Making it Work The Children s Rights Council suggests the following custody schedule. And fathers who share custody are also more likely to pay child support. A U.S. Census Bureau report published in 1989 shows that 90.2 percent of fathers with joint custody pay the support due, while only 79.1 percent of fathers with visitation privileges pay full child support and only 44.5 percent of fathers with no visitation pay. Judith Seltzer at the University of Wisconsin in Madison says that after studying more than 13,000 divorced families, she found that joint custody keeps fathers more involved. Child support is fully paid more often.
Parents share more responsibilities and raise the child together.
It doesn t work as well if the parents don t live in the same area. It s ineffective if the parents continue to fight. Children want their parents to get along and divorce is supposed to solve that problem. It can be a difficult arrangement to uphold when the child becomes a teenager. Luevy says that parents need to be flexible and work with the child to work out a schedule.