Going through a divorce is typically traumatizing, not only to the married but also to the entire family. The separation of couples is due to a wide range of factors that vary accordingly. These include but are not limited to affairs, financial issues, distrust, inability to communicate, lack of intimacy, loss of feelings for one another, and stress. Without a doubt, divorce is a very discouraging thing for people to endure. The people often overlooked throughout the process of a divorce, surprisingly enough, are the children. Children found in the middle of a divorce are very susceptible to developing trust issues, social problems, and often struggle academically.
Successful relationships start with a foundation of trust and respect for one another. Being able to maintain trust in relationships is often a challenge for children coming from divorced parents, to a higher extent if the children observed an issue of trust disrupt their own parents’ marriage. Moreover, if a child becomes aware of an affair happening in their parents’ marriage, such child is very likely to carry a great resentment toward one parent and a much stronger bond with the other. If the mother has moved onto a new spouse and the father is left grieving, the child is likely to pick sides with the father and possibly feel as if betrayal has taken place due to the mother becoming distant. The child tends to take the side of the ‘weaker’ parent; the one who has fallen into a downward spiral, the parent whom the child believes is in need of protection. Children need a basis of trust in order to form healthy relationships as they mature and reach adulthood. A skewed interpretation of the importance of trust is detrimental to a child’s future relationships. A certai...
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...ion of material. For instance, if a child has to spend an hour a day commuting between houses due to separated parents, they are bound to become tiresome during the endless drives. This would be taking away valuable time in which the child could be studying, doing homework, or being involved in an extracurricular activity.
Divorce can be an enormous obstacle, but the kids who are stuck in the middle face some of the hardest struggles. They are often confused as to what has caused the breakup and feel guilty. Close observation shows that divorce negatively affects kids in various ways including trust issues becoming increasingly present, social skills governed from developing at a normal rate, academic success decreasing. Throughout every divorce, it is imperative to be fair to each parent, but one must always remember to watch out for the well- being of the child.
The article “Divorce and Its Effects on Children” by Kelvin L. Seifert and Robert J. Hoffnung states about the effects of the divorce under the children. The authors say “most parents who divorce must make major adjustments in their lives, and these adjustments often affect their children deeply.”(Kelvin, Robert, 1). Most of the adjustments are different by the children gender and sometimes the relationship between parents and their children deteriorate during and immediately after a divorce.
Divorce has become an unquestionable remedy for the miserably married. Currently, the United States has the highest divorce rate in the world. Every year in the US approximately one million children experience divorce which, is about one in every three children (Amato 21). The effects of divorce can be tremendously painful for both children and adults. Children of divorce are more likely to suffer from behavioral, social, academic, and psychological problems than children raised in two-parent families.
The breakdown of a family can have many repercussions on the individual members with the least involvement. The children involved in a divorce are often times the most impacted victims of a divorce. Children with divorced parents are often left feeling neglected by the parent that has chosen to move out, unloved, and often times burdened with feelings of guilt. The poverty rates of single parented households are alarmingly high, and are often the result of divorce. With all these factors added together, divorce is a dangerous and scarring event in a child’s psyche.
Divorce is a common transition in many families and has begun to become a natural standard of living in marriages (The Effects of Divorce on Children). Couples seek divorce for a variety of different reasons, the main goal being to find happiness that they are not finding in their current marriages. When a couple is going through divorce, sometimes they don’t notice the impact their separation has on their children. Children may feel very alone and turn to other things to help get them through this rough time in their life. While a few turn to something positive, many turn to negative activities. These negative activities and the divorce itself has both long-term and short-term effects on the children (Rappaport).
Children, whom are involved in divorce deal with much emotional baggage, which carries along other issues dealing with behavior and social issues. Dealing with divorce is a stressful experience for a child, before it happens and dealing with it after the divorce is finalized. Ongoing parental conflict ...
Divorce can have multiple impacts on children of all ages and it affects them differently compared to the next. When we see or hear about divorce we were told negative things about it, which is not always the case. Children of Divorce has been around for several centuries and has a very important meaning in the lives of many. When you first start to read this paper you already have your idea of the definition
An absence of a parent or a parent’s separation, divorce, when a child is developing, may affect the child’s future relationships. “Evidence shows that, on average, children who have experienced parental divorce score somewhat lower than children in first-marriage families on measures of social development, emotional well-being, self-concept, academic performance, educational attainment, and physical health” (Demo, Supple)
There are many different outcomes that the effect of a divorce may have on a child. Though divorce isn't always a positive thing, sometimes there are scenarios where a family is better off this way. According to research, the bond maintained between parent and child is the main change that plays a factor on the child's outcome when a divorce happens. The relationships between parents and their children were found to be more influential than the parents’ marital status. Negative effects were null if relationships remained intact after the divorce. However, sometimes the ability to keep these relationships closely knit just isn't as simple as it was before the divorce. Keeping a relationship intact is especially difficult for the non-custodial parent. (He...
Children of divorced parents may have a lower sense of psychological well-being than children who grew up with intact families the range of feelings that a child may encounter include: disbelief and denial, sadness, loss, loneliness, depression, anger, anxiety, fear, relief, and hope. Some children may experience long-lasting emotional effects into their adulthood that damage their ability to preserve relationships. The result of parental divorce shapes children emotionally and may impact self-esteem, future relationships, dating and marriage (Armando Loomis and Booth 895+)..
Divorce is a heavy concept that has many implications for those involved. The situation becomes even more consequential when children are considered. As divorce has become more commonplace in society, millions of children are affected by the separation of the nuclear family. How far-reaching are these effects? And is there a time when divorce is beneficial to the lives of the children? This paper will examine some of the major research and several different perspectives regarding the outcomes of divorce for the children involved, and whether it can actually be in the best interest of the kids.
It is unfortunate that marriages sometimes end and there are children caught in the middle of the marriage but it may be worst for the parents to stay together simply for the children’s sake. However when parents do divorce the children are the most effected by the divorce. Often enough the divorce causes children to feel displaced and also to have feelings that their world is coming to an end. These children tend to grow into adults with either extreme emotional detachment and self-esteem issues or they will have strong family values and try to prevent the cycle from repeating itself but the majority of these children grow up suffering from the divorce.
Divorce is a very common word in today's society. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, "divorce is the legal dissolution of a marriage or a complete or radical severance of closely connected things"(Pickett, 2000). This dissolution of marriage has increased very rapidly in the past fifty years. In 1950 the ratio of divorce to marriage was one in every four; in 1977 that statistic became one in two. Currently one in every two first marriages results in divorce. In second marriages that figure is considerably higher, with a 67% average (National Vital Statistics Report, 2001). One critical aspect of divorce is often not taken into consideration: How it affects children. Every year 1.1 million children are affected by divorce (Benjamin, 2000). Children from divorce or separation often exhibit behavioral and long-term adjustment problems (Kelly, 2000). Throughout this paper I will discuss divorces effects on children at different age levels, how they react, and what can be done to help them.
Most people, when thinking about divorce, worry about the impact that it has on the children that are involved. Even though children are most likely better off if totally incompatible parents separate instead of staying together, divorce is about loss and change, and it is still hard for children. Everyone knows that divorce has its effects on children. There are three different sources that try to explain these effects. Graham Blaine Jr. states that divorce is a threat to all children, whereas Rhona Mahony states that divorce is not always the cause of behavioral or academic problems in children coming from divorced families. Yvette Walczak and Sheila Burns state that the extent of the damage can be determined by the parents and their methods of explanation to the children.
In the world we live in today, divorce has unfortunately become a normal thing in our lives. Many married couples are getting divorced for many reasons; problems in the marriage, either a spouse having an affair, a loss of feelings, and many other types of complications. Many divorces involve children who are young and due to their age do not understand what is really going on. We all know someone who has dealt with divorce. Children are the ones who are typically affected the most by the divorce and they will have to learn to cope with their parent’s divorce at such a young age, affecting them in positive or negative ways.
Over 60 percent of couples seeking a divorce have children still living at home. ( 6) What some parents don’t realize when they file for a divorce is the great impact that it will have on their kids. Divorce affects children in many ways. It affects kids emotionally and causes them to experience feelings such as fear, loss, anger and confusion. Divorce also hurts a child’s academic achievement. Children whose parents divorce generally have poorer scores on tests and a higher dropout rate. (3)