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Biomedical subjects

M K Pruett

Publications and source records attributed to M K Pruett.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Perspectives on the divorce process: parental perceptions of the legal system and its impact on family relations.

Through semistructured interviews, divorcing parents provide a consumer perspective of the legal process of divorce discussed in law and mental health literature. The parents offer a heightened awareness of families' basic needs within the legal system that may otherwise be overlooked by professionals. This article focuses on narrative accounts provided by 41 divorcing parents to describe both their positive and negative experiences with the legal system and court-related professionals. Although many parents entered the divorce process with hopes for a fair and reasonable experience and outcome, only 12 percent of the parents ended the process with positive expectations. Parents conveyed feelings of a lack of power and control over divorce outcomes. The responses from parents provide valuable insight into how reforms of the legal system can be structured best to increase the quality of the process and ameliorate potentially destructive effects of divorce on the family.

Attitude↗
PubMed1999

"Only God decides": young children's perceptions of divorce and the legal system.

OBJECTIVE: To describe research on perceptions of children aged 6 and younger from 21 families of their parents' divorce, of its impact on their families, and of legal officials. METHOD: Semistructured play interviews were conducted during home visits as parents were conjointly interviewed as part of a larger study on divorce in legal context. RESULTS: Children had much mis-information about divorce as an event and process. What they did know was often inappropriate, frightening, and confusing. They resented how the process "ruined their parents' being friends any more" and proposed reforms based on their wishes and observations. CONCLUSIONS: Greater awareness is needed of the child's desire to be heard during the process, to feel safe and less lonely, and to stay in touch with both parents and extended families. Age-appropriate explanations of psychological and legal aspects of the divorce process are likely to support children's positive adjustment and mental health.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1998

Joint custody and shared parenting. Research and interventions.

Joint custody is a reality for many children of divorce. This article first examines the structure and forms joint custody takes, and then explores what is known about shared parenting from research that is relevant to clinical work with families of divorce. An overview of interventions for children and families of divorce that are relevant to coparenting issues follows, along with what is known about their effectiveness. The final section presents several modes of intervention to assist families in maximizing the effectiveness of shared parenting situations for children and their parents.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Fathers, divorce, and their children.

To minimize many of the negative consequences of divorce, it is beneficial to support a father's ongoing involvement in his child's life. Although the research literature isn't unequivocal on this point, it does strongly suggest that men who are "visitors" do not have as much impact on their children and that visits are a poor substitute for having a parental figure. The answer lies in creating meaningful roles for noncustodial fathers that elevate men's opportunities to contribute to their children's overall development. One of the most important messages parents can impart to children is that some commitments outlive change and that working together in the child's best interests is one of them.

Adolescent↗