Effect of Parental Divorce on Adolescent Well-Being

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Adolescence is known as a challenging time with the everyday stressors that the adolescent is forced to face. When an adolescent has to experience a parental divorce, it often has detrimental effects on their health and wellbeing. With divorce becoming more and more common within families, the effect that it has on adolescents is often more intense than realised by parents. It is becoming increasingly important to investigate this matter as approximately 50% of parental divorces involve children under the age of 18. (Schroeder, Osgood & Oghia, 2010). These adolescents are placed at a considerable overall disadvantage compared to adolescents whose parents have remained together. This essay will give a detailed explanation of the effects of divorce on adolescent achievement, substance use and psychological well-being. The role of parental conflict, economic hardship and living situations will also be investigated in order to explore the various risk and protective factors that may have and influence on the adolescent’s welfare during and subsequent to parental divorce.
A study conducted by Tomcikova, Geckova, Orosova, and Reijneveld (2009) investigated parental divorce and its effect on the rates of adolescent drunkenness and delinquency. The role of the family’s socioeconomic position, social support and psychological well-being were all considered when the study was conducted. Data from 3,694 elementary school students (mean age 14.3) was obtained from cities in Slovakia. Participants were required to complete questionnaires on how many times they had been drunk in the previous 4 weeks, as well as information regarding if their parents were divorced, their socio-economic status, the composition of the family household (if they ...

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Kristjansson, A. L., Sigfusdottir, I. D., Allegrante, J. P., & Helgason, A. R. (2009). Parental divorce and adolescent cigarette smoking and alcohol use: Assessing the importance of family conflict. Acta Paediatrica, 98(3), 537-542.
Schroeder, R. D., Osgood, A. K. and Oghia, M. J. (2010). Family transitions and juvenile delinquency. Sociological Inquiry, 80, 579–604.
Thompson, R. G., Lizardi, D., Keyes, K. M., & Hasin, D. S. (2008). Childhood or adolescent parental divorce/separation, parental history of alcohol problems, and offspring lifetime alcohol dependence. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 98(3), 264-269.
Tomcikova, Z., Geckova, A. M., Orosova, O., Dijk, J. P., & Reijneveld, S. A. (2009). Parental divorce and adolescent drunkenness: Role of socioeconomic position, psychological well-being and social support. European Addiction Research, 15(4), 202-208.

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