Shared custody, also called joint residence, is a special organization for the accommodation of children whose parents no longer live under the same roof. It often precedes the separation of the parents, possibly during a divorce: the child then lives alternately with his mother and then with his father. Sometimes it is the parents who work in the child’s home, but this is very rare.

The article focuses on the development of the child and not on the rights of each parent.

The law of March 4, 2002 was intended to allow a child to maintain regular personal relations with both parents. Since the application of this law, there have been many cases of alternate residence : the children live in turn with their father and then with their mother. 

It seems that this mode of residence can be at the origin of several psychological disorders in children, with the appearance of one or more of the following symptoms:

• a feeling of insecurity with the appearance of anxieties of abandonment which did not exist before: the children can no longer bear the estrangement from their mother and ask to be in permanent contact with her;
• feeling depressed with a blank stare for several hours;
• sleep disturbances;
• eczema;
• aggression, in particular towards the mother considered to be responsible for the separation;
• a refusal to follow the rhythms proposed by the parents and the school;
• a loss of confidence in adults, especially in the father, whose vision would trigger a reaction of refusal, etc.

These symptoms could settle permanently in adolescence and persist in adulthood in the form of anxiety.

Almost 51% of the cases studied would be linked to a traditional alternating residence, but the same symptoms are found with “equivalents” of alternating residence resulting in a fragmentation of the child’s life initially aiming to avoid long separations with the family. mother. In addition, around 20% of cases also concern children subject to a more restricted right of accommodation with one of the two parents, such as weekends or school holidays.

Studies indicate that disorders can be independent of conflict in the separated couple, although they appear most often in the case of persistent conflict.

Feeling of insecurity. Research has shown that in 145 children aged 12 to 20 months and then seen again from 24 to 30 months that two-thirds of children of divorced parents who regularly spend nights with their father have behaviors that reflect the constitution of a much more insecure mode of attachment than the children of non-divorced couples.

Child’s time concept. In 1999, Kaplan and Pruett showed that the child did not have the same sense of time as the adult, a separation of one day which could be equivalent in his experience to several weeks in an adult.

Lack of stability. For some authors like Guilmaime, joint residency cannot be set up before the age of six. ” You cannot divide a child into two to meet parental needs. It is deeply disturbing for a young child to constantly switch from one parental figure to another, not in the same house, which is normal, but in a different house where you only stay for a few days. Adds Yvon Gauthier, professor of child psychiatry at the University of Montreal and in charge of the Attachment Clinic. In the absence of the presence of both parents living together, the stability of a parent, places and relationships would be essential. ” Even an adult could not support such a system for very long without being quickly deeply disturbed. »Concludes Professor Gauthier.

In France, the French Psychiatry Association, which brings together 3500 practitioners, considers the law of March 4, 2002 to be unrealistic and dangerous.

A number of studies show that during the first months of his life, a child has a vital psychic need to establish a link with an adult who meets his physical and emotional needs, and who is in addition able to understand his anxieties and to appease them. According to this theory, this adult, if he is present in a sufficiently continuous way, builds an attachment relationship with the child which is characterized by the creation of a basis of security allowing an exploration of the world. This need for continuity would not only concern the adult, but also the permanence of the place. When these conditions of stability are not met, there is a risk of disturbed attachment, resulting in a feeling of internal insecurity, separation anxiety, with clinging and hypervigilance behaviors.

0 to 1 year, the child could meet his father two to three times a week, each time for a long half-day at the latter’s home, without spending the night at home. Two of these half-days could possibly be combined into one day.

1 to 3 years, to these three half-days, when the child is familiar with the paternal home, would be added one night in the week, without the separation from the mother exceeding a day and a half.

3 to 6 years, accommodation could be provided with the father in the form of a weekend of two days and two nights every fortnight, and half a day during the week. In addition, half of the school holidays are added, without exceeding a period of fifteen consecutive days with the father, provided that sufficient and non-intrusive contact is maintained with the other parent and vice versa.

See also: Blended family