children and has written many books commonly used as guides for families in transition. She was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1966 to 1992 at the School of Social Welfare where she remains senior lecturer emerita. She also taught a family law elective course at Boalt Hall for three years while at Berkeley.

During her years teaching at Boalt, she was known for conducting an interesting experiment on her law students. She invited divorced parents one week, followed by their children the next week, to speak about the divorce proceedings and the impact of the legal system on their lives. In a later class, the law students were asked to match the children with their parents. The law students seldom, if ever, connected the children of divorce with their divorced parents based upon the stories of the impacts of the dissolution process on their individual lives. According to Dr. Wallerstein, custodial and visitation orders impact children in ways not always understood or anticipated by judges and lawyers.

What About the Kids?

Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee co-wrote the New York Times bestseller, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, and recently co-authored a new work focusing on how to be a parent in a post-divorce family. What About the Kids? Raising Your Children Before, During and After Divorce, published by Hyperion in 2003, is a handbook on the list of tasks for parents to accomplish on behalf of their children following the end of a marriage. This book is highly recommended as a resource for all divorced parents. Family law practitioners should consider making this reading recommendation to clients.

According to Dr. Wallerstein, there are three tasks for parents with children following divorce. First, they must establish their own lives as a single person, they must learn how to give their children the support they need and then help prepare their children for not being afraid that their own future relationships will fail, and divorced parents must build a new kind of relationship with ex-spouses. The book is also an informative guide on how to talk to children about divorce.

The Marriage Supports the Child

During a recent presentation for a King County Bar Association Continuing Legal Education (CLE) program, Dr. Wallerstein spoke of how those who work in the family law arena need to incorporate the child’s perspective on residential placement and parenting plans, more commonly known as custody and visitation.

Noting that the courts are tilted towards parents’ rights and not the needs of the children, she spoke of a technique to visualize the perspective of a ten or 11 year old. When asked to fill in and divide a circle with one color representing time they to spend with their mother, a second color for time they want to spend with their father, and the third color for time they want to spend with friends, other relatives, and outside activities, the mother’s and father’s portion of the drawing is often surprisingly smaller than the color representing the child’s interest in other activities.

As children age, they grow even more interested in outside activities, rather than in being with either parent, which is a natural developmental phenomenon to be encouraged. This is usually in stark contrast to what the lawyers propose for the parenting plan. Also, parenting plans are seldom child-specific and all kids in a family are lumped together when they may well have divergent interests, different needs, and different age-related concerns.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Dr. Wallerstein is a proponent of involving children in the decision-making process regarding where their time should be spent and with whom. She is also a proponent of flexibility in visitation matters. Just as a child grows and changes, a parenting plan should grow and change. Visitation should be fluid and dynamic based on the needs, the development, and the outside interests of the child at any given time.

In other words, parenting plans seek to divide time between parents but the child does not envision a two-way division. Children ten years of age or older become more interested in being with their peers and pursuing activities outside of the home and away from parents. An intact marriage will support this natural development and the unified household will assist the child to this end.

Children of divorce are compelled to spend time in two separate households because of a court order. They are often required to go on school breaks, summer vacations, and national holidays with the non-custodial parent. They often do not have the opportunity to participate in sports, post-school functions, or extra-curricular activities to the same extent as do their peers from intact households. Children of divorce can not even expect to spend their birthdays with their friends. A court order, in which they very likely did not participate, may well require them to spend their birthdays or school breaks someplace other than where they want to be.

Empower the Child’s Voice

Dr. Wallerstein’s work empowers the child’s voice. All too often, the court’s focus is on conflict not being good for children and what rights the parents have regarding their children. Children of divorce have less extra-curricular activities, less social participation with peers, and less opportunity to make friendships than children from intact families. Required visitation on alternate weekends may interfere with the opportunity to participate in sports where children learn about rules, how to be a team player, how to have relationships with peers and how to be a friend. According to Dr. Wallerstein, consideration of a child’s needs by the court and family law attorneys is vitally important for the child’s successful development. Flexibility is necessary.

Center for the Family in Transition

Dr. Wallerstein is also the founder of the Judith Wallerstein Center for the Family in Transition, a center for research, education and counseling for families in separation, divorce and remarriage. Another helpful guide, a standard reference book on families in transition, is Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce (Basic Books, New York, 1980) and is co-written with Dr. Joan Kelly.