A Parenting Team?

到5岁时，英国25%的孩子将经历父母的分离（了解社会2018）。传统上，公众和法院都认为母亲应该获得对孩子的单独监护权，这迫使他们在与父亲共同享有法律监护权的情况下独自抚养孩子。然而，在过去的二十年里，越来越多的人转向共同的身体监护权，因此在2018年，领先的专家呼吁推定共同的身体和法律监护权，并由此推断共同抚养子女（Braver & Lamb, 2018）。英国以外的研究发现，在一系列领域共同抚养孩子有一个优势，尽管也注意到一些缺点，比如在家庭之间不断切换（尼尔森，2018）。也有大量证据表明，分居前后父母之间的冲突与较差的儿童结局有关（Amato, 2001; Amato, 2010）。据估计，9%的英国家庭在分居后共同抚养孩子（Peacey & Hunt, 2010），但英国没有关于这些家庭中孩子如何生活的研究。在这些共同养育的家庭中，关系是怎样的？分居的夫妻如何共同抚养孩子？孩子们是什么感觉？如果我们要解决英国改善儿童和青少年心理健康的政策驱动（卫生部绿皮书，2017年），我们必须了解分居夫妇如何管理共同抚养子女以及这对孩子的影响。如果没有这一点，就不能很好地理解离婚后改善儿童适应和家庭生活的潜在目标，法院制定的指导养育计划的决定是基于假设而不是证据。我建议利用这个奖学金来宣传和扩展我的研究，研究父母作为影响科学理解和公共政策的伙伴。我是一名发展心理学家，我的博士研究跟踪了200名父母，研究了他们从怀孕到第一个孩子出生头两年的心理健康和家庭关系。尽管父亲越来越多地参与照顾孩子，但大多数研究仍然集中在母亲身上。我的研究探讨了相同的因素（例如，抑郁，夫妻关系质量）是否会影响母亲和父亲的养育方式，以及夫妻成员如何相互影响。我发现母亲，而不是父亲，在怀孕期间对婴儿的想法和感受，预示着他们在婴儿时期养育孩子的质量。同时，父亲而不是母亲在婴儿出生头两年的育儿方式更容易受到外界影响，例如母亲的行为、心理健康以及夫妻关系的质量。这些发现具有重要的实际意义——母亲和父亲可能在不同的时间点需要不同类型的支持，帮助父母中的一方可能会给另一方带来好处，这反过来可能会改善孩子以后的表现。在学习期间，我将巩固博士学位的研究成果，使我能够在学术界独立发展。首先，我的目标是进一步发表和宣传我的博士研究成果。其次，我的目标是培养自己将研究成果转化为政策和实践的能力。具体来说，我将与全国关系慈善机构OnePlusOne合作，根据我的博士研究，为他们的夫妻数字干预开发内容。第三，我将测试进行英国首个关于关系破裂后共同抚养子女的研究的可行性。这个试点项目将确保我在进一步独立研究经费的申请中处于一个知情的位置，这将使我能够扩展父母对儿童发展影响的研究领域，并将我的学术生涯带入下一个阶段。

By five years old, 25% of children in the UK will have experienced the separation of their parents (Understanding Society 2018). It has traditionally been assumed by the public and courts of law that mothers should receive sole physical custody of their children, pushing them into single parenting despite shared legal custody with fathers. However, over the last two decades there has been an increasing shift towards shared physical custody, such that in 2018 leading experts called for a presumption of joint physical and legal custody, and by inference shared parenting (Braver & Lamb, 2018). Research outside the UK has found an advantage for shared parenting of children in joint physical custody across a range of domains, though noting some disadvantages, such as constant switching between homes (Nielsen, 2018). There is also a substantial body of evidence that conflict between parents, before and after separation, is associated with poorer child outcomes (Amato, 2001; Amato, 2010). It is estimated that 9% of UK families engage in shared parenting post separation (Peacey & Hunt, 2010), but there is no UK research on how children are faring in these families. What are relationships like within these shared parenting families? How do separated couples manage shared parenting? What is it like for children? If we are to address the UK policy drive to improve child and adolescent mental health (Department of Health Green Paper, 2017), it is imperative that we understand how separated couples manage shared parenting and how this effects children. Without this, potential targets for improving child adjustment and family life post-divorce are not well understood and decisions guiding parenting plans produced by courts are made upon assumptions and not evidence. I propose to use this fellowship to publicise and extend my research examining parents as partners to influence both scientific understanding and public policy.I am a developmental psychologist and my doctoral research followed 200 mothers and fathers and examined psychological wellbeing and family relationships from pregnancy through the first two years of their first-born child's life. Despite an increase in fathers' involvement in childcare, the majority of research remains focused on mothers. My research explored whether the same factors (e.g., depression, couple relationship quality) influence both mothers' and fathers' parenting and how members of a couple impact each other. I found mothers', but not fathers', thoughts and feelings about their infant during pregnancy predicted the quality of their parenting during infancy. Whilst fathers' but not mothers' parenting over the first two years of life was more susceptible to outside influence, for example from mothers' behaviour and mental health and the quality of their couple relationship. These findings have important practical implications - mothers and fathers may need different types of support at different time points and helping one parent may lead to benefits for the other, which in turn may improve later child outcomes. During my fellowship I will consolidate the research arising from my PhD to l enable me to pursue an independent career in academia. First, I aim to further publish and publicise the findings from my doctoral research. Second, I aim to develop my ability to translate research into policy and practice. Specifically, I will become associated with OnePlusOne, a national relationship charity, to develop content for their digital interventions for couples based upon my doctoral research. Third, I will test the feasibility of conducting the first UK study examining co-parenting after relationship breakdown. This pilot will ensure I will be in a well-informed position to develop my applications for further independent research funding which will enable me to extend the research field of parenting influences on child development and take my academic career to the next stage.