Am J Psychiatry 1980; 137:1534-1539
Copyright © 1980 by American Psychiatric Association
Effects of divorce on the visiting father-child relationship
JS Wallerstein and JB Kelly
Findings from a 5-year longitudinal study of 131 children from 60 divorcing
families, drawn from a predominantly white, middle-class California
population, revealed unexpected changes in the relationship between the
visiting parent and the child after the marital separation. The changes
that showed improvement and that showed deterioration in 50% of the
father-child relationships were substantially related to the difficulties
and psychological conflicts engendered by visitation and divorce, the
father's capacity to accommodate to the constraints of the visiting
relationship, and the age and sex of the child.
