Verschillen in welbevinden na een scheiding voor en na de invoering van het ouderschapsplan bij kinderen van 8 tot 16 jaar.

Abstract

Since the first of Marth 2009 parents in The Netherlands are required to make a parenting plan, when they fill for divorce they file for divorce. The goal of this parenting plan is to decrease conflicts between parents, increase contact between fathers and child, improve the quality of the relationship between parents and child, and indirectly decrease internalizing and externalising problems of children. This study investigates if the parenting plan achieves its goal by comparing two groups of children between 8-12 years old. Group I consists of 229 children who’s parents divorced before 2009 and didn’t arrange a parenting plan, Group II consist of 199 children who’s parents divorced after 2009 and had to arrange a parenting plan. In both groups, time since divorce varied between 1 and 4 years. Contrary to the aims of the parenting plan, the results show that children in Group II report significantly more interparental conflicts, less contact between fathers and child, lower quality of the relationship between parents and child, no difference in externalising problems and significantly more internalizing problems compared to children in Group I. The implications of the results for the potential value of the parenting plan for children are discussed and directions for future research are outlined.