What is good for the custodial parent isn't always good for the child. Children, whose divorced parents have moved more than an hour apart from each other, are more likely to have both long-term psychological and physical difficulties, according to new research. When divorced parents stay in the same town, these same problems can be avoided.
"The essential problem is that every thing changes going into a long distance situation," says Sandford Braver, Ph.D., a psychologist at Arizona State University. "Each parent can't be involved in the daily life of a child as they might be the same town."
Braver and colleagues conducted their research from a pool of 602 college students from divorced families. Sixty percent of the participants' parents had moved an hour or more apart from each other. They tested for psychological and emotional adjustment, finding that physical distance between parents caused psychological issues. Years later, these participants felt more hostile in interpersonal relationships, suffered more distress over their parent's divorce and rated themselves lower in physical health.
