Lone Parent Family: The Impact Of Divorce On Children

Every year more than half of all marriages between a male and female end in divorce (Weaver & Schofield, 2015), and data from the 1990 census states that over one million children experienced parental divorce (Amato, Sep. 2001). Compared to the 1960s 90 percent of children in the US grew up with two biological parents. Today that figure is only 40 percent (Bryner, 2001). Clearly, the prevalence of divorce should be a concern for the adults who live and work with the children who are affected by this phenomenon.

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.

Throughout time, people from all over the world have chosen to live together, or “get married”. Marriage is a beautiful thing, but there are some couples who are unable to maintain their relationship, because they choose divorce as a solution to cope with the problems between husband and wife. Although divorce can be solution to cope with problem between the husband and wife, it still has dangerous effects especially on their children. Children with divorced parents are vulnerable to risk. Divorce has a dangerous impact on children. Divorce of parentss causes many problems to children. It causes children to have a loss of Knowledge, skills, and resources from parents, behavioral problems, emotional problem, and health problem

Most marriages include children and when a divorce takes place it can have negative effects on them. A child may put the blame on themselves for the divorce. Children go from living with both parents to having to choose a parent which can be hard because they love both. Living with only one parent can change a child’s behavior, may even lead to drug abuse, dropping out of school and teen pregnancy. This is a few of the negative effects a divorce has on families.

Divorce is a heavy concept that has many implications for those involved. The situation becomes even more consequential when children are considered. As divorce has become more commonplace in society, millions of children are affected by the separation of the nuclear family. How far-reaching are these effects? And is there a time when divorce is beneficial to the lives of the children? This paper will examine some of the major research and several different perspectives regarding the outcomes of divorce for the children involved, and whether it can actually be in the best interest of the kids.

When it comes to divorce, it is common for children to be mixed up in the middle of things. In 1981 somewhere around 1.2 million kids were affected by divorce. Divorce causes major disruption within the family (Peck). When divorce begins to erupt the whole family, especially the children, is thrown off track. Many routines become estranged as the parents begin to divide households and divide the time spent with children. Other times one parent may move out, more commonly the father, and not see the kids at all. This can put a huge financial and responsibility burden on the remaining parent. Which

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.

Since 2007, parents are co-habitating with partners, and few couples are getting married. A statistic that is taken from the United States Census Bureau, in 2007, 70% of spouses were married and living together. In 2015, 67% of the mothers were not living with spouses. 23% of mothers reported no living with their partner, and 7% of mothers in 2007 were co-habitating and not married. In 2007, 98% of the fathers were married, and the spouses were slowly dropping from 2007 to 2015 (United State Census Bureau).

When divorce becomes an idea in a marriage, parents start to think about how it would affect their children, mentally and physically. They start to worry about their children’s welfare, which can sometimes lead to the parents remaining in the relationship for the sake of their children (Arkowitz & Lilienfeld, 2013). Steve Earll wrote,

Imagine that you are a child again. The world is bright, open, and full of possibilities. In your family you have two parents, a sibling, and maybe a dog. You even got an A on your last spelling test. Life is consistent, and things are pretty good. One day, your mom sits you down and explains that she and your dad are getting a divorce. Suddenly, everything is different. You have two Christmases, two separate birthday celebrations, and two bedrooms. But as you get older and learn more about the effects of divorce, you start to analyze your own situation and wonder whether your parents separation brought more good or bad. Some argue that divorce is a detrimental, life-altering situation that changes children, while others believe that it can

Over studied in the 40 years, parental divorce has caused a wide range of behavioral and emotional problems in children and adolescents. Although the media tends to emphasize the negative aspects of divorce and impact that divorce has on children, not all married families are happy ones and they do not always offer a better environment; the majority of children from divorced families are emotionally well adjusted. In the article, reasons of divorce could be difference in cultural values and social integration, race and ethnicity, extramarital affairs…These weren’t the stressors on the kids, it is the diminishing of parenting from the separated parents that made them suffer. The loss of important relationship means the erosion of closeness and meaning of relationship with

Parents in separation and divorce are very concerned about the effects of divorce on children. They wonder whether their decision will affect the happiness and health of their child. Reliable information about the effects on children is still being gathered and analyzed by sociologists and psychologists.

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 can have a lasting impact on children. For starters the holiday season can get tough. Some children switch place to place for certain holidays while others may have the conflict of celebrations on the same day. Having those conflicts can cause distress. Holidays are also a time where children remember the happier time when the family was one. Divorce can also cause emotional issues. Trust is one of those emotional issues that children are faced with. Their trust issue can result in not able to have a close relationship with another. Trust issues can also lead into social issues with children of divorce. The impact of divorce can cause children to go place to place not being able to have time of their own. However some children of

Sometimes divorce may be the only way to solve the various problems a family may have.