Have you ever heard the statistic passed around ‘50% of all marriages end in divorce’? Of course you have, by the time most everyone hits high school they have probably heard it so many times they are tired of it. But one thing that is hardly ever talked about is; what effect, psychologically, does this have on the child from that family? The stress on a child created by a divorce is not permanent, but can cause lasting effects into adulthood. Because almost everyone has heard ‘50% of all marriages end in divorce’; the thought of what does the child go through should be just as common. There is almost no getting around the fact that the child will suffer because of the divorce at some point. What does the child go through? How do they cope with it? How does this affect their grades? Are they more likely to get a divorce too if they get married? This is just some of what a child of divorce is likely to face, that is why this is something that deserves serious thought.
The idea of divorce is a gruesome experience, not only for the parents but more for the child. As marriages fall apart, children are deeply affected in traumatizing ways depending on how bad the relationship is, and how young the child is. Children who have experienced their parents getting a divorce often develop a low self-esteem, social difficulties, and resentment towards their parents as they grow older. When parents go through a divorce, the kids often feel like they are to blame, ultimately lowering their self-esteem. While this mostly occurs when they are young, it “can be long lasting…, if not addressed” (“Long Term Effects of Divorce on Children”). Therefore, their view on the world changes as they feel like they will never be able
Becoming a major trend in the United States among families, is the increase of marital instability (Del Boca & Cigno, (2003). Economic difficulties arise for various reasons such as finances and custody battles, when it comes to the separation of parents. In most cases, the mother receives the child while the father has to contribute time and income for the child. For families, divorce can be a devastating experience that has a major impact when children become involved (Welton, 2014). New research proposes that children whose parents are divorced had a difficult time adapting to the social, mental, and physical changes in their lives. Children between the ages 3 to 5 years old have a higher level of feeling insecure than those children whose parents divorced when they were older (Author Unknown, 2013). In the early stages of childhood development, kids are most inclined because of the rapid time of change and learning.
The Effects of Divorce on Children
The statistics for divorce in the 1990's suggest that nearly sixty percent
of marriages end in divorce. Given this startling figure, the presumption can be made that many children will experience some effects caused by the life-changing event called divorce. What is it exactly about divorce that causes negative consequences for these children? In what ways will these children be affected?
Since there is a lot discussion of the effects of divorce on children, I choose this to be my topic. In 1991 Amato and Keith (researchers) examined the results of 92 studies using 13,000 children ranging from preschool to young adults to determine what the overall results indicated. The overall result of this study was that children from divorced families are on "average" somewhat worse off than children who have lived in nuclear families. These children have more trouble in school, more behavior problems, more negative self-concepts, more problems with peers, and more trouble getting along with their parents.
Many studies have shown that the effects of divorce on children are hard to handle. In some cases, they are extreme and require counselling and therapy to help. In other cases, the child doesn’t even realize anything is wrong or is too young to understand it. Divorce causes many different types of issues in the parents; including depression. Which then in turn, affects the children. Divorce has many life changing effects on the whole entire family. Studies have proven that there are many negative effects on children as a result of divorce. With that being said, some of those effects range from short-term to long-term.
Arjun feels ignored because of his mother’s attitude, “When Arjun left the room, his mother’s footsteps did not follow him, as they so often had in old house. Once as he loudly dragged his feet he heard the man saying, let him be, he is growing up, you have to give him space” (Kapur 148). The worse happened in the form of his admission in a boarding school, which left Raman at the back foot. It is the tragic plight of children that in spite of having parents they had to go to boarding school. Dr. Carl Pickhardt narrates the effects of divorce on children’s psyche in his article, The Impact of Divorce on Young Children and Adolescents:
Divorce rates in the United States have become extremely high and students everywhere are victims of divorce. But what effect does divorce have on children? Divorce affects the children in three ways. These three ways include emotionally, physically and academically.
Article Review
HURES 5363
Shristi Bohara
ECU ID-219101
12, November 2015
Divorce lower children’s well-being
The article is basically about the negative impact of divorce upon children. According to this article there are mainly five explanations of divorce that has a direct negative impact upon children. There are various researches which clearly show the connection between divorce and children’s wellbeing. There can be significant differences between children who experience parental divorce compared with the children of unbroken family in behavior, personality, educational achievement, social competence, mental health and others.
In his article ”The Effects of Recent Parental Divorce on their Children's Consumption of Alcohol,” William discusses the outcome of a study which he conducts, to test the impact of divorce on children as it relates to alcohol. He tries to find out whether children from broken homes exhibit a high level of alcohol ingestion than children from intact homes. William also wants to find out if children whose parents are newly divorced are more likely to indulge in excessive alcoholism than those children whose parents had been divorced for over four years or more. To effectively carry out his research, William employs the scientific research method which allows him to formulate a hypothesis, collect data, conclude, and test theories.