Responsible Parenting, Child Custody Disputes, and Parenting Awareness Month

Three years ago I wrote about the proposed Office of Marriage Promotion which was put forth as 2015 HB1482. The stated legislative purpose of the Office was to increased the number of children born to married parents. Support for this was based upon an array of factors correlating marriage and better outcomes for children.

Those of us who have experienced the often exhaustive and mentally disabling effects of child custody contests know that it has an impact upon us. We are also quite aware of the statistics that show that divorce and child custody battles are highly correlated to poorer outcomes for the children. These statistics have been used to support efforts at legislating equal parenting time and other mandates which are correlated to positive well-being for children.

The not-so-obvious actuality here is that correlation is not tantamount to causation. These correlations are no more than statistical probabilities. Consider that the parents who are not likely to fulfill the contractual commitments to a spouse through marriage and thus seek a dissolution of that contract may not have the fortitude to uphold the implicit commitment necessary to the development of a well-adjusted and healthy child. It could just be that the people who don’t seem to care to uphold the terms of a contract into which they knowingly and voluntarily entered likewise have even less regard for the unknown commitments that it takes to effectively raise a child.

Parenting conflict, child custody disputes, absentee parents, and other factors associated with parenting outside of the traditional marital family structure do present greater challenges to the outcome for children. However, I do contend that a causal relationship does not exist.

I will use the violent video games/violent youth correlation as an example. Although rigorous scientific scrutiny has soundly defeated causal claims of violent games to violent acts, there are still people who believe that violent video games are the root of youthful violence. I liked video games and I dumped handfuls of quarters into the machines as a youth. I also liked auto racing from an early age. I watched Jackie Stewart as a child. I had a model of the Tyrrell 6-wheeler from 1976 which I enjoyed in play. About eight years later or so I also didn’t hesitate to jump into the sit-down version of Pole Position which took 2 quarters to play. I never played the baseball video game but I had a little leaguer friend who, while I played with race car models, often played that game.

So I do think there may be a causal link between video games and real life: Having a favourable proclivity to something in real life causes one to later choose to seek out the same subject matter in video games.

By the way, no archeological digs of ancient civilization sites where violence was know to be common, including by youth, has unearthed a violence based video game machine but the search does continue so the link can be established.

As I expressed in 2015 I don’t think marriage causes better outcomes for children. I have seen children horribly abused by married parents and read accounts of many more. I have seen bitterly fighting divorcing parents produce superb outcomes for their children.

The short of it is this - title does not make substance. Responsible parenting, through whatever legal or cultural domain in which parenting may exist, is the factor that truly affects the well-being of children not the marital status title or living arrangement. I contend that cognition of parenting is the core of responsible parenting. That begins simply with the application of terms such as whether one sees the well-being of their child as their obligation or opportunity. Paying taxes, renewing a driver’s license, and mowing the lawn are all obligations - they are written into law in some manner. Rarely do we find ourselves embracing or cherishing those activities. Vacations, dance lessons, and non-accredited community college coursework are opportunities; opportunities for life fulfillment. We will readily expend time and resources in pursuit of those life affirming objectives. Yet the facets of child-rearing are still referred to as duties and obligations by our judiciary and this sense of tasks is embodied in our cultural vernacular at-large.

Reframing the parenting role and custody situation has been my therapeutic approach for parents embroiled in child custody disputes. All too often their legal strategy has been based upon uncovering and promulgating the peccadilloes of the other parent and using custody as a means of experiencing some reconciliation for perceived past wrongs. The goal of attaining greater responsibility for the child becomes the desired outcome. And while there may have been wrongs committed by the other parent and his or her current follies are exposed, neither makes the trumpeting parent a more responsible parent nor promotes a concept of responsibility to the child whose upbringing is an opportunity.

April is Parenting Awareness Month Indiana [PAMI]. It is a statewide public education and awareness initiative of the Responsible Parenting Campaign, a resource of the Indiana Parenting Institute. This is a celebration of parenting which seeks to foster responsible parenting by acknowledging those who are raising children, educating parents, and providing resources to help families thrive.

The 2018 PAMI kickoff breakfast will be held on Friday 30 March 2018 in Merrillville, Indiana. The breakfast will feature Lori Desautels Ph.D, Associate Professor of Butler University’s Educational Neurosciences/Brain & Trauma program. Her presentation is titled “Brain Gain: How to Raise Smarter Kids”. More details are available here. This event is free to eligible parents but an RSVP is required.

If you are unable to attend this event there is still a great amount of information that you can obtain from the IPI website about PAMI and the Responsible Parenting Campaign. Additionally, there is information on the site about other resources which are available throughout the year. Select a site from the Location menu at the bottom of the page.

Regardless of your current parental status or the time of year, responsible parenting should be a never ending commitment. Such a commitment produces better parent-child relationships and beneficial outcomes for the children.

In closing I leave you with a quote from that 2015 posting which the Indiana Parenting Institute has added to their website - Rather than promoting a legal status as the bridge to better childhood experiences and well-being, I would rather see an initiative that promotes responsible parenting regardless of the legal relationship of the parents. The Responsible Parenting Campaign of the Indiana Parenting Institute is a paradigm of what I think would better serve children than an effort to impose a legal status upon parents…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Make a suggestion for me to write about.

Parents who would like to achieve the best outcome for their children in a contested child custody case should visit my website and contact my scheduler to make an appointment to meet with me. Attorneys may request a free consultation to learn how I can maximize their advocacy for their clients.

Connect with me for the latest Indiana child custody related policy considerations, findings, court rulings and discussions.

Tweet

Subscribe to my child custody updates

* indicates required

Email Address *

First Name

Last Name

©2008, 2016 Stuart Showalter, LLC. Permission is granted to all non-commercial entities to reproduce this article in it's entirety with credit given.

StuartShowalter.com

Secondary Causes, Decision Making, and Improving Your Child Custody Case

Aberrations are extremely helpful in understanding the processes that lead to success or what is perceived as failure. We can gain significant knowledge from those outliers. So, what causes some to succeed greatly or fail miserably? Why do some parents get an ideal custody arrangement while others get hammered? I will not provide to you a definitive answer, a magic pill, of the prescription for your case. Rather, it is my intention here to supply an alternative lens by which to view your situation and the causes which underlie it.

Last month I was reviewing the school assessment of a local child who is clearly an outlier. Across seven domains he scored in a range of the 92nd through 99th percentiles; averaging 97th across those various domains which put him in the 99th percentile of students overall. I was also recently asked what can be done to improve student performance in America.

The juxtaposition of these relative events prompted my thoughts to commonality. This simple answer would be to match the environment of all children to that of this child. What is it about this boy, as well as my son, and others who I have encountered that possess similar attributes? In my experience these children had caretakers who provided a dual opportunity. First, is the introduction of mental stimulus. Second, is the opportunity for the child to formulate intelligence. Both of these are triggers to formulating intellectual neural pathways. Sounds, scents, sights, and touch are mental stimuli which we flood our children with from the moments of birth. These are essential to building the neural networks that facilitate mastery of these senses. Following the stimuli should be opportunities for the child to formulate intelligence. What I mean by the opportunity to formulate intelligence is simply allowing the child to think.

When I speak of this opportunity I am not limiting it to formalized instruction. Here is a simple way to assess whether a child is being allowed to think. Take a situation in which a child has committed a social offense; a toy may have been taken from another child or the child has struck another. A caretaker may demand that the offending child apologize to the other who is hurt and crying. Take a social encounter; a visit by grand-parents or a friend is ending and the visitor is leaving. In these scenarios a caretaker may instruct the child to tell the grand-parents they are loved or that it was fun to have the friend was visit.

These instructions are not only psychologically abusive, because they deny ownership to the child of his or her feelings, but relevant here is that they inhibit intelligence formulation. Prompting the child to construct and articulate his or her own feelings requires a massive coordinated effort within the brain. Observations of social cues, use of empathy, analysis of reactions, review of the occasion, comparison to similar interactions, and assessment of post utterance reactions to the child’s constructed feelings exercises or formulates neurological networks essential to intellect. In essence, the child is being taught to think for himself.

Thinking for oneself may seem to be a laudable goal. Thinking of it as a goal may upon first blush appear to be a wasted effort. I contend however that thinking for oneself is actually a rarity in modern society. Industrialized humans essentially operate on autopilot awaiting the next instruction. I have two incidents which I will use as examples to illustrate this concept.

In the 1950s the United States Government began exploding nuclear weapons in the atmosphere over the United States. The government claimed that “. . . these explosives create no immediate or long-range hazard to human health . . .”. President Eisenhower stated that the nuclear fallout from these explosions “. . . does not imperil the health of humanity.” Additionally, the federal government claimed that at least half of the radioactive fallout would not reach the earth for seven years. In actuality the majority of isotope iodine 131 and strontium-90 released into the atmosphere fell back to earth in under one year and the levels in 1958, while more radioactive fallout was being released by the government, was already nearly seven times higher in soil samples than what the government claimed would be the lifetime maximum. Radioactive fallout was spread throughout the domestic food supply and children were being treated for cancer in the 1960s as a result. So why did government employees continue to release radioactive material into their atmosphere and why did civilians not launch greater protest against the lies?

Prior to the 1950s release of radioactive dust into the atmosphere over the United States by the U S Government that same government had done the same over the country of Japan. The results of those releases had already been demonstrated to imperil the health of humanity in that area with significant increases in cancer and genetic damage leading to a vast proliferation of birth defects. Yet, Americans in large part blindly believed the lies of President Eisenhower and did not insist upon the end to the government’s obvious contamination of their environment.

On 11 September 2001 two commercial airliners were each crashed into one of the two main World Trade Center buildings which resulted in the proximate deaths of around 200 people. Occupants of these buildings, which had sustained obvious structural degradation, were instructed to remain within the buildings. After a prolonged period of time the structural integrity of the buildings was compromised enough to the point of collapse. It was these collapses, the secondary cause, which led to the deaths of 2000 more people who did as instructed by officials. This not only demonstrates the ubiquity of analytical awareness deficiencies in our culture but the potential costs of not thinking and acting for oneself. Again, lives were taken.

In both situations it was not the primary factor that lead to the vast majority of deaths. Rather, it was the secondary factors -- the decisions made in reaction to the primary factor. I have previously written about how the talking heads on news programs misattribute the cause of car wrecks on snowy or icy roads to the weather although neither snow or ice has caused any wrecks. Those are only primary factors. It takes a secondary action to cause a car wreck - incompetent drivers.

http://bcchildadvocates.blogspot.com/2015/02/false-attributions-groupthink-and-other.html When one starts thinking of results being the result of decisions -- secondary factors -- then the sense of responsibility for and control over one’s outcome increases. In 13 years of counseling parents through child custody battles I have observed commonalities among parents. Those whose situation improves and those who remain mired in litigation and conflict exhibit common traits. But, not common among both types.

Essential to successful outcomes is a perspective that breeds success. Some people perceive ‘cause’ and ‘reason’ as synonymous although they are substantially dissimilar. Cause is objective while reason, or excuse as the case may be, is purely subjective.

Parents who continue to insist that their child custody outcome is the result of outside agency tend to perceive that they have poorer outcomes. Contrarily, those who internalize the concept that they have agency over their outcomes perceive that they have better outcomes. Objectively, I have observed that their perceptions are correct.

Thus, those who tend to say that snow and ice - outside agency - hold sway over whether they will be in a collision tend to encounter adverse outcomes. Those who internalize agency and insist that it is their actions while driving on snow or ice which will determine whether they will be in a collision tend to encounter better outcomes.

Applying this to the child custody arena simply requires using the WTC collapses analogically. The institaging action resulted in few of the deaths. The ultimate outcome - the collapse of the buildings - was outside the control of all who died. However, it was the action, or more aptly the inaction, of those who remained in the structurally compromised buildings which led to their demise. Similarly, while the filing of a custody action may have brought a judge into a dispute to make the final decision it is the result of an analysis. That interim analysis is based upon the input by not only the parties but the ancillary players such as mental health professionals, GALs or CASAs, and other professionals who are making an analysis. All are working with the raw data emitted by the parties.

So you as a parent have agency over the material that is analized. Primarily that material is your behaviours, attitude, and actions. While you do not control whether custody is primarily in your favour or the building collapses you do control the flow of the information coming from you to be analyzed or whether you flee the building.

If you think that no one would tell you to stay in a burning building then think that no one is going to decide your child custody case for you. When you do that and act upon it you will likely find that you have an improved relationship with your child and the other parent.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Make a suggestion for me to write about.

Parents who would like to achieve the best outcome for their children in a contested child custody case should visit my website and contact my scheduler to make an appointment to meet with me. Attorneys may request a free consultation to learn how I can maximize their advocacy for their clients.

Connect with me for the latest Indiana child custody related policy considerations, findings, court rulings and discussions.

Tweet

Subscribe to my child custody updates

* indicates required

Email Address *

First Name

Last Name

©2008, 2016 Stuart Showalter, LLC. Permission is granted to all non-commercial entities to reproduce this article in it's entirety with credit given.

StuartShowalter.com

Shootings, Lock-Downs and the Psychology of Self-Preservation

Early today, while trying to serve a warrant, a Boone County Deputy Sheriff was shot by a wanted suspect. The immediate response to this was a call out to local and nearby police agencies as a chase ensued for three suspects. The warrant was being served on the suspect in the city of Lebanon and the chase took place within the confines of the city. There was also a secondary response; a lock-down throughout the city.

Police advised that people stay off the streets and go to a safe place while the search for suspects continued. Public buildings such as the US Post Office, library, Boone County Courthouse, and Lebanon Community School Corporation schools were also barricaded. Additionally some banks and other commercial buildings were also closed. A person caught on the street in downtown Lebanon could have found it difficult to get off the streets and into a building thus being left to fend for himself or herself.

The police response included officers from at least five agencies which included two helicopters and scores of ground officers. This elicits the thought that it is reassuring to live in a community that, were I shot, would provide a significant police response to attempt to apprehend any suspects. The media would also step in and interrupt their broadcasts to show photos of the suspects to the community to assist in the effort. But I digress from what I say in jest to the common feeling that I and many people have when seeing the overwhelming police response to apprehend suspects who are not a threat to the general population but have harmed a law enforcement officer - “They wouldn’t all be out here like that if I had been shot.”

There is a rational reason for both locking people out of buildings to fend for themselves and the police response to officers being harmed. It is the ego. It is the biological drive for self-preservation.

People on the inside of buildings lock others out because of all the people on the outside who want to come in to seek shelter it could include a suspect. A suspect who may harm those already in the building if the suspect feels that his or her flight may be jeopardized by those in the building.

Likewise police officers will always respond in overwhelming support for other officers for the same reason. Contrary to a possible perception, it is not because they don’t also want to catch suspects who harm members of the general population or because the police have a penchant to only serve members of their exclusive club.

It may seem disingenuous to speak of protecting and serving the community and then diverting attention from the community to serve the interests of another officer but it is not. Not, at least, from a psychological perspective.

Members of the general population typically do not aid or assist in protecting members of law enforcement. Yet, law enforcement is expected to show unilateral altruism toward the public. However, from a survival perspective, reciprocal altruism has proven to provide a survival advantage. This is similar to kinship selection which favours nepotism.

We have recently been able to see this biological preference in action during a school shooting incident in Florida where a law enforcement officer did not place himself in jeopardy while the shooting was occurring. There was no biological incentive for him to do so. The response would have been different had the shooting been taking place within a police station against other officers. This is the result of a top down attitude. That officer learned it from his sheriff. Law enforcement officers may rely upon other officers from within their own agency as well as others whom they may have never met to protect them during the course of their duties yet they have no expectation to similar protection from the general population. This is implicitly or subconsciously expressed. It is not a conscious, purposeful attitude.

The overwhelming police response to an ‘officer being harmed call’ serves the biological interest of those responding. It demonstrates to all other officers that I will always be here when you need my assistance. I will put my life on the line for you. Implicit in this is the expectation of reciprocal action. An officer will put his or her life on the line to protect another because he or she expects that same protection. This affords all officers a greater opportunity to pass on their genes or to stay alive and employed so they may assist in supporting their existing offspring or providing personal protection for them.

Lock-downs and police responses to police harmed incidents serve the biological interest of those served by them. They are selfish actions which serve to protect the genetic material of those benefiting from these actions. It is no different than dying to protect two siblings or eight cousins; they each pass on the same amount of your shared genetic material. Passing on genetic material is what got you here. From an evolutionary biology perspective it is those who were selfish enough to protect their offspring and kin which got their genes or those genes they share passed along.

So, whatever way the socially acceptable breezes may blow there is one thing that is not going to change - selfishness. Cops will protect cops, people will lock others out leaving them in harm’s way, brothers will hire brothers and brains will continue to rapidly influence actions which precede rational thought but serve to protect the biological unit; the host of the genetic material.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Make a suggestion for me to write about.

Parents who would like to achieve the best outcome for their children in a contested child custody case should visit my website and contact my scheduler to make an appointment to meet with me. Attorneys may request a free consultation to learn how I can maximize their advocacy for their clients.

Connect with me for the latest Indiana child custody related policy considerations, findings, court rulings and discussions.

Tweet

Subscribe to my child custody updates

* indicates required

Email Address *

First Name

Last Name

©2008, 2016 Stuart Showalter, LLC. Permission is granted to all non-commercial entities to reproduce this article in it's entirety with credit given.

StuartShowalter.com