Children of Divorced Families Have a Higher Tendency to Adjustment Problems

The central argument of Kelly’s and Emery’s article is that children in divorced families have an increased risk for adjustment problems than children from continually married households. One of the primary conclusions that brought them to this idea is the fact that these children suffer lower academic performance/achievements. They are two to three times more likely to drop out of school than children from intact families and have a high risk of teenage pregnancies and childrearing. This is partially explained because most divorced families are associated with poverty or low income which might have only worsened after the separation. This in turn decreased the amount of parental provisions both socially and financially which resulted in less positive parent-child relationships. Which brings the next primary conclusion: Those children from divorced families tend to have more difficulty with intimate relationships as young adults. Compared with young adults from continually married families, these children report more dissatisfaction with marriages (which tend to end in divorce as well) and relationships. This is most likely due to the learned behaviors that they grew up with in their childhood households. Seeing the parents argue and demean each other set up a rocky foundation for future relationship basis. These families also tend to start through cohabitation or premarital childbearing whereas continually married families start through more traditional means. However, Kelly and Emery both discuss how there are protective factors that can benefit these families and may moderate the risks associated with divorce of individual children. They do discuss however, protective factors that reduce the risk for children of divorce. One of...

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... to see the common patterns among children and families. If it is possible to identify these factors it is easier to understand where they stem from and possibly how to overcome them. It’s also important to note that these are common occurrences true, but by no means is it destined to happen to everyone in these circumstances. For example my family has dealt with divorce. My father was married before he met my mother and had my older sister with his first wife. There was severe conflict in that relationship which resulted in a lot of conflict within my home as my father and more specifically my sister adapted to remarried life. I thought that because my family was normal and didn’t have problems that much when I was born I thought these types of things couldn’t happen. We didn’t fit the stereotype but it still affected us. We were an outlier affected by this issue.