Joint custody proves useful in numerous ways to both parents and children in divorce situations. This has a well-established basis through numerous studies performed globally and across decades.
But what are these benefits? Parents should understand them well before opting for joint custody.
Benefits for parents
The National Library of Medicine discusses the benefits of joint custody not only for the children of divorce but also for the parents.
For parents, they have two primary benefits here. First of all, it allows both parents to keep their established connection with their child and continue to build healthy parent-child ties as their child ages.
Most parents do not want to lose contact with their child, or their parent-child bond. Joint custody is a good way of ensuring that both parents get to keep their place in their child’s life.
Additionally, joint custody allows both parents to continue working together to share the burdens of parenting. While it is rewarding, it is also a large amount of work. Single parents often struggle to meet the needs of their children while working and taking care of himself or herself, too. Having another co-parent can do a lot to help spread the workload.
Benefits for children
As for children, joint custody has numerous studied benefits. For example, children who experience joint custody have healthier coping mechanisms and better relationship-forming and caring skills compared to children who experience sole custody.
They also report fewer cases of mental health issues as tied to their parent’s divorce specifically. This does not, however, mean that children who experience joint custody will not have any mental health issues in the future.
Thus, joint custody offers numerous benefits to children and parents alike that other custody options may not.
