Parents Divorce In The United States

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.

With the large and growing number of divorce rates, research is now discussing the effects it has on the children of divorced parents. Now divorce does not just impact the individuals going through it, but their children as well. Not only do children have to live with one or the other parent, have shared custody, or various other living arrangements that may change, but their entire life that they knew changes. Research is

“Since 1972, more than a million youngsters have been involved in a divorce each year” (Zinsmeister). When one reviews the countless ways that divorce affects children, this statistic becomes overwhelmingly depressing. Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce. How did society get to this point? Divorce has become so normalized in the culture today that many people do not even realize the harm that divorce is causing children on a daily basis. Even what most people would consider to be the least harmful divorce situation possible is typically still wreaking havoc on a child’s life. Studies done by sociologists have found that divorced couples describe being happier and more satisfied than individuals who stayed in unhappy or failing marriages (Issitt). However, what these researchers fail to realize is that the children in these families are being negatively affected by their parent’s actions. A recent study showed that “As many as 25 percent of teens whose parents divorce end up depressed or abuse dangerous substances” (Gallup). Parents need to grasp the fact that their happiness is not the only important factor to consider in situations of divorce. The child’s emotional, physical, and psychological wellbeing is at stake when a couple decides to divorce. Divorce often negatively affects children by causing emotional trauma and guilt, behavioral changes, financial difficulties, and eventually problematic future

Divorce, a very controversial issue in today’s society, has glaring effects on society as well as individuals. Approximately half of all marriages will end in divorce, resulting in close to one million children per year struggling to deal with the aftermath (Fischer 2007). Parental divorce has been proven to have long-term negative effects on adult mental health (Chase-Lansdale, Cherlin Kiernan 1995). Divorce was at its highest rate in the early 1980s. The first group of children to be affected by these very high divorce rates entered adulthood in the 1990s allowing sociological research to begin on the adverse affects associated with divorce over the span of different ages. Until this time, a lot of research focused on short-term effects surrounding

In today’s world many things affect children way more than it will adults. Children, while younger, are more vulnerable than adults are, and they have more potential to become “corrupted”. Divorce is one of the many occurrences that definitely affects children way more than adults. Divorce affects the adults with money issues, loss of a partner, and the lifestyle of the adult and with over “fifty percent of marriages” (Corcoran 1997) ending in divorce many of the children in the U.S. are becoming effected too. Divorce affects children by giving them stress that they are too young to deal with, relationship issues in the future, and it can affect one’s self-esteem.

Over half of all marriages end in divorce. What effect do these divorces have on the young children involved? Many people assume that the changes involved in divorce would naturally lead to some emotional problems, with potential permanent ramifications. Hidden in this view, however, is the assumption that the traditional, two parent families is the most appropriate environment in which to raise

Social scientists are becoming more concerned about how divorce effects children. Today, more than one out of four U.S families is a single-parent family and half of all children will become stepchildren. Our textbook states that 60 percent of divorces involve children but couples with children divorce less than couples without children. Children from a divorced family can suffer from interpersonal and psychological problems as well as emotional distress. Research by Heather Westberg, Thorana Nelson and Kathleen Piercy indicates that children’s reaction to divorce is influenced by how the news is delivered and is shaped by the perception that life at home will be better or worse afterward. Data collected over a 12 year period studied parent-child relationships before and after divorce showing that marital conflict may intensify children’s behavior problems making them

Divorce and its effects on children are common issues that are on the rise in the world today. Divorce affects more than just the married couple. Children often bear the brunt of divorce, which makes divorce a complicated decision for most parents. Understanding the effects divorce has on a child is important to know exactly why a child acts a certain way. A divorce can affect a child psychologically, intellectually, and even behaviorally. Children can suffer physiologically from things like depression, intellectually by having trouble in school and behaviorally by having trouble in social settings. Legally, a divorce is a single event, but from a psychological standpoint, it is a complicated,

Divorce, once uncommon in our society, is now becoming more and more frequent, disrupting our children's state of well-being. Some children of divorced families have long-term behavior problems such as depression, low self-esteem, poor school performance, acting out, and difficulties with intimate relationships. Children with divorced or divorcing parents often have a sense of abandonment, because their parents become too preoccupied with their own psychological, social, and economic distress that they forget about their kids? needs (Lamb and Sternberg, 1997). In 1988, Professor Jeanne Dise-Lewis conducted a survey of 700 middle school students. The students were asked to rate certain events as

In order to better understand how divorce affects children researchers must first review the historical roots of divorce. The divorce rate first began to climb in the early eighteen hundreds (1800-1820). Then in 1860, divorce rates dropped to less than two per thousand marriages; however by 1920 it had risen to eight per thousand marriages. “The rate of divorce increased following World War I , only to fall in the 1920’s and early 1930’s, but subsequently rose to nineteen divorces for every thousand marriages” ( Strow & Strow, 2006). Divorce rate per thousand marriages of the population was at its height in 1979 and 1981 at just over five per thousand. “Since then, the divorce rate has

In the last 25 years, divorce has become a major issue in American society. Since the turn of the century, the divorce rate has held steady between 4.0-3.2 divorces per 1000 people per year (National Vital Statistics System, 2015). With this rising divorce rate, more children are living between parents, or in single family homes, and many of these children have been exposed to altercations between parents, as well as rough custody battles and divorce settlements. Traumatic experiences like these are highly likely to stick with children of divorce throughout their life, especially if the child is older at the time of the divorce.

Each and every day a child somewhere in the world is experiencing major changes within their family. One of those major changes is divorce or separation of parents. Divorce is “the action or an instance of legally dissolving a marriage”(Webster, 2011 p1). Today’s reality shows that couples only have one in two odds of remaining together. “ The U.S. Census bureau – involved in research about counseling children of divorce- estimating that approximately 50% of all American children born in 1982 lived in a single-parent homes sometime during their first 18 years. Mostly are due to divorce”(Children of Divorce, 2008 p.1). The rapid increase in divorce rates is a factor that has contributed to the large decline of the typical family. “Over 1

Boy meets girl. Girl and boy fall in love and get married. Girl and boy have children and life could not possibly get any better. Many years later: Boy and girl start to notice something different in their relationship, something wrong. They decide that their relationship is over, whether they’re both happy with that decision or not and they divorce. Boy and girl’s children see them divorce. Children process the divorce in different ways, and it stays with them for the rest of their lives. People who experience a divorce are affected by it, whether they want to be or not. More often than not, those effects are negative. Before any parents make a rash decision, and

When looking back at how far our society has come in the last fifty years, we see a rapid growth in the divorce rate. If you think about your grandparents or great grandparents, chances are they were probably still married. When thinking about our parents or ourselves chances are some if not half are divorced. What some people do not realize is that with the growing rate of divorce, there is growing evidence that divorce has an adverse effect on children’s development (Sarason & Sarason, 2005). By people getting married, having children, and then getting divorced; it is causing long term psychological damage to their children and having adverse effects.

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.