effects of divorce on children

EFFECTS OF DIVORCE ON CHILDREN

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When parents divorce, other children are most faced with multiple painful stresses that they need to cope up with in life. However, the parents lack the knowledge of knowing how exactly the divorce can be frightening or may cause fears among the most of the children. As a result, the parental divorce introduces a great change into the lives of then children no matter the age they have. Experiencing loss of love between the both parents, having parents breaking up their marriage and commitments, and the burden of adjusting their lives of going back and forth between two households and daily absence of one of ten parents while living with the other usually creates challenging new family circumstances in which to adapt and live. (Hetherington, Arasteh 2014).

In most of the cases, a parental divorce is a watershed event for the child since the following life significantly changes from the previous life as this mostly creates a lot of stress. For instance, the family they have always known will automatically be different, loss of attachments between the parents, fear of abandonment and hostility that may exist between the parents (Alison Clarke-Stewart 2008).

A divorce is a destructing act to both the parents and the children; however, children are the most affected parties. For all the children, their parents’ divorce colors their view of the world and the relationships for the rest of their entire lives. For instance, Judith Wallenstein, a Psychologist, followed a group of children who have experienced divorce from their 19970s to 1990s while interviewing them for 18 months. Later, 5, 10, 15 and 25 years after the divorce she found out that even after those 25 years after the divorce the children continued to experience substantially expectations of fear of change, failure, fear of conflicts and fear of loss (Hetherington, Arasteh 2014).

Long ago, it began that once parents are unhappy usually the kids are not also happy. Hence, from the research it was assumed that “what is always good for both parents is also good for the children. “ However, from a later research divorce may affect the children either positively or negatively. However, in most of the cases it tends to affect the children in a negative way as this limits them from interacting with both parents who may adversely affect the characters of the children. Divorce consequently affects children in that they have to move either from one school or to a new home, and they may end up not seeing one of the parents. In most of the cases once divorce occurs children tend always to go with their mothers, hence they have less access to see their parents (Everett 2014).

Divorce itself majorly does not affect the children negatively. However, the effects that arise from the feeling of uncertainty of what may happen after the divorce, ranging from the level of conflict between the parents and from how children are parented immediately after the divorce has been done. From a recent research, comparing children of happily married parents and divorced parents reveals that:

· Children from the divorced background suffer academically. They have a great level of behavior problem. Their grades are greatly affected, and they are less likely to graduate from high school.

· Children brought up by divorced parents are substantially more likely to be incarcerated for committing a crime as a juvenile.

· Children from a divorced family are likely to live in a poverty lifestyle than those from happily married parents due to custodial parent’s income drop substantially normally immediately after or later after the divorce.

· Children from a divorced family are more likely to engage in harmful and illegal activities for example drug and alcohol engagements and sexual intercourse than those from intact families.

· Children from a divorced family experience illness in a more frequent manner and experience a slow recovery from sickness, also, they are more likely to suffer from child abuse.

· Children from a divorced family experience symptoms of psychological distress more frequently and emotional scars of their parents’ divorce that most of the instances lasts into their adulthood. (Miller 2009)

However, the scope of this research has been great been undermined; children suffer emotionally from their parents divorce. Generally, in most of the cases, it is not that every child from divorced family commits a crime or drops out of school. However, some do exceptionally well in school and even sometimes are the highest achievers.

References

Alison Clarke-Stewart, C. B. (2008 ). Divorce: Causes and Consequences. Yale University Press,.

E. Mavis Hetherington, J. D. (2014 ). Impact of Divorce, Single Parenting and Stepparenting on Children: A Case Study of Visual Agnosia. Psychology Press,.

Everett, C. (2014). Divorce and the Next Generation: Effects on Young Adults' Patterns of Intimacy and Expectations for Marriage. Routledge.

Miller, T. W. (2009). Handbook of Stressful Transitions Across the Lifespan. Springer Science & Business Media.