GUIDUBALDI AND ASSOCIATES
PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES
1327 Sheppard Dr.
Kent, Ohio
44240
(330) 626-4542
October 7, 2003
Representative Michael Gilb
Chair, House Committee on Juvenile and Family
Law
77 South High Street, 13th Floor
Columbus, Ohio 43215-6111
Dear Representative Gilb,
Please accept my thanks for the opportunity to
present written testimony in support of HB 232.
I believe this bill greatly increases the likelihood of children’s
successful adaptation to family disruption. Its emphasis on judicial practices
that promote equal allocation of parental rights is a critical need in order to
ensure a child’s continuing substantial relationship with both parents. Having served as a U.S. Commissioner of Child
and Family Welfare (1995-96), and as a member of Ohio’s Task Force on Family
Law and Children (1999-2001), I can attest to the consensus of both those
groups that children fare much better when they have the continuing emotional
support of both parents. For example, at the outset of their work, the
15 U.S. Commissioners stated:
The
Commission, as its mission, sought ways of
creating
environments in which decisions can best
be
made about the well-being of children to
ensure
they receive the emotional and financial
support
of both parents. (A Report to the
President
and Congress, September 1996, p.2.)
After reviewing testimony from leading
researchers and court personnel from across the country, the Commission strongly
endorsed mandated parenting plans and mediation as methods to minimize conflict
and promote positive co-parenting.
Also, after reviewing extensive testimony, the
Ohio Task Force on Family Law and Children highlighted these findings in their
report to the Ohio General Assembly:
Every child has
a right to meaningful relationships with both of his or her parents
and it is in the
child’s best interest to have those relationships protected.
Divorce
terminates the husband/wife relationship, but not the
mother/father
relationships. Both parents should
continue to
work together to
parent their children (Family Law Reform:
Minimizing
Conflict, Maximizing Families, 2001,p.6)
These statements and many others from
authoritative policy makers reflect the consensus of dozens of well-designed
research studies that children need both parents to develop optimally.
In my own nationwide study of children’s adjustment to divorce (the
NASP-KSU Study), we found that where sole mother custody was awarded, 51% of
the children involved saw their fathers once or twice a year or less, and that
these children had significantly poorer academic performance and emotional
adjustment. A later nationwide survey
study by sociologist
Frank Furstenberg from The University of
Pennsylvania, also found father absence in 50% of his large divorced sample.
Our NASP-KSU study (sponsored by the National Association of School
Psychologists, Kent State University, and the William T. Grant Foundation) included
the largest and most representative sample used to date in non-survey
research. In this study, 144 school
psychologists gathered a wide array of data on 699 families in 38 states. Follow-up studies at 3 years and 8 years
verified initial conclusions, including the finding that both quantity and
quality of father involvement related to significantly better child adjustment.
A second set of studies, supported by an Ohio
Board of Regents grant, included samples of behavior disordered and learning
disabled children in Cleveland and Akron City Schools. In both these large-scale studies, quantity
and quality of biological father involvement following divorce or unwed
motherhood was found to relate significantly to improved performance for these
children with special needs.
In a statewide survey I conducted for the Ohio
Department of Job and Family Services, I discovered another striking
demographic fact about families in Ohio.
This study involved data gathering about child support using 1,005 cases
randomly selected from court records in 42 counties. The counties were selected in a stratified sample
to represent the entire state. Of 986
cases for which marital status information was clear, 433 (43.8%) of these
cases were from unwed families. The
extent of unwed parentage in the state of Ohio may in part be a manifestation
of disillusionment with marriage and the childrearing conditions imposed
following termination of marriages.
Another study, I conducted with coauthor,
Richard Kuhn, examined data from the National Center for Health
Statistics. This analysis demonstrated
that states with high levels of joint custody awards had divorce rates that
declined (from 1990 to 1995) nearly four times faster than states where joint
physical custody was rare. These results
may indicate that social and economic motives for divorce may be reduced when
continued shared parenting is mandated.
Despite these results and the overwhelming
consensus of evidence from existing divorce research, judges have resisted awarding
shared parenting where childrearing responsibilities are substantially
equalized. They have often used as a
rationale a supposition that if divorcing parents are not getting along, they
will be unable to share parenting responsibilities. As I noted in the previously cited report to
the President and Congress, the research foundation for this assumption is
essentially nonexistent. It was based on
an extremely small percentage (2.5%) of divorcing couples in a California
study, and these couples were described as extremely high conflict families.
Moreover, it should be apparent that most
couples, at the time of divorce, do indeed have a substantial amount of
conflict that is usually temporary unless exacerbated by our adversarial family
law procedures. The legacy of bitterness is likely to diminish over time if the
courts arrange unambiguous parenting arrangements that are perceived as fair by
both parents.
The acknowledgment by several policy advisory
bodies that children need both parents has failed to manifest itself in
judicial decisions about post-divorce child custody. Unfortunately, past judicial habits are
difficult to change, even in the face of convincing contradictory
evidence. As I’ve argued elsewhere, the
only remedy to this situation is strong action by legislative bodies to mandate
the preservation of parental resources from both parents wherever parents are
fit.
At both national and state levels, I have been
studying children’s adjustment to divorce and unwed parenting for forty years.
This unusually long commitment began when I became one of four charter members
of the Portage County Family Counseling and Mental Health Board in 1963. In addition to the aforementioned research
and public policy advisory committee experience, my credentials include serving
for four years on the Harvard Preschool Project, editing the Highlights Magazine
for Children’s Newsletter of Parenting, serving as President of the National
Association of School Psychologists, serving on the Ohio Advisory Council for
Child Support Guidelines, and working as the psychologist for Western Reserve Academy
in Hudson, Ohio. As a professor of
school psychology at Kent State University and John Carroll University, I have
trained more school psychologists in the state of Ohio than any other professor
currently practicing.
The problems of divorce, unwed parentage, and child
maladjustment are of such magnitude that they are strangling the potential of a
whole generation of Americans. Passion
and a sense of urgency must guide our nation’s lawmakers, for the lives of
children truly hang in the balance.
Sincerely,
________________________________
John Guidubaldi, D.Ed., L.P., L.P.C.C.
Professor, John Carroll University
Professor Emeritus, Kent State University
Former President, National Association of
School Psychologists
Former U.S. Commissioner of Child and Family
Welfare