The Negative Effects 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.

The impact of divorce on children has been associated with lower academic scores, behavioral difficulties, and depression. Therefore, it is important to make compromises that benefit the

Divorce can be a traumatic experience for children to go through when separations occurs. The effects on children are by far the most significant factors, sometimes resulting in behavioral disorders and developmental issues, as a result of alternating between households, economic instability, and behavioral related issues. However, children of divorced parents could be helped when parents place their children first, develop communication and problem solving skills and use family programs to help their children deal with life altering changes.

Divorce has many victims; they do not fall under a specific category and do not target a specific gender, age, race, or ethnicity. The effect of divorce on children differs from the effect on the spouses. The reasons for divorce are endless; they have many side effects on the spouses but most importantly affect the children. Divorce is one of the main reasons for disruption in our communities. Regardless of the reason, divorce always harms the children’s decisions, personalities, and futures.

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.

A major consequence of parental divorce on children is the negative effects on their psychosocial well-being. In his study, researcher Daniel Potter (2010) studied how divorce affects children’s psychosocial well-being and their academic achievement. Taking data from the “Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten cohort” (ECLS-K), his study spanned from the spring of 1999 to the spring of 2004 (Potter, 2010, p. 935). Potter looked specifically at academic levels of Kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 3, and Grade 5 (Potter, 2010). Out of a total sample of 10,061 children, 870 children had parents who were divorced. Potter measured their psychosocial well-being based on reports that were taken from their

Divorce is a touchy subject for some people to discuss, although it is an issue that is occurring very often in people’s lives today. A divorce can affect everyone involved, including the children, unfortunately. Divorce and its effects set a bad example to children and their future lives as young adults, along with having life-long effects from the divorce because of things that they experienced during it. The different causes of a divorce have multiple effects on the children who are experiencing it, including problems that lead to psychological and emotional effects, behavioral issues, problems with school, and problems with future relationships.

50% of all the children born to married parents today, will experience the divorce of their parents’ before they are eighteen years old. Divorce in and of itself doesn’t necessarily harm a child, but the conflict between parents does. A child’s behavior correlates directly with the effects of their parents’ separation. Deep emotional wounds are created before, during, and after divorce and separation. It is rare that you find a child that actually wants their parents to separate, unless the marriage was full of intense conflict and anger. Parents going through a divorce don’t always think about how their child is going to be impacted by it. Children suffer when their parents go through a separation. Divorce increases the risk of psychological and behavioral problems, it makes way for difficulties in the classroom, and the emotional well-being of the child is in danger.

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 2009, there were close to 50,000 divorces granted, with nearly 25,000 of those involving children under 18 years of age” (Coulson). Children under the age of 18 are dramatically affected by divorce because they are just learning about relationships themselves. This can give them a negative start to their own relationships, because what they have seen from their parents. Children who see their parent's relationships fail may have them believe that their relationships will fail too. Children do not understand why their parents are separating because it is something they are not familiar with. They begin to question if it is their fault, which is never something parents want to be asked by their children. Even though divorce is something

“Divorce isn’t a child's fault; I had a really good childhood up until I was nine, then a classic case of divorce really affected me”- Kurt Cobain. More than 30 years of research is continued to reveal the sides of divorce and the effects it has on children. The risks is steady rising, and just because you think that the effects won’t occur to your child the odds do greatly increase.

Divorce is a controversial issue in the United States. On one side of the argument, some researchers claim that children of divorced parents are still able to adapt to their new environment and have an enhanced level of maturity, among other things. On the other hand, researchers like Karl Zinsmeister believe that the effects of divorce on children can never be fully overcome and marital conflicts cause significantly less damage to children than divorce does (Zinsmeister, 1996). The purpose of this paper is to summarize the article and provide three weaknesses and one strength of the author’s argument and provide an opinion of the topic.

"’Divorce,’"psychiatrist McDermott, ‘is now the single largest cause of childhood depression.’ Marital disruption, quite clearly, can wound children for years” (Zinsmeister). Divorces in the past few decades have skyrocketed. This leaves many children stuck in the middle of an awkward situation with is prone to produce discomfort in all family members involved in this elaborate ordeal. Divorce has a detrimental impact on children which can be observed in how it affects their lives when dealing with legal issues, short term emotional effects, as well as the long term mental health concerns.

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).