Effects of divorce on the visiting father-child relationship

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.