Publication

The purpose of this study is to examine (a) the factors determining types of parenting time and (b) the relationship between the custodial mothers’ cognition of the fathers’ parenting time following divorce (as measured by the MCFPT survey) and the custodial mothers’ psychological adjustment. Using the MCFPT, responses from 348 custodial mothers of children aged 0－17 years were obtained and analyzed. Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that fathers’ requests for visitation, the payment status of child support, and the presence or absence of custody disputes relate to whether paternal parenting time continues. Results of a structural equation modeling analysis suggest that the occurrence of post-divorce conflict over parenting time affects custodial mothers’ psychological adjustment, such as grief over the end of the marriage, feeling anger toward the ex-husband, as well as emotional alienation from the former spouse through the mothers’ cognition of the fathers’ parenting time. Implications for the practice of conflict resolution and supervised visitation are discussed.