February 4, 2021 by Don Hubin, Ph.D., Chair, National Board of Directors

It’s not unusual. Once again, the public is way ahead of our legislators, who are too often held back by the demands of special interests to which they are beholden.

Regular readers of the NPO Blog know that there is a strong scientific consensus that substantially equal shared parenting is, in the vast majority of cases, in children’s best interest. And, regular readers will recall, too, that NPO has done polling in a number of states that shows, beyond doubt, that the public overwhelmingly favors a legal presumption in favor of shared parenting.

December 21, 2020 by Don Hubin, Ph.D., Chair, National Board of Directors

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of attending the International Council on Shared Parenting’s 5th international conference, which was co-sponsored by National Parents Organization. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was a virtual conference. Though there are drawbacks to this format, there are also advantages. It made it possible to bring together scholars and audience members from around the world to address the focus of the conference: shared parenting and family violence. It was truly an international conference: drawing more than a thousand registrants from 56 different countries.

Over the course of several forthcoming blog articles, I want to share with you some of the important insights that emerged in the conference presentations. The first comes from Dr. William Bernet, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

Since 2012, Americans have been taking part in a new post-Thanksgiving Day tradition that shows our generous spirit: Giving Tuesday. The uniquely American holiday, Thanksgiving, traditionally brings extended families together to give thanks for their blessings. (Of course, this can be a lonely day for those parents who cannot be with their children.) Merchants created Black Friday, which originally was just the day after Thanksgiving but now seems to begin weeks, if not months, earlier. The idea behind Giving Tuesday was to encourage people to step back from the commercialization of the season and show their gratitude for their blessings by giving to help others.

November 23, 2020 by Don Hubin, Ph.D., Chair, National Board of Directors

We have A. A. Milne, author of the beloved Winnie-the-Pooh stories, to thank for the word ‘woozle’. In Milne’s story, the woozle is a creature that Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet are tracking in the snow. As they follow the tracks, the footprints multiply and they are sure they’re hot on the trail of a woozle. As it turns out, though, they’ve been following their own footprints as they circle a tree. The woozle doesn’t exist and the “evidence” they’ve found of it is just a product of their own search for it.

In social science, though, ‘woozle’ has a different meaning. The term is familiar to shared parenting advocates because of important work by Linda Nielsen. Relying on work by Richard Gelles, who introduced the term to social science, here’s how Professor Nielsen describes a woozle:

October 21, 2020 by Don Hubin, Ph.D., Chair, National Board of Directors

National Parents Organization is committed to reforming the norms of separated parenting to make equal shared parenting the typical outcome when parents live apart. This is a battle that is fought on multiple fronts.

The legislative reform front is one that often receives the most attention. And statutory changes can be impressive, as NPO proved in Kentucky when it spurred the most dramatic improvement in a state’s child custody laws in the country, catapulting Kentucky from a ‘D-’ state in the 2014 NPO Shared Parenting Report Card to a ‘A’ in the 2019 report.

Well, it’s been a long time in the works and an even longer time that it’s been needed. Finally, though, I’m delighted to announce the opening of the new and improved National Parents Organization website.

Our old website had grown long in the tooth. It looked dated and, more importantly, didn’t display well and was hard to navigate on mobile devices. The new site has a modern look, is easy to view and navigate on mobile devices, and is much easier to update.