Re-examining the research on parental conflict, coparenting, and custody arrangements
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law
Report summary
Does high parental conflict or poor coparenting automatically mean that shared physical custody will produce worse outcomes?
Nielsen reviewed 17 studies that accounted for parental conflict when comparing shared physical custody with children living mainly with one parent. She reported that 16 found better outcomes on most measures for the shared-care group after conflict was considered. Across overlapping outcome categories, all 9 studies assessing father relationships or stress-related health favoured shared care; 6 of 9 behavioural studies favoured shared care and 3 found equal outcomes; 8 of 12 social and emotional studies favoured shared care and 4 found equal outcomes; and 2 of 5 academic studies favoured shared care while 3 found equal outcomes.
The research does not support an automatic rule based only on a high-conflict label. It supports asking what the conflict consists of, who is creating it, whether the child is exposed or placed in the middle, and whether the arrangement can operate safely.
Researchers' conclusions
The author concluded that conflict, including legal conflict, should not by itself rule out shared physical custody. She treated the quality of each parent-child relationship as a stronger average predictor, while excluding coercive controlling violence, ongoing severe abuse, neglect, and other circumstances requiring protection from the ordinary application of the review.
This is a plain-language summary of the researchers' conclusion. It is not advice for an individual family.
How the report was produced
Most studies are observational. Conflict was measured in different ways, was often reported by one parent, and was not always measured as the conflict actually seen or experienced by the child.
What this paper supports
Reasonably supports
- Asking for evidence of what the child actually sees, hears, carries between homes, or is pressured to do.
- Separating a legal dispute or poor communication from violence, coercive control, abuse, neglect, and credible danger.
- Considering written communication, parallel parenting, school or daycare transfers, and neutral locations where these can safely reduce child exposure.
- Assessing the safety and quality of each parent-child relationship instead of relying on a conflict label alone.
Does not establish
- Assuming that every court dispute proves shared care or overnights are harmful.
- Assuming that shared care will overcome serious conflict without safeguards.
- Using ordinary conflict research to minimise violence, coercive control, abuse, neglect, or intimidation.
- Claiming the reviewed associations prove one arrangement caused better outcomes.
Important limitations
- Narrative review rather than a preregistered systematic review
- All included studies were correlational and could not establish causation
- Conflict was measured differently across studies and was often reported by only one parent
- The conclusions do not apply automatically to coercive control, ongoing violence, abuse, neglect, or credible safety risks
Evidence context and debate
Open the sections below for the wider research context, points of agreement, and areas that remain contested.
Why this question matters
Conflict has often been used as a reason to oppose shared care. Later reviews separated ordinary disagreement, court involvement, poor communication, child exposure, and coercive or violent behaviour instead of treating them as one condition.
The useful question is not whether the parents have ever argued. It is what kind of conflict exists, who creates it, whether the child sees it or is used inside it, and whether each parent can provide safe and adequate care. Court involvement, poor communication, and damaging child exposure are related possibilities, but they are not the same fact.
Nielsen's 2017 review examined studies that compared shared care with children living mainly with one parent while accounting for parental conflict. The pattern was generally positive or equal for shared care, including relationships, health, behaviour, emotional wellbeing, and school outcomes. Because the studies were observational and measured conflict differently, the review cannot prove that shared care caused those results.
Warshak's 2014 report reached a similar practical position. It argued that a high-conflict label should not automatically remove overnights or shared care. It also took child exposure seriously and proposed ways to reduce contact between parents, including transfers through school, daycare, or a neutral place. Neither paper treats violence, abuse, coercive control, neglect, or credible danger as ordinary conflict.
Where researchers agree and disagree
Researchers broadly agree that children should be protected from violence, abuse, coercive control, neglect, intimidation, and repeated exposure to hostile conflict.
Researchers differ over how much ordinary conflict should weigh against shared care, whether shared care reduces or increases conflict over time, and how confidently observational comparisons can guide an individual case.
Comparison with other research
Nielsen, 2017
Reviewed conflict, coparenting, legal disputes, and shared physical custody. Sixteen of 17 studies that accounted for parental conflict reported better outcomes on most measures for shared-care children.
Warshak, 2014
Opposed automatic exclusion based on a conflict label. Recommended examining the source and dynamics of conflict, parenting quality, child exposure, and practical ways to prevent hostile exchanges.
Kaspiew and colleagues, 2009
The large Australian family-law evaluation supplied evidence about conflict, violence, care arrangements, and post-reform family experiences that later authors interpreted in different ways.
The safety boundary
Coercive control, ongoing violence, abuse, neglect, stalking, intimidation, and credible danger require a protection analysis. Average findings about ordinary conflict do not decide those cases.
How the evidence developed later
Research increasingly separates legal conflict, coparenting quality, child exposure, and family violence.
Reviews now report results after measured conflict is considered, while acknowledging that statistical adjustment cannot remove every family difference.
Practice guidance has added parallel communication and neutral-transfer options intended to reduce child exposure.
Current interpretation places safety first while resisting automatic conclusions drawn from an undefined high-conflict label.
Read the paper and related research
This report
Linda Nielsen (2017). Re-examining the research on parental conflict, coparenting, and custody arrangements. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 23(2), 211–231. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000109
Fifty moves a year: Is there an association between joint physical custody and psychosomatic problems in children?
Then test the claim that two homes are more stressful using reports of sleep, headaches, stomach aches, sadness, and concentration from nearly 150,000 adolescents.
Record checked against the linked scholarly source. Last editorial review: 22 July 2026, as part of a batch review of the current collection.