Millions of divorces are granted each year. Children whose parents divorced are more likely to divorce themselves, maintain poorer relations, and report being generally less happy with their lives (Brown 1999). Over 25% of all women will divorce within 10 years time, and a third of all first marriages disrupted within 10 years. Guldner and O'Connor (1991) said that “where possible, group therapy for dealing with problems of children of divorce is the treatment of choice”. Group therapy with kids focuses on helping them to feel like they're not alone, connect with and learn from others, receive peer validation and support, and normalize experiences (Gladding, 2005). Psychoeducational and counseling groups in schools and community agencies have been a way of giving treatment to children of divorce (Delucia-Waack & Gellman 2007).
Psychoeducational and counseling groups for children of divorce have focused on dealing with the reality of the situation, as well as the feelings produced by it. Goals have been identified for these groups (DeLucia-Waack, 2007). They are to: help children gain a clear picture of the divorce process through discussion, normalize common experiences and feelings, provide a safe place to talk about concerns, help label, understand, and express feelings about the divorce, develop new coping skills, assist children in reality testing, and plan for the future. Typical interventions include: discussion of words and situations related to divorce, drawing and talking about families and support persons, learning ways to externalize feelings, and role plays applying new skills to specific divorce-related situations (DeLucia-Waack, 2001; Gladding, 2005). While these groups are often used in schools, the research regar...
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Divorce is a significant and mounting problem influencing children’s social and academic development. It has been found to be one of the most traumatic events that can occur in the life of a child (Beverly, Molloy, Hart, Ginsberg & Mulvey, 2007). Support groups have been found to have a positive effect on students by helping them deal with the situation constructively and mitigating their attention back onto their academic performance and positive peer relations (Beverly et al, 2007). Corey, Corey and Corey (2014) highlight the first step in planning a group is to come up with a proposal. This purpose of this paper is to put forth that proposal for implementation of a divorce support group in a particular school setting.
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.
In efforts to protect children during the divorce process, enforcing court-mandated counseling or classes for children and parents together is the best way to establish the relationship between one and another. Rather than letting personal who attend six to eight week classes run these programs, this person should be a qualified in the areas of but not limited to psychology to include child psychology, family therapy and social work. With the particular skills before mentioned, the output of help to divorcing parents and children will help to highlight the significant problems and behavioral patterns at hand and possibly to come with the children. After attending these classes or counseling sessions, it will help show the area’s in which the parents need to focus for the safety and health of themselves and the children. It will help parents learn communication skills that will help to not upset or make their children feel as if they are blamed. The situations of parents who harm their own children and those children who develop mental health issues will decrease substantially due to proper help. Properly handled divorce cases with court-mandated counseling or classes will help to ensure the well being of children, as in making sure the child’s best interest is at hand, Emotionally giving the parents and children an outlet in a professional manner (Meyer, N.D.).
Moon, Michelle. 2011. “The Effects of Divorce on Children: Married and Divorced Parents’ Perspectives.” Journal of Divorce & Remarriage 52:344-349.
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.
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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).
"Statistics show that each year, over 1 million American children suffer the decision made by parent 's to end their relationship" (Amato, 2001). Divorce is the factor that plays a role in many households rather individually planned or just happens. Many people seem to believe that a divorce on young children of age will completely destroy them growing up. Nobody wants to see the good it can do for the children. What if the situation was bad, and divorce was the only safe solution. A lot of adults believe the child is more upset about the family falling apart. In reality most times, it 's because they don 't want to leave home, friends, schools. It wasn 't till I was ten years old that I was aware of what happened.
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Girgis, George, & Anderson (2011) define marriage as the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally (inherently) fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together. These marriages are intended to last eternity and are partially accomplished by raising children together, yet four of every ten marriages lead to divorce and of these divorces, 35% involve children (Ambert, 2009). Children tend to blame themselves for the divorce and are usually caught in the crossfire. These divorces lead to both stress and depression for children and without a strong sense of family, children will have a huge disadvantage over children with a stable healthy family (Arreola, Hartounian, Kurges, Maultasch, & Retana, 2013). Without the ability to cope with the stress of a divorce, children can be effected in multiple ways including a change in mentality, unacceptable behavioural traits and both short and long term emotional factors that will ultimately lead to a critical issue in child development.
Kelly, J. B., & Emery, R. E. (2003). Children's adjustment following divorce: Risk and resilience perspectives. Family Relations, 52(4), 352-362.
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.
Marriage Counseling or “Couple Therapy” is a term that is used to describe a type of counseling a couple attends in order to help them overcome issues in their relationships to avoid separation or divorce. Today, people view divorce as something that occurs commonly between married couples who have difficulty maintaining a relationship with their spouse. For the past thirty years, the phrase: “fifty percent of marriages end in divorce”, seems to have been ingrained into people’s mentality because it has become extremely common to come across individuals who have either been through one or more divorces. Divorce or separation not only affects the couples, but also their children. Having a strong family plays a major part in the lives of children and is crucial for their mental well-being. A report done by a team of senior academics for DailyMail UK found that “the damage caused to a child by divorce continues to blight his or her life as far as old age” and that “parental separation in childhood was consistently associated with psychological distress in adulthood during people’s early thirties”. Not only does the report show that children are affected by the effects of divorced but, the report also suggests that as divorce and separation continues to grow more common in society, the effects it has on the mental health of children does not reduce.
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.