Many parents and professionals trying to understand the needs and wishes of children wonder when a child is “ready” or “old enough” to make their own choices about custody and visitation. Experts in the field offer opinions on this issue and usually suggest that adults should make the decisions and then prepare and support the children in following the agreed-upon schedule.
Retired District Judge of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Anne Kass, tells parents in her Court not to give their children “A Sophie’s Choice.”
Judge Kass lays out her thoughts on asking a child to choose a parent as follows:
“I sometimes
say to divorcing parents, who are locked in a custody fight: Imagine that you
have two children, and imagine the Court telling you that you can have only one
of them. Imagine the Court telling you to pick one.
The parents usually look at me as though I were mad.
I then tell them about a movie I saw some years ago in which a mother was given
that choice. It was World War II. She had been sent to a Nazi war camp. She had
a small son and a small daughter. The Nazi soldiers said to her: "Pick one.
Which one do you want?" The Mother said she could not choose between her
children. The Nazi soldiers said if she didn't pick one, she would lose them
both, so she picked one.
The name of the movie is "Sophie's Choice." It is about the life-long anguish
that Sophie suffered from having to make a choice between her son and her
daughter. The movie shows Sophie, after the war, as a rather aimless,
nonproductive character and; an alcoholic.
I once thought that the movie was set in a Nazi war camp because no one, except
a deranged Nazi, could possibly dream-up such a diabolical plot. But, that's not
so. I see divorcing parents give their children Sophie's Choice every day.
When divorcing parents quarrel and struggle over their children or belittle one
another in the children's presence, the message to the children is: Pick one of
us. Which of your parents do you want?”
Professionals like Philip Stahl, Ph.D., Isolina Ricci, Ph.D. and Contance Ahrons, Ph.D. all warn about the trap parents may unwittingly set for a child when they ask the child to make a choice about something the child is not equipped for. Their rationale is that many children are so rooted in the “here and now” that they are not able to put aside their immediate desires to make a future choice. Researchers at the University of Ottawa have conducted research on this rationale and have concluded that, in some instances at least, this claim is accurate.
The author of the Ottawa study is Cristina Atance, an assistant professor of psychology. Co-author Andrew Meltzoff, co-director of the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences and the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Chair in psychology, said, “We think of anticipating the future as being one of the most distinctively human traits. We don’t only live in the present. It is characteristic of human beings that we engage in mental time travel. We have present and future selves. Sometimes the needs and desires of the present self conflict with those of the future self.”
Atance said that the study conducted on children to explore the immediate desire vs future needs echoes well-known experiments that showed hungry adults bought more food at the grocery store than those who ate before shopping. The new study done by Atance looked at thirst instead of hunger and included 48 children: 16 three-year-olds, 16 four-year-olds, and 16 five-year-olds. Equal numbers of boys and girls participated. The research showed that there was no improvement in the children’s ability to distinguish what they wanted now and tomorrow by age, even though the 4- and 5-year-olds had a better concept of different times than did the 3-year olds.
Atance said the practical application of the research is that it can help parents and teachers better interpret young children’s behavior and understand how difficult it is for children to think about the future. “For instance,” says Atance, “we often see children object when mom asks them to put on their coat in a warm house before going outside into the cold, or when she tells them to bring water to the park when they are not yet hot and thirsty. Although we may think that the child is simply being disobedient, it may be that they don’t understand that they might be cold or thirsty later.”
If this research result is applied to children of divorce asked by a parent to choose going with the other parent or staying with the one they are with, it suggests that the children might be unable to think about the future and so could make a decision that would result in them missing out on the contributions and richness made to their lives and development by the active involvement of both parents.
“Knowing about the future is something that is important in adult life,” added Meltzoff. “All of education is built on the idea that learning things will be good for you and you will know more in the future. Young children almost have a mental inability to plan accurately for the future when they are in the strong grip of desire. Young children see their future selves through a present veil that is distorted by their current self. As adults, we have tricks, experience, friends and spouses to help us focus on the future. Children don’t have those capacities or resources.”
Similar studies have been conducted at the University of Toronto, University of California-Los Angeles, and the University of California-Davis with similar results although the specific choice points being researched with the child participants were different. Atance and Meltzoff plan to continue this line of research with older children and hope to pin-point when children develop the ability to distinguish between present and future desires.
Until more definitive research is available and applied over time with valid and reliable results to custody disputes, it is probably wise to remember and take guidance from the thoughts of Retired Judge Kass, “When divorcing parents quarrel and struggle over their children or belittle one another in the children's presence, the message to the children is: Pick one of us. Which of your parents do you want?”