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.

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.

Many changes in the American family life, with the most critical consequences impacting the youth, have began to appear due to the growing divorce rates in the United States over the last twenty years. Presently, in the United States, nearly forty percent of all first marriages end in divorce. In addition, children under the age of eighteen are included in more than half of all divorces (Amato). Because of the growing divorce rates, the number of single-parent families continues to increase. According to The Impact of Divorce on Children, approximately twenty-six percent of all children under the age of eighteen, an estimated seventeen million worldwide, live in a household with a separated parent (Demo and Acock).

Divorce in and of itself does not harm children; it is the intensity and duration of the conflict between parents that negatively impacts a children adjustment. After a divorce or separation, it isn’t uncommon for children to display some behavioral issues. A child acting out shouldn’t come as a complete surprise because after all, a divorce is a challenging obstacle for the entire family to go through. Behavioral issues in children of divorce can range from mild acting out to destructive behavior. Feelings of anger, confusion, frustration and sadness are all part of the roller coaster of emotions that a child may experience as a result of the events happening in their life. A child’s grades might begin to fall after a divorce. While this change is more common in older children and in boys than girls, it is a statistical probability. However, each child may handle their parent’s divorce a certain way than other children depending on many factors, especially age.

Divorce is never an easy subject, and is hurtful despite the specific conditions. When going through a divorce it is very important to know the effects that it can have on children. Divorce, in most cases, depending on the circumstance, will have a negative effect on children. Some of the results after a divorce can leave a child in short or long term situations. Adults tend to recover and move on to a new relationship, but the effects on children can be more long term (“Are”). More and more parents are getting divorces as time goes on, and more kids are being exposed to the situation.

Marriage creates stability, emotionally and socially for a child. According to Dr. Pickhardt, a psychologist and author of 15 parenting books, a child’s social life is primarily found in his or her family. A child depends fully on his or her parents, and after a divorce a child loses trust in dependency since the parents are now behaving in an undependable way. The child is now divided between two different households and shuttled back and forth. This creates unfamiliarity, instability, and insecurity. The child can never be with one parent without being apart from, and missing, the other parent (Pickhardt, 2011, para. 6). Rosalind Sedacca, CCT, is a divorce and parenting coach and the founder of the Child-Centered

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.

He it to me be There is still a great debate on whether or not single parenting and divorce will affect a child’s development throughout their life. In the United States 43%-50% of many first marriages end in divorce and 50% of American children will experience their parents’ divorce. Most parents always ask themselves before they divorce if they should stay together because of their child, in some way they perceive that negative situations will come to the child if they divorce. There has been a debate between two sides of the coin, one side says that divorce carries a long term negative effect on children .The other side says that there is not a negative long term effect

“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.

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

Children may wish that they could have changed things such as completing chores, participate more in school, and avoid arguing with their siblings; anything to avoid the separation of their parents. From a professional viewpoint, it is crucial for parents to communicate with their children during the split-up process. Explaining to a child that the decision to part is because of the issues faced by the parents could help in lessening the likelihood of children bearing the weight of an adult’s situation. When divorce is present, I believe a family’s development can immediately be bargained, if the circumstances are not addressed appropriately. While every child in a divorced family is not necessarily losing a relationship, it is still a significant change. Children suffer emotionally and this can cause a strain on the family; furthermore, “many of the children caught up in the experience of divorce exhibit difficulties in functioning, including frequent behavior problems and deficiencies in academic performance, even years following the event”

Divorce is a great phenomenon in today's society, it is a painful and an unforgettable experience in a person's life, especially for a child. When parents get divorced its hardest on the children because they go from having two inseparable people who had marriage commitments to fulfil, to witnessing the love lost between these two people. The concern here is, is there a psychological impact of parental divorce on children? Many parents don't realize that divorce affects their child much more than it affects them. In fact, most children are quick to get affected by the outcome of the divorce. Most children react and handle the problem differently, but they all experience a sort of emotional change. To say furthermore, this research paper

Divorce causes irreparable harm to all involved, but most especially to the children. Though it might be shown to benefit some individuals in some individual cases, over all it causes a temporary decrease in an individual’s quality of life and puts some “on a downward trajectory from which they might never fully recover.” Unlike the experience of divorced former spouses, a child’s suffering does not reach its peak at the divorce and then level off. Rather, the effect of the parents’ divorce can be played and replayed throughout the next three decades of a child’s life. For instance, an Australian parliamentary study tracked children whose parents divorced in 1946, and tested them two and three decades later. Even 30 years after the divorce, negative long-term repercussions still clearly affected the income, health, and behavior of many of the grown children. Though some adults and children adjust relatively quickly to divorce, others exhibit long-term deficits in functioning. Children’s well-being over the long term is determined by circumstances both prior to and after their parents’ divorce.

While the rate of divorce has rapidly increased in recent decades, currently between 40 to 50 percent of married couples file for divorce during some point in their marriage. Although in some cases these families already have children and divorce is an impactful event that can cause life lasting effects on children. The effects that divorce has on children can cause serious psychological issues that may form and develop over time from toddlers into the adolescent stage of their lives. The divorce itself does not affect children in a negative way. The effects result more often from the feeling of uncertainty of what is going to happen after the divorce, from the level of conflict between the parents and from how the parenting after the

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,