How Divorce Impacts Children Under the Age of 18

Divorce is one of the most common happenings in the world experienced by children. Most children go through different adjustments to become comfortable with the fact that their parents are not together anymore. Children of divorced parents are prone to lifelong effects. Seventy-five to eighty percent of children have divorced parents and twenty-five percent of those children have serious social, emotional, or psychological problems for the rest of their life. Most adults think that it is best for parents to stay together for the sake of their child because having two parents in different households can become difficult for the child socially and academically.

Divorce causes many problems for children and has many implications. Psychological implications include mental health problems and behavioral problems. Social roles are turned inside out and upside down. Children are often pulled in many directions. In the United States divorce is very common and often leaves children confused and without options. Many turn toward violence, crime, drugs, and isolation. Studies show how adults can reduce the tension for these children. Other

Divorce can have a huge effect on a child. Divorce is a long process that can affect a child for a period of years. Most children are affected by divorce but the process can be generally more difficult for boys. According to Hetherington and Stanley- Hagan (1999) most children are resilient enough to adapt to their parent divorce after a period of time has passed. The main facotrs of divorce that can affect a child are, how often they see the non- custodial parent, the lifestyle or financial implications of being part of a single parent family and if one or both parents remarry, this can cause a massive difference in family life due to the child having to come to terms with their new

Divorce is a painful experience to go through for everyone who is involved. In reality, divorce is the destruction of God’s intentions of a true, loving family. Children of divorced families are, in a sense, robbed of a special experience of having a family. Children, in the mist of all of their confusion, usually turn to God to ask Him the one question that remains on their minds, and that is, "why me?" These same children that go

Divorce is comparable to an epidemic since it has been filtering through many societies at an increasingly alarming rate. According to the most current statistic, there are more than 2.1 million marriages in the United States (“Children of Divorced Parents”). Out of those, almost half end in divorce. Divorce nowadays is extremely common. In fact, in America there is one divorce every thirty-six seconds (National Marriage and Divorce Rate Trends”). Each year over a million American children suffer from the divorce of their parents (Amato 24-26). Even though it might be shown to benefit some individuals in their own personal case, for the majority it causes a decrease in an individual’s life and puts many people “on a downward trajectory from which they might never fully recover” (Amato). Over long term, the United States divorce rate has been on a rise since 1980, which means more children being affected (Macionis). These children that are affected are faced by emotions of anger, confusion and even fear. These emotions affect their academic performance, social interactions, behavior, self-esteem and other negative effects. This literature review is important in calling attention on the current research studying impacts of divorce on children. The topic of divorce is a wide-ranging topic. However, this particular literature review focuses only on the effects that divorce has on children. The data presented in this paper is collected from

According to the Encyclopedia of Psychology, one half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce. With these one million children are affected each year. Eighty five percent of these children live in single parent households, with the mother being the head of the house. The father is usually distant or does not speak to the children at all. These children are highly affected and experience a great deal of emotional and academic problems. Especially when you compare them to children with non-divorced parents. During adolescence, these children have twice as high as a rate of dropping out of high school, having teenage pregnancy, and experiencing deliquiate behavior. I am not a child of divorce, but a child dear to me is. I have seen firsthand the emotional tear that it can play into a child’s life, and the way it affects a family. Divorce may cause children to grow up anxious and scared. Children may even ask themselves “why me?”, “what can I do?”, and “where should I go from here?”.

The occurrence on divorce in our society today has left children emotionally and mentally hurt by this. More and more studies have been done on to see if divorce has an effect on children. I personally have had no effect of divorce, but I have had several friends who have been affected. I had little knowledge about how impactful divorce can have an affect on someone until I started doing research on this topic. Divorce is very hard on people who have to deal with this. The articles I have found to do research on all have something new and exciting to bring to the table. Of the ones I have found, I believe they will help me to understand more of the struggles young children have to cope with during such a difficult time. I also found an interesting article about the fathers’ perspectives on divorce. It talked about how they still want to be apart of their children’s lives and how hard it is to keep a strong relationship with their children. I felt like it would be good to include this article into my paper because it will help me to learn from the fathers’ side how they handle the situation. Throughout this paper, I disused the different effects divorce has on children, the various programs and coping strategies for the children, and fathers’ perspectives and mother-child relationships. All of these topics are very important to divorce and the articles from the researchers did a great job of talking about these topics.

Marriage, believed by many, is supposed to last until the death of one of the married people. However, this is not the case. A divorce has many effects on both divorced parties, but especially on their children, teenagers to be more specific. The aim of this research is to show the effects of a divorce of parents in teenager’s mentalities.

Divorce can affect teens emotionally and this can confuse them. Teens become angry and feel as if the world is against them when they are going through a divorce. Anger in teens can cause them to lash out in school and, hurt themselves and others around them. The effect of anger in teens can potentially lead to arguments and fights. Fighting in school can cause teenagers to get suspended and fights that are not in school can cause teens to get arrested. Some teenagers feel as if the divorce is their fault by either not making good grades, by not helping out around the house, and by making one parent go against the other by one of the parents taking their teens side on arguments. When teens feel like the divorce is their fault, it causes them

It seems obvious that a teenager does not react in the same way as a toddler. According to some psychologists, even though babies can barely understand words, they feel the presence of their parents and if they are absent for some time they feel abandoned by them, creating a feeling of profound sadness. On the other hand, children between 5 and 12 years old will develop an insecure attitude to live; the majority of them may have problems making decisions that might seem easy for other people. This is caused because the two most important people of their lives are no longer there at the same time for them. Teenagers normally develop an animadversion to relationships because they think that they are not going to last forever and blame their parents for that. It has been proved that independently of the age, they will normally develop problems with anxiety. The effects of divorce in children can be different depending on the child and the relationship between both parents after the

People get divorced often. In fact, an average 813,672 people get divorced every year, CDC.Gov says. But one thing people don’t pay attention to as much is how it affects the children of these couples who get divorced. According to psychologytoday.com, the children whose parents divorce must adapt to new surroundings and “Witnessing loss of love between parents”.

These include academic deterioration, antisocial and delinquent behaviors, anxiety, low self-esteem, and depression. Early promiscuity, relationship difficulties, and illicit drug use are also noted. Other studies correlate resiliency in adulthood as one product of living in a conflictual family system”(Rich et al., 2007 p.164). The effects of divorce vary depending on the situation and the child. “Hess and Camara found that many children of divorce suffer severe emotional consequences such as depression, anger, anxiety, and withdrawal, any of which, if prolonged, can have a negative impact on the child’s overall emotional development. It is also reported adjustment problems in the area of cognitive, emotional, and social development among children of divorce as well. In addition, parental separation has been found to be particularly stressful for adolescents”(Bornstein and Walters, 1988 p.248).

Divorce is an event which presents a drastic change into anyone’s life, no matter what their age is. Witnessing love between parents deteriorate, having parents break a significant commitment, adapting to going back and forth between two different households, and living with only one parent, all create a challenging environment in which to grow up and live in. However, especially for young children, parental divorce is a turning point in their life. After a divorce, the life that follows is significantly different from how life was previously.

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.

Furthermore, children are sensitive to their parents getting divorce. Usually the way how they reacts are expressed in different ways that are consistent with their developmental stages (Lee & Bax, 2000). Children of divorced parents have more cases of injury, asthma, headaches and speech defects than children whose parents have remained married (Children-and-Divorce.com, 2013). Studies also revealed that in 1980 - 1981 children that are in repeated divorces usually got lower results at school. Furthermore, other children that are of the same age group rated them as less pleasant to be around. Adolescents of divorce are around three times more likely which is, 35% instead of 13% to need psychological help within a given year. It is also discovered that children from divorced homes usually have more psychological problems, than children from which one of their parents has died. Furthermore, these children usually seem to be lonely, unhappy, anxious and insecure (Children-and-Divorce.com, 2013).