C. O. D.: Dealing With Divorced Parents

Divorce creates less contact with the father which is received as poor compared to the

Instead of writing my English essay due the next day, I was contemplating where I would spend my weekend; at my mom’s home or at my dad’s. Not many of us enjoying talking of what it is like to grow up with divorced parents, because it is a difficult situation to be a part of. Growing up being shuffled from household to household and trying to spend quality time with both parents is different; my friends did not have to plan their social lives around the days they would be spending with their dad or mom. Most of my friends got the privilege of going home to receive love and support from both of their parents. They got to sit down at the dinner table with both their mother and father to eat supper and share the details of their day whether that

Six years ago, a summer afternoon, my dad hugged me and I said “I will be gone for three days, I have a job in Austin, but I promise that I will be back before your birthday. I promise.” Days, weeks, months almost two years passed by and I did not receive any phone call or text message from him. Throughout that time my dad was gone, my mom told me that she was getting the papers ready to divorce my dad. I was noticing that the last three-four years that I was living with both of my parents, their relationship was getting worse. It was not a healthy situation for anyone in the house. What I mean about not being healthy is that my mother and father were damaging one another, emotionally and verbally, which my brothers and I would watch everything. Every day was the same routine, we forgot how it was to have a peaceful home. Around that moment, I honestly never thought divorce was going to be their solution.

The key research question in this study is what are the long term effects of parental divorce on a child’s relationship between their parents and their siblings? They took into consideration variables such as age of divorce, gender, and living arrangements so they can see what influence they may have on the present study results and compare it with previous studies. They gave 3 different surveys to 102 students with married parents and 107 students with divorced parents to be able to observe the differences in relationships between the two types of families. Some of the key findings of this study are that females actually have better adult relationships with their siblings and that divorce caused the children to have better relationships with their mother, and worse relationships with their father. They noted that the age when their parents got divorced was not a variable that affected whether or not they had a good relationship with their siblings. For the relationship between their mothers, it was better unless there was a variable of pre-divorce or post-divorce conflict between them. For their fathers, it showed that daughters had worse relationships with their fathers compared to sons. Living arrangements showed effects for both of the parents depending on which parent they lived with. When it comes to remarriage, it had a positive affect on mother-child relationship when the father got remarried and no affect when the mother was remarried.

The data was collected in the Netherlands. “...highly educated divorced fathers were better able to maintain high-quality relationships with their children than divorced fathers who had a lower level of education” (Kalmijn, 932) meaning the upper-middle class fathers have a better chance of a relationship with their child than the lower-class. The Netherlands divorce rate is similar to other Western European countries but lower than in the United States. In 1998, arrangements for after divorce agreements changed in the Netherlands, and ensured in more frequent visits of children to divorced fathers. Gender roles in the Netherlands are becoming more considerably democratic in the past few decades and is now more equitable than the European average. However most of the respondents that were analyzed, experienced their parents divorce before these changes occurred.

My parents divorced when I was about seven years old, and my mom became the custodial parent. As my younger sister and brother, and I could adapt to always going back and forth between our parent’s. The challenging thing about having divorced parents is meeting their new significant other, which I have met multiple of them. Another thing is meeting my parent’s significant other’s children. Each person I met was nice, and if I was meeting a toddler, they were energetic. Although, each time I did meet these people, I was usually very distant and dramatic.

The chapter starts with a story about a man in a church who wanted to start a group for divorced people. The pastor said it is a great idea. He asked the other man whether he would like a special section in the auditorium just for divorced people. The man said that would be good. The pastor said that he would have a section for liars, wife-beaters, alcoholics, and others. The man got the message. A healing church must resist the urge to categorize people. A pastor could play the gender or race card, pit the old verses the young, or rich verses the poor. Each could have their own section. “Yet, one of the first, giant steps away from love is to view a person as a representative or a statistic-something other than the unique individual God created.”

The article Divorced Mothers is based on a research done on divorced women and married women. The research was done to determine who has a higher sense of coherence. Which essentially means, who can cope with stress better between the married and divorced women. The research determined that women who were married had a higher sense of coherence, then their counterpart (divorced women). The research was done with a handful of women. Hence, the research was broad and did not factor in economic statues, age, location, and other crucial factors that may influence the study.

4. Making fathers to participate into children’s schoolwork and activities would be an efficient way to get fathers involved. Father involved school counseling program was such a program that required fathers’ involvement. The program was faced to children who experienced parental marital dissolution. However, many problems these divorced fathers were facing also applied to fathers in “doing the best I can”. Fathers from the book and fathers who just separated from kids’ mother were both likely to e wronged by their chidlren. For instance, Jeff in the “doing the best I can” expressed how heartbreaking it was when he heard his daughter told him numerous things that her mother’s boyfriend had done for her. He said “if I give you a million dollars

In most of the societies about a century ago, the family was the most valued system in almost all spheres of life and human living. Family is the only institution which provides the security and support without any rewards in return. The effectiveness of family functioning in conditioning the children's personality and social development has an outstanding importance (Roelfse and Middleton, 1985). The family interactions play an important role in the development of an individual. These interactions and interpersonal relationships are seen between parents, parent and child, siblings, and any other relative or person living in the household. The healthy functioning of these interaction patterns enhances mental health of the individual Children need a happy and stable family environment and a conductive social network for their overall growth and development. Yet, happy families are not happy all the time. Disagreements and conflicts are a necessary part of living closely together. Both love and hate are to be expected in the intensity of family life and peers interactions, but it is the way negative emotions are handled that makes a difference to family life and social interactions (Parke and Buriel, 1998). Parenting has long been recognized as making an important contribution to the development of competencies and problem behavior among children and adolescents. However, recently researchers have begun to develop attention to understanding variations in parenting in different

I feel like a personal challenge I’ve faced in my life was my parents getting a divorce. This affecting me by not having one parent but the other is rough throughout my childhood while seeing others growing up with both parents and seeing your lifestyle different from other children. But throughout time I’ve gain to know how even though not growing up with one parent was hard you began to gain more responsibilities and be more helpful with siblings as well with other future endeavors I tend to overcome with my success in the future of my life. Growing up with divorced parents wasn’t as easy as you would think it would be. For example I have faced plenty of obstacles such as seeing other children having spending time with their father and not

Growing up with divorced parents is something I would not wish on anyone. Having to live in fear is not something a child should ever have to do. Worrying if you are going to get berated for everything you do does not make for an easy childhood. Counting down the days you have in hell is not something I will ever have to do again.

Divorce is becoming all too popular in our society today. When a couple experience tough times or have one too many arguments, they automatically think divorce. Despite its prevalence couples are not prepared for it’s long, drawn out, hurtful process. Divorce does not only hurt the individuals involved, it also affects the children tremendously. While many people don’t think divorce is a bad thing. Hollywood makes divorce look cool and uneventful. When in all reality, it is disruptive. Some people would say that divorce is a lazy way out of a marriage; the cowardly thing to do when a situation presents itself. Divorce is not the only answer to marital problems, in most cases.

In the last two decades divorce has increased substantially leaving couples single and families broken. Divorce is the reality for many families as there is an increase in divorce rates, cohabitation rates, and the number of children raised in step and single marital families. Divorce cannot be overlooked as it negatively affects and impacts youngsters for the rest of their lives. Although it is the decision between two parents’s children are hurt the most in the process. The concept of divorce is extremely difficult for children to understand as there are many unanswered questions and uncertainties. “Will my mom or dad remarry and who will I live with?” are concerns children express while going through divorce. Many

Divorce is a plague that is destroying numerous families across the United States of America. Sadly, when husbands and wives divorce, the children are often caught directly in the middle. Throughout the years divorce has been becoming more and more common. In the 1920's it was a rare find to know a person whom had been divorced, today it is a rarity not to know of one who has been, or will be divorced. Divorce has numerous effects on the structures of families, and many devastating effects on the children that must experience it, although sometimes necessary, divorce radically changes the lives of adolescents and adults alike.