Children's Competence to Participate in Divorce Custody Decisionmaking

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Abstract
Evaluated the competence of children at various ages to state a custodial preference in divorce situations and to provide rational reasons for their choice. Responses of 144 children aged 9 to 14 from intact families to two hypothetical custody dilemmas were compared to those of twenty-four 18-year-olds and evaluated by 44 domestic relations judges. As predicted, the 14-year-olds proved to be as competent as the 18-year-olds according to the applicable legal standard. Even the 9-year-olds performed as well as the 18-year-olds on one of the two criterion measures. Significant developmental differences emerged in the reasons given by the children for their custodial preferences but not in the preferences in themselves. Implications of the findings for policy and practice are discussed.

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