Impact of Divorce on Children

IMPACT OF DIVORCE ON CHILDREN

Much concern has been expressed over the challenges faced by children born out of wedlock and raised by single parents. However, even for children born in a traditional marriage, there are potential problems. In the modern world, divorce is becoming more frequent, especially in Western nations. The past half-century has seen children exposed to divorces at an increasingly high and unprecedented rate. Many traditional sources and common wisdom hold divorce to have negative effects on children. Scholarly literature and psychological research bears out this initial hypothesis, at least in part.

Children in a family will have become accustomed to certain family relations, and there are short-term and long-term issues to consider that result from a divorce. Some of these are immediately intuitive, others are more difficult to observe. While the conclusion of the literature review must be that divorce is a non-ideal situation, there are pro-active steps that can help manage the problematic elements. Parents and other concerned family members must be alert to helping children through this time. This applies not only to young children, but also adolescents, who may be most affected by a divorce.

A key component of the effects of divorce on children relates to increased stress. This stress is a cause of many other observable difficulties. For instance, difficulty in schoolwork and personal relationships can be caused by stress. This stress is reported to be caused at least partially by the unknown. The child may have had family stability for most of their life. Divorce was just an abstract concept to them. When it occurs in their family, they may have no idea what to expect.

This gives them the sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. This unknown stress may be increased by illogical extensions of the divorce. For instance, they may feel that since the mother and father no longer wish to be in a family together, one or both of them may stop wanting to be in a family with the child as well. Obviously there may be some extreme cases where one parent actually does leave the family entirely. However, even in cases where both parents have a genuine love for and continued interest in the children, the children may worry that such will come to an end.

Depending on the age of the child, they may not have full ability to grasp abstract concepts (Foulkes-Jamison). Therefore the reason that the divorce occurred may be very hard to explain. Incompatibility or loss of romantic love cannot be explained in full to a child. This leaves them with the aforementioned sense of incomprehension and the concomitant concern. In order to alleviate this, as discussed below, special measures and intense reassurance are often needed.

Another effect that divorce has on children is the introduction of change into their life. There are both emotional change and physical change. If custody is to be shared, for instance, the child has to adapt to different locations and households. The limited contact with the parents represents a major change in how the child interacts with the world, gets advice, and patterns their behavior. Changing school environments due to moving is another change that frequently accompanies divorce.

These changes can leave the child with a sense of insecurity. Another factor involves the level of responsibility given to the child. The child may be expected to handle certain matters that they previously did not. This is closely related to the concept of the parents' time. When the child had