RECOMMENDATIONS FOR VISITATION AS A FUNCTION OF THE AGE OF THE CHILD William F. Hodges, Ph.D. Department of Psychology University of Colorado Boulder, CO 80309-0345 (The following are adapted from Hodges, W. F. (1991). Interventions for Children of Divorce: Custody, Access, and Psychotherapy, (2nd Edition), New York: John Wiley. Publication due in July, 1991). The Context in which Development Occurs It is tempting to begin with the developmental guidelines and then indicate contextual issues. The eagerness to use the guidelines and ignore the context suggests that it is more appropriate to consider the context first. The following considerations are an attempt to provide a decision tree that might take the following 16 (not exhaustive) issues into consideration: IF THE CHILD IS AN ONLY CHILD AND THERE ARE NO SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS, consider the developmental guidelines. IF THE PARENTS HAVE TRIED A DEVELOPMENTALLY INAPPROPRIATE PATTERN THAT APPARENT SUCCESS OVER SOME REASONABLE PERIOD OF TIME, consider that the child may be one that is very adaptable. Evaluate whether there are symptoms of problems that are ignored by the parents such as difficulty at transfer, unusual levels of dependency, unusual levels of detachment or spaciness. If no symptoms are present and the pattern is not widely divergent from the guidelines, acceptance of the guidelines might be appropriate. IF THE CHILD SHOWS SYMPTOMS OF ATTACHMENT PROBLEMS, consider evaluation by a mental health professional. IF THE CHILD SHOWS SYMPTOMS AT TRANSITION FROM LEAVING ONE PARENT, consider: a) visitation problems (psychological abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, conflict); b) attempt on the part of the child to please the parent that is being left; and c) that the child may find leaving that parent less painful if everyone is upset or angry. IF THE CHILD SHOWS SYMPTOMS AT TRANSITION FROM LEAVING BOTH PARENTS, consider a) difficulty with loss; b) trying to please both parents; c) difficult temperament child with difficulty at any change. IF AN OLDER SIBLING IS PRESENT FOR PARENT ACCESS TIMES, AND THE CHILD IS BONDED WITH THE SIBLING, consider some longer duration visits. IF THE CHILD IS NOT BONDED WITH THE SIBLING(S), consider the developmental guidelines. IF THE PARENTS HAVE CHRONIC CONFLICT, consider: a) third party transfer; b) sole custody; c) regular, predictable visits; d) reduced number of transfers (reduce frequency). IF THE NONPRIMARY PARENT IS PSYCOPATHOLOGICAL, consider reducing frequency and duration. Consider supervision or termination. IF THE NON PRIMARY PARENT IS AN ABUSER, consider supervision or termination of parent access. IF THE CHILD HAS A DIFFICULT TEMPERAMENT, consider longer duration and fewer changes. Consider providing stability in terms of where the visitation occurs. IF THE CHILD IS SEVERELY ALIENATED FROM THE PARENT, consider very brief visits (1/2 hour to 1 hour) with or without supervision. IF THERE IS GREAT GEOGRAPHIC DISTANCE BETWEEN PARENTS, consider frequent visits if the child is young, provided such visits are financially feasible. Half the time have the primary parent bring the child to the nonprimary parent for visits with nightly return to the primary parent. Half the time have the nonprimary parent travel to the city of the primary parent. Avoid long visits for very young children. For children over seven, long visits tend to be better tolerated. IF THERE HAS BEEN A LONG BREAK IN PARENT ACCESS WITH A WISH TO REINSTATE CONTACT, consider phasing in a schedule to let the child get use to the formerly absent parent and build trust. If trust is absent in child or primary parent, consider phase-in with supervision. IF THE CUSTODIAL PARENT IS SOCIALLY ISOLATED, UNDER STRESS, HAS FEW FRIENDS OR RELATIVES AVAILABLE TO SHARE CHILD CARE AND HAS LOW INCOME, consider increasing duration with noncustodial parent to relieve the custodial parent from constant child care responsibilities. IF THE CHILD HAS AN EASY TEMPERAMENT AND THE PARENTS WANT TO CHANGE THE GUIDELINES, consider some compromises, but evaluate effect on child. All too often, visitation schedules are related to convenience for parents rather than welfare of child. . CONSIDERATIONS FROM CHILD DEVELOPMENT Infancy (birth to 6 months of age). Based on data on day care for working mothers, infants may be at risk for insecure attachment with the primary caregiver when with someone else for a large pert of the day. For infants from birth to six months, the visitation pattern recommended is for predictability and frequency. The more frequently the noncustodial parent can be available, the longer the duration should be. For infants who can only be visited once or twice a week, visitation should not exceed one or two hours. Infants visited every day or every other day can develop attachments to the noncustodial parents that can maintain their security. Stability of child care location should be maintained. Subject to the needs and abilities of the custodial and noncustodial parents, such visitation could be for one hour or part of a day. Overnight visits are likely to not be in the child's best interests. Infants should have eating and sleeping arrangements as stable as possible. Infancy (6 months to 18 months). If the child, six to twelve months of age, has had little prior contact with the noncustodial parent, visitation should be initially short and frequent to provide familiarity and comfort to the infant. As for younger infants, short visits of one to three hours are recommended if frequency of visits is low. If contact is regular and frequent, the child can handle visitation that lasts part or most of a day. The noncustodial parent should recognize that the infant of this age needs predictability and familiarity. Visitation will work best when visitation occurs in the same location every time. Overnight visits should be considered less than desirable and used only when other considerations are more important (e.g., bonding between the child and noncustodial parent or long distance) and some instability to the child is worth the trade-off. Frequency of visitation for infants should vary according to the noncustodial parents sensitivity to infant needs, both physiological and psychological. The infant needs to be fed, warm and comfortable and almost all parents recognize those needs. The infant needs to be held, talked to, stroked and played with and these are psychological needs to which some parents are less sensitive. The temperament of the child may also help determine frequency and duration of visits. An easy child will handle liberal visitations. A slow-to-warm-up child may need a slower transition to more frequent and longer visitations. A difficult infant may require less frequent and shorter visitation. Toddlers (18 months to 3 years). Children from 18 months to 3 years of age can handle visitations that are less frequent than for infants, but consistency and frequency are still important. An 18 month old child who is visiting only on weekends can handle parts of a day. By three years, the child can spend an overnight without harm. Week-end long visits are still not recommended. (Several times a week rather than a long weekend are more helpful to the child). Long visitations during the summer vacations are not recommended. While the exact length of a long visitation during the summer for this age child is not known, a child familiar with and bonded to the noncustodial parent can handle 3 to 4 days. A child who has not had frequent contact with the noncustodial parent due to geographic distance, for example, should not be separated from the custodial parent for more than a day or two. Of course, this advice is the opposite of what many parents desire. A parent who has difficulty with geographic distance for this age should not have the child travel to a distant location and have extensive visitation time. If the parent has not had regular visitation, one parent should travel to the other parent's location and the noncustodial parent would have short, regular visits for part of a day. It is recognized that in many cases such a program is not economically feasible. Preschool children (3 to 5). For preschool children, professionals should take into account that conflict between parents and high quality parenting may be more important than pattern of visitation. Given low conflict levels and high quality parenting by the mother, the professional should emphasize the importance of consistency. Children from 3 to 5 benefit from highly predictable visits. With low parental conflict levels, frequency will be important. If quality of parenting by the mother is high, frequency of contact with the noncustodial father does correlate with adjustment. Support of more frequent visitation should be the next level of priority after consistency. These recommendations are based on correlations, and cause and effect are not established. These recommendations should be considered tentative. Weekend visits during the year and week long visits for holidays and summer vacations can be handled well, if limited in frequency. It is not known what the maximum long visit can be that will still benefit the child. Intuitively, visits of longer than a week may still be inappropriate without visitation with the custodial parent. If longer visitations are necessary because of distance or planning problems, the parents should be advised of methods that help these children handle such visits. Primary school age children (6 to 10). For primary school age children, the visitation pattern should minimize the interference with peer relationships. If the two parents have a reasonably cordial relationship, visitation more frequent than every other week end may be desirable. At 7 to 8 years of age, children who have contact with the noncustodial parent several times a week were the most content with visitation. Contact once or more during the week is helpful. Children seem to benefit from more contact with the noncustodial parent rather than less, but the time of maximum benefit is not known. Flexibility within some general scheduling of visitation is helpful. When conflict between parents is high, children benefit from a more structured, predictable pattern of visitation. Long visitations during the summer are acceptable, but some contact with the custodial parent, either through visitations or phone is desirable. Primary school age children (11-12) At the latter part of the primary school years (10 or 11), boys in particular seem to prefer less contact, perhaps every other week, rather than weekly. If the child prefers to maintain weekly contact, this amount of contact should be permitted. Adolescence. Divorce creates special problems for the adolescent. Just when the teen-ager needs to separate from the parent, the parent separates from the teen-ager. Emotional upset on the part of one or more parents makes it more difficult for the teen-ager to separate. Visitation with adolescents should take into account that teen-agers do not need contact of long duration with either parent. Week-end long visitations may interfere with developmental needs to separate from both parents. Contact once or twice a week for one or more hours may be enough contact. Some contact should occur on a weekly or every other weekly basis. Holidays and vacations. As Skafte (1985) noted, it is important to develop family traditions and strengthen family bonds through holidays. Therefore, children should have the opportunity to celebrate each holiday with each parent, by alternating which holiday is spent with which parent. When both parents live in the same community, it is possible to split important holidays such as Christmas or Hanukkah, so that the child can spend part of each holiday with both parents. For example, families have been quite successful spending Christmas Eve with one family and Christmas day with the other. Other families have changed visitation at noon on Christmas day. Skafte also noted that family vacations can be important time for developing relationships. She recommended, and I agree, that children under three should not go on extended vacations. For children from 3 to 5, several short vacations are more beneficial than one long vacation.