Welcome Back And Why Kids Refuse

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Welcome back to the Post Separation Abuse Podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Black. And welcome back to our When Children Resist or Refuse series. In our last episode, part one of this series, we started with what sounds like a simple question. Why doesn't this particular child want to go? And then, inconveniently, we discovered that a child's resistance or refusal can mean multiple things normal developmental preference, transition distress, neurodivergence, sensory overload, a relationship that was never particularly strong, a rupture in a relationship with a parent, harmful parenting, family violence, coercive control, alignment, parental influence, fear, loyalty conflicts, and a combination of multiple things at once. The behavior of a child resisting or refusing time with a parent tells us that something is happening. But it doesn't by itself tell us what. Now

Define "Meaningful Relationship"

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in part one I also said that we were going to talk about one of my favorite phrases in separated parenting land. Meaningful relationship meaningful relationship. Meaningful relationship meaningful relationship. If you repeat something often enough, eventually it stops even sounding like words, and your brain temporarily starts hearing noises instead of meaning. I've started thinking about meaningful relationship in the same way that I think about the word table if I repeat that same word over and over again. Table Table Table What the fuck is a table? Maybe this is just how my brain works. Nevertheless, I hear the term meaningful relationship so often in my work that I do get to a point where I'm thinking, what the fuck is a meaningful relationship? Again, if you repeat something often enough, eventually it does stop sounding like words that have meaning, and our brain can just start hearing noises. And honestly, I think anyone who's working in the family law profession could occasionally benefit from this parenting time, shared care, best interests, attachment, meaningful relationship, substantial time, risk, table. Now this segue is humorous, but there's actually a useful critical thinking tool hiding inside the joke. Sometimes language becomes so familiar that we stop requiring it to actually carry any information. We stop requiring it to mean anything. Someone says, Children need a meaningful relationship with both parents, and everybody nods because that sentence just sounds so wise and sensible. Well, okay. But what the fuck do you actually mean by that? What observation are we describing? What evidence supports it? What assumption have we attached to it? What conclusion are we now drawing? And would we still agree if we had to define every word? So I guess what I'm saying here is please stop letting familiar language do the thinking for you. The Australian

What Changed In Family Law

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Family Law Act changed in May 2024. Under the previous legislation, the benefit to the child of having a meaningful relationship with both parents was identified as one of the considerations in the best interests framework, but that wording is gone. The current best interest factors include the benefit to the child being able to have a relationship with their parents and other significant people where it is safe to do so, alongside safety, the child's views, their developmental, psychological, emotional, and cultural needs, the capacity of proposed carers and the child's particular circumstances. So this is not me telling you that current Australian family law contains a magical legal test called, quote, meaningful relationship. Rather, I'm talking about the phrase because it remains deeply embedded in the language and the culture surrounding post-separation parenting in this country. Report writers use it, lawyers use it, parents use it, previous judgments, precedents use it, and even when the exact words aren't being used, the underlying assumption often remains. And

Nights Aren’t A Relationship Metric

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that is that more time protects the relationship. But does it? Sometimes maybe. But table. What relationship? What time? What child, what evidence? What the fuck is a meaningful relationship? Seriously, what is it? Close, secure, loving, frequent, trusted? Does the parent know who the child's best friends are? Do they know what makes the child anxious? Can the child disagree with them safely? Can the child tell them something difficult without being punished, mocked, dismissed, or emotionally abandoned? Does the child call them when something goes wrong? Do they send each other funny ma'ams? Can the parent repair after fucking up? Does the relationship survive the child saying no? And where exactly does overnight time come into this? Does a meaningful relationship require two nights a fortnight, four, five, seven? School nights, half the holidays? What happens if a child spends four nights a fortnight with Dad and adores him? What happens if the child spends seven nights with Dad and fucking hates him? A parenting schedule tells me where a child sleeps. It doesn't tell me remotely anything about what the relationship feels like to that child. I want you to hold three things separately in your mind. The care arrangements, the parent-child relationship, the child's childhood. They overlap. They influence each other. They are not synonyms. The care arrangements can create opportunities for relationship. The quality of that relationship can affect how the care arrangements feel. Both of those things become part of the child's childhood. But knowing the percentage of knights does not tell me or you or anyone truly whether that child feels known, safe, accepted, enjoyed, understood, or emotionally connected. Time with parents can create opportunities for relationship, but parenting time is not a measurement of a relationship. And this is where one apparently sensible proposition can quietly acquire four dodgy friends.

Five Slippery Assumptions About Time

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Proposition one children can benefit from safe, healthy, positive relationships with both parents. Fine. two therefore children need equally strong relationships with both parents. Hang on a second. Three therefore equal or substantial parenting time produces equally strong relationships whoa Wet up. four therefore less parenting time necessarily weakens a relationship. Whoa whoa whoa whoa. Five therefore a child having a stronger or preferred relationship with one parent indicates dysfunction. Okay, absolutely fucking hold up a second. The first proposition does not prove statements two, three, four or five. Equal parental worth does not create relational equivalence. Children are allowed to experience their parents differently. They are allowed to seek one parent more often for comfort. They are allowed to find one parent easier to talk to. They are allowed to share interests with one parent that they don't share with the other. They are allowed to love both parents and prefer living primarily with one. Children are people, not equality instruments. We don't pathologize adults when their emotional lives fail to reproduce a fifty-fifty pie chart. So why on earth would we demand it from children? Children can form attachments to multiple caregivers, and those relationships very naturally differ. Research on attachment doesn't require us to pretend that caregiving history, sensitivity, availability, and the child's lived experience are irrelevant.

Attachment Science And Relationship History

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A large 2024 meta-analysis found a positive association between caregiver sensitivity and attachment security across a very substantial body of research. There is also research showing that young children can preferentially orient toward the caregiver who was historically provided more care when the child was distressed. None of that gives us a formula for care arrangements. It doesn't tell us that the historical primary caregiver must always remain the primary residential parent. It doesn't prove that the other parent can't deepen their relationship. But it does tell us something less dramatic, but I think infinitely more useful, and that is that relationships have histories. If we're trying to understand a child's present relationship with each parent, perhaps we should know something about the relationship that actually existed before everybody started litigating about it. And what I will say is that you cannot destroy a relationship that never existed in the form that you're imagining. This is particularly important when somebody says, quote, the child's relationship with dad has deteriorated since separation. Okay, maybe, but compared with what? Was Dad really doing much of the genuine daily care, the real heavy lifting of day-to-day parenting? Was the other parent managing the rush of the school mornings, the lunch boxes, the school drop-offs? The anxiety that can sometimes exist before school. Bedtimes, the school reader, the stories, the calling out because I just need one more drink or I need to go to the toilet or my drink bottle's empty, or the batteries in my nightlight need replacing. Or I can't sleep. Was the other parent comforting the child? Did the other parent know the friends, routines, sensory needs, therapies in school life? Were they seeking the other parent when distressed? Was that other parent warm and involved but maybe less central to daily regulation? Was that relationship perhaps already difficult, already strained? Was there fear? Was there family violence or coercive control? Was the nonprimary parent physically present but emotionally unavailable? Or was there a genuinely close, secure, involved relationship that changed dramatically after separation? We can't diagnose the destruction of a relationship without first establishing what relationship existed to be destroyed. And yes, flip the genders whenever appropriate. The assessment should follow the evidence, not the gender template. Can relationships grow? Absolutely. A parent who did less caregiving before separation can become more competent. A child can become more comfortable. A parent can learn the child's needs. They can repair, they can become more attuned, a relationship can deepen. And this matters for preferred parents too. Historical primary caregiving is relevant evidence, but it's not ownership. If your internal position becomes I was always the primary caregiver, therefore the other parent should never have an opportunity to develop a deeper relationship with the children, well, we need to look at that. Maybe there are some genuinely sound child-focused reasons why increased time with the other parent is inappropriate. Maybe there are safety issues, maybe the current relationship genuinely cannot carry the proposed care arrangements. But maybe there's also grief, fear, or identity sitting underneath your reaction. And those possibilities are not mutually exclusive. We're going to get deeply uncomfortable about that in the next episode. But what does the research say about more time? And

What Research Says About Shared Care

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this is where I want everyone to put their ideologies in a little basket by the door. Parenting time research gets weaponized from both directions. You can find people announcing that 50-50 is scientifically proven to be best. You can find people announcing that shared care is inherently damaging. The actual evidence is a lot more complicated. A 2013 meta-analysis by Carrie Adamson and Sarah Johnson looked at 52 studies examining non-resident father involvement and child well-being. Positive forms of involvement showed modest associations with better child outcomes, but the amount of father-child contact by itself was not associated with child well-being in that analysis. Child-related activities and positive relationship quality were more informative. Now that doesn't mean that the amount of time never matters. Of course, it makes sense. You need opportunities to be able to build and maintain relationships. Quantity can make quality possible. But I think it does mean that we need to stop treating the number of nights as though it's somehow some kind of diagnostic test for relationship strength. More parenting time does not automatically mean a better relationship. In exactly the same way, that less parenting time does not automatically mean a worse one. And something else that we need to be aware of is that shared care research does not give us a magic number. Research comparing shared care with other arrangements often finds children in shared care families doing similarly or sometimes better on various outcomes. But observational research has a massive problem if we try to turn that into, therefore, courts should impose 50-50. Families who successfully sustain quote unquote shared care can differ in conflict, resources, geography, parenting capacity, cooperation, child characteristics, and many other ways. Selection matters, context matters, age matters, family violence matters, the practical demands of moving between homes matter, the quality of parenting in each home matters, and the child's actual experience matters. It's also relevant to note that there's a lot of information out there about quote unquote shared care that has never actually meant 50-50 equal shared care. Shared care can look like a lot of different arrangements. So it's important to note that research can inform an individual decision, but it should never make the individual decision. There's no machine where we feed in one child age eight, one child age five, two parents, one labrador, moderate conflict, and it prints out optimal arrangement nine five, plus or minus 0.3 knots. If such a machine existed, family law could potentially be significantly cheaper. And then we get into harm. Well, harmful compared with what? Someone says if the child only sees mum alternate weekends that will damage their relationship. Well, compared with what? Five nights in a household that the child finds chronically stressful two or three nights that they might actually enjoy seven nights with a parent who's largely unavailable during those nights a flexible arrangement that preserves goodwill, a rigid arrangement that preserves quantity while turning every changeover into warfare. We can't assess the hypothetical harm of less time while refusing to examine the actual effects of more time. And we shouldn't do the reverse either. A child resisting increased time does not automatically establish that increased time is harmful. We have to investigate the actual child and the overall circumstances.

Protecting The Schedule Versus Connection

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And this leads us to the question of are we protecting the relationship or the care arrangements? And this is one of those questions that I want burned into your brain. I'll say it again. Are we protecting the relationship or are we protecting the schedule? The care arrangements. A child might resist dad. Adults worry about dad's relationship with the child. Therefore, they attempt to preserve or increase dad's time with the child. The child resists harder. Now the relationship is apparently in even greater danger. Mum is told to quote, encourage harder. Child resists harder. Now we have concerns about alienation, alignment, or enmeshment, more intervention, more pressure, potentially more time in dad's care. And somewhere along the way, nobody seems to be asking, what would have to happen for us to conclude that this child has a perfectly adequate relationship with dad and simply just doesn't want to live with him five nights a fortnight? If wanting to spend time with the parent equals more time is needed, and not wanting to spend time with the parent also equals more time with that parent is needed, well the theory can't lose, can it? And the theories that can't lose, well, they're not doing much investigating. In fact, that's where fucking ideologies come from. If every road leads to more time, more contact, the assessment's doing fuck all assessing. And yes, here is where I will say that a child can love a parent and not want to spend a whole heap of time with that parent. A child can say I love Dad, I want to see Dad. I just don't want to sleep there five nights a fortnight. What about that exactly is incoherent? Why does wanting less residential time automatically become evidence that the relationship itself is threatened? Maybe five nights is appropriate, maybe four is, maybe three is, maybe one is, maybe the child needs time to build towards something. Maybe the child's preference shouldn't determine the outcome, but let's at least keep the questions separate. A relationship with a parent and an allocation of overnight time is not the same question.

What Children Say They Need

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So, what do children themselves talk about? Australian Institute of Family Studies research with children and young people from separate. Families is useful here because their descriptions are wonderfully inconvenient for a simplistic care arrangement ideology. Young people talked about wanting adults to listen to them. They talked about safety. They talked about quality time, communication, flexibility, having some meaningful say as they got older. They described wanting arrangements changed for reasons including poor relationships, stronger relationships with the other parent, lack of quality time, social commitments, unsuitable living conditions, and frustration with parenting styles. In other words, they just sounded like people human beings not percentages of care.

What People Mean By "Risk"

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And then there's the word risk. A lawyer says there's a risk that the judge will order fifty fifty. Well yeah. Depending on the evidence and the circumstances, equal time may be a legally available outcome. But what have I actually learned from the sentence? Quote there's a risk. Does that mean it's possible? Plausible? Something the lawyer considers a significant exposure? Something that the judge has already foreshadowed, something supported by a family report, or simply an outcome that no one can rule out with any definite certainty. What does quote risk really mean? I'm not going to do the table thing again, don't worry, but it's I'm thinking it. And I'm also not going to do a deep dive and unpack this properly today because later in the series I'm coming for the lawyers. But right here and now, what we can do is ask where does the evidence end and the professional judgment begin? Professional judgment can be enormously valuable. It can absolutely inform your decision making. It can appropriately change your mind. But we need to know when we're hearing an empirical proposition and when we're hearing legal advice, when we're hearing an assessment of litigation risk, and when we're hearing somebody's professional judgment about an uncertain future. And none of those things are the same fucking thing. So

Courts Can Order Time Not Trust

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can a court actually allocate a relationship? Courts have to decide the outcome of some cases. They can allocate parenting time. They can order particular transitions and changeovers. They can impose things like supervision. They can make orders regarding communication. They can require therapeutic or other processes where appropriate. It can order contact, but it can't order trust. It can potentially create opportunities with the time that children are ordered to spend with a particular parent, but it can't guarantee attachment. A family report writer can't guarantee that either. A psychologist can't, a barrister can't, and I sure as fuck can't. No one knows exactly what a particular child parent relationship is going to look like in five, ten or twenty years. So does nine five versus seven seven even matter?

Living With Uncertainty And Better Decisions

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And this is where we arrive at the existential crisis. And I think it does matter. For an individual child, two extra nights could cross an emotional, developmental, practical or safety threshold that matters enormously. For another child, perhaps an older child, perhaps a child who's feeling heard and listened to, who's truly voting with their feet, that difference may matter much less than the adults litigating about it might imagine. And this is where I sometimes stare into the middle distance and wonder whether the entire business is a lie and I should just go and work at Bunnings. Because if nobody can guarantee whether 9-5 or 7-7 produces the better relationship between a child and an adult, then what the fuck are we doing? Well, we're not guaranteeing outcomes. We're improving the quality of the information and the decisions that should be shaping and guiding them. Safety matters, abuse matters, attunement matters, development matters, relationship history matters, the child's voice matters, parental capacity matters, what happens inside each home matters, the care arrangements can matter. And the parent that you are while all of this is unfolding also matters a lot. Knowledge can change behavior. Behavior can change probabilities, but it can't create guarantees. Agency is not control. What I want you to take from today's conversation is that when you hear a familiar phrase, don't automatically accept it and don't automatically reject it. But get curious about it, interrogate it. What does it actually mean? Meaningful relationship, meaningful how? Substantial time, substantial for whom? The child needs both parents. Needs each parent for what exactly? In what form or what frequency given what history? Reducing time will harm the relationship. Well, what evidence supports that for this particular child? There's a risk of fifty fifty. What risk? Based on what? She's enmeshed. What observations are you relying upon? I've done the work. What can you actually do now that you couldn't do before? Stop. Define the fucking thing. That last question is where we're going next. Because

Next Steps: Your Nervous System

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you can know all of this intellectually and still have your nervous system completely hijack your ability to use it. Your child cries before going to the other parent's home, your body screams in danger. Your former partner sends a message on our family wizard or WhatsApp or talking parents or whatever the fuck platform you're using. Your stomach drops, you feel sick, your heart starts racing. A proposal for increased time over the holidays arrives. Your brain immediately catastrophizes. Now, sometimes your inner alarm system is identifying something real. Sometimes there really is a metaphorical fire. And sometimes it's more like the equivalent of burnt toast. So in our next episode, we are going to be talking about all the ways in which your nervous system is not an oracle. We're talking about trauma, regulation, primary caregiver identity, enmeshment, why understandable does not necessarily mean proportionate, why healing is not victim blaming, and why you can't co-regulate your child if every communication from your ex sends you into a tailspin. And then after I've made everybody angry by telling them that their nervous system isn't an oracle, I'll be annoying the legal profession by pointing out that the barrister isn't one either. Nobody gets diplomatic immunity on the post separation abuse podcast. Thank you so much for your time. I look forward to chatting with you again soon.