Childhood And Adolescence : Toward A Field Of Inquiry

Divorce is one of many controversial subjects in family and human development research. What inspired me to critically analyze the article “Does Divorce Create Long-Term Negative Effects for Children?” is the challenge it would be for me to put my bias aside considering I am from a divorced home. After reading the article and analyzing it over and over, I can’t help but think that the writer answering “YES” to this controversial question overlooked many variables and over generalized his findings and research. With Zinsmeister overgeneralizing his research, not considering enough alternate explanations for long-term negative effects divorce, and his lack of relevant information needed to assess reliability and validity are why I find this article to be insightful but not accurate and hope to show why.

Amato, Paul R., and Bruce Keith. "Parental Divorce and the Well-Being of Children: A Meta-Analysis." Journal of Marriage and the Family 110.1 (1991): 26-46. Web. 17 Apr. 2016.

Janet Shansky of Iona college wrote this intellectual article about some major theories within divorced families. These theories have the potential to explain the connection between parental divorce and negative outcomes for the children. These include, but are not limited to, the "marital disruption" theory, the "reduced resources" theory, and the "parental conflict" theory. Shansky takes a deep look at all of the research that went into these theories and how they explain the adverse effects of divorce on children. Another aspect of her article is how these significant theories can be put to use in intervening future students and children from having such a hard time with this major change in their life.

Four areas of primary influence are: academic achievement, prosocial, internalizing problems and externalizing problems. Out of these four areas, academic achievement is most sensitive to family stress. Children from intact families often demonstrate higher mental aptitude than children from broken families. Compare to boys from intact families and girls from broken families, boys from broken families exhibit significantly poorer academic functioning. Boys from families which would subsequently divorce exhibit multiple behavioral problems prior to the divorce, which will naturally lead to poorer school functioning. One possible explanation for this is that boys may be more sensitive than girls to the events in home during the predivorce period. Interparental conflict might disrupt the parents’ attention to and monitoring of schoolwork. Poorly monitored boys, but not girls, have lower GPAs than adequately monitored boys and girls. Boys also perceive angry situations more negatively than do girls. In contrast to boys whose parents would divorce, girls showed a decline in GPA over the entire divorce period. One explanation for this is that puberty changes might have bigger effects on girls than on boys. The decline shown in girls across years may primarily have been a function of cumulative stressors. Furthermore, since the father is usually the one who leave the house, the absence of the male role-model makes it ever more difficult for boys to adjust to divorce. By late adolescence, (ages 15-18) teenagers are awakening to romantic relationships. The loss of parental love and the broken parental vows may cause children to find it difficult to make commitment to long lasting love, especially for boys. There are some evidences that children tend to show more problems if they are in the custody of a parent of the opposite sex than a parent of the same

“Teen Health and Wellness” expresses that the result on children ages six to eight is most profound. It says they are old enough to realize what is happening but do not have adequate skills to deal with the disruption. It asserts that they often feel a sense of responsibility, experience tremendous grief, and have a pervasive sadness and yearning for the departed parent. According to this article, adolescents' reactions to divorce include anger, a desire for a stable home, and a need for clear boundaries between them and their parents, especially around such issues as sexuality, dating, and household responsibilities. “Dysfunctional Family” testifies that teens that already have to deal with their maturing bodies and minds, divorce is just an added burden (Dysfunctional Family).

The economic factors are also a problem with divorced families which in turn has a direct effect on the ability of the children to succeed financially. The majority of divorces that occur result in the household income being reduced by as much as half. This can have a much greater effect on children growing up in a family that is financially secure before the divorce. The adjustment and change that must occur financially is often devastating to the children especially in their formative years. (Fagan & Rector, 2000)

For couples with children divorce can wreak havoc on family relations. The behavior of children can change rapidly, in Cherlin (1993) it has been stated that, “children whose parents separated or divorced displayed more behavior problems and performed more poorly in school than children whose parents remained married” (para. 3). It is important to note that each child is affected differently and relationships with parents will not always be bitter (Cherlin, 1993). The personal source is a friend of many years whose parents divorced when she was very young. Her brother was also very young at the time of the divorce; each of them as male and female reacted differently to the divorce, just as it has been seen in many studies (Alex Pringle, Personal Communication, May 10,

The economic factors are also a problem with divorced families which in turn has a direct effect on the ability of the children to succeed financially. The majority of divorces that occur, result in the household income being reduced by as much as half. This can have a much greater effect on children growing up in a family that is financially secure before the divorce. The adjustment and change that must occur financially is often devastating to the children especially in their formative years. (Fagan & Rector, 2000)

Children can and will gain if parents can and work out their problems and stay as a unit rather than get a divorce (Paul R. Amato and Alan Booth, A Generation at Risk, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997). All marriages have their good times and their bad times. But love conquers all in most cases. Recent research with a large national sample found that 86% of people who were unhappily married in the late 1980s, and stayed with the marriage,

Reviewing the test scores and social well-being of 142 grade-school children with divorced parents, researcher Hyon Sik was surprised to find no significant decline in the months leading up to their parents divorce. It was only during the divorce themselves that struggles emerged. And two years later the children remained behind their classmates from two-parent homes (Olson 1).

Age can effect marital conflict of divorce on a parent, adult child relationships and gender play a huge role in the differences of coping with parents who go through divorce. In the article “The Interactive Effects of Marital Conflict and Divorce on Parent - Adult Children's Relationships” by Yu, T., Pettit, G. S., Lansford, J. E., Dodge, K. A., & Bates, J. E., they hypothesized how parental marital warfare and divorce can both independently correlate with the parent-adult child relationships well-being. They claim that the timing between the portion of marital trouble and the measure of parent-adult child relationship effects may also have affected the relationship between parental-marital trouble and parent-adult

For this assignment, I chose to read and reviewed four research articles that talk about the effects of divorce on children. Each of them discussed about whether the differences in the level of parental marital conflict could leave any impacts on the well-being of the children. Besides, all of these papers compare between the high-conflict and low-conflict families. They compare and contrast the well being of the children of divorce when they reach young adults and adulthood stage. All of these articles are the combination of both qualitative and quantitative types of researches. Some theoretical perspectives that were used are economic deprivation, family structure and psychological stress. Plus, these papers were already being reviewed

The aim of this report is to analyze how the parent’s divorce can affect children. I have done some research on this topic, reading opinions of different people in blogs, some articles on newspapers and asking my colleagues their opinions on this.

Thesis: Children of divorce are negatively affected academically, emotionally and romantically due to circumstances that prohibit to continue their normal daily lives.

Barthassat’s (2014) journal, “Positive and Negative Effects of Parental Conflicts on Children’s Condition and Behaviour” reviews two studies based on parent’s both examining the child and the parent within parental conflicts. More effective information was found about the parent and less information was found about the children because of parents bias and own opinion. This paper found significant results of behavioral, emotional and cognitive responses of a child involved in parental conflict, resolutions by parental explanations and parents as models. This information helps the essay by providing both negative and positive opinions towards parental conflicts. The second piece of literature chosen towards this essay is, “The Impact of Family Structure on the Health of Children: Effects of Divorce” by Anderson (2014) who reviewed the negative impacts that divorce has on the children. Nowadays, divorce cases have become more and more a normal thing in many families lives. Married couples happen to occasionally get divorced which is one of the solutions to cope with problems between one another. In this case it leads to mothers raising children alone, the beliefs on why families are changing based on overall relationships that are leading marriages to occur later? It seems that woman are having fewer children and doing so later in life, single mothers giving birth to children and raising them on their own, more parents cohabitation, and fewer children living with their married, biologic parents. The author did not perform a study but instead used research and pushed that, “pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children… and to discourage married couples from divorcing” (Anderson, 2014, pg. 378). Anderson (2014) finds through his research that financial negativities, cohabitation, and less time spent with either parent can weakened the parent child bond resulting from divorce. Although, through his paper, he was bias towards the encouragement of marriage. The author did not conduct a study but instead used the method of research which provides ways that parents can better develop their children if parents end up in divorces. Overall his paper