The Impact of Divorce on Children

Divorce's Legacy and the Child

Jennifer Waldrum

Liberty University

Abstract

This paper will examine the worldwide increasing rate of divorce and the legacy it leaves with children affected by the dismantling of their families. Research has shown throughout the years the negative psychosocial effects as well as adverse biological health effects on children and adolescents. The following paper will address these key areas of impact and examine research on self-concept, cognitive functioning and gender specific effects. We will also explore different points of view and the role of family law in the lives of children who are affected by divorce. More specific data provides us with information showing us how much greater the impact is in younger children and examine strategies during the process of the divorce to help children cope. While divorce does have an impact on a child's life, this paper will also show how the role of the parents is crucial in making it less of a negative one by making the transition period as peaceful as possible.

Divorce's Legacy and the Child

In today's society, over half of all American marriages end in divorce. (Demo & Acock, 1998) While the effects are devastating to the adult parents, research has shown it is the children involved who seem to suffer the greatest. We will look at different developmental areas and risk factors in children's lives that are impacted by divorce and how they relate to age and gender. Research has also shown divorce has an impact on a child's physical health. We will look at why this is the case. The question many people have when dealing with this issue seems to be: where does the responsibility lie in regards to reaching out to these children? We will address this question as well and look at ways other people, including those in the legal system, can offer support during the divorce process.

Children and adolescents in different developmental stages of life will necessarily react quite differently (in both short-term and long-term settings) to the phenomenon of parental divorce. (Barczak, et al., 2010, Chapter 10) Age is an important factor when the divorce occurs and children who come from divorced families experience childhood differently than children from non-divorced families. A study by Ge et al. (2006) showed that adolescents who experience divorce by the age of fifteen displayed a sharper increase in the number of depressive symptoms when compared to peers from intact families. (Barczak, et al., Chapter 10) Research has also shown that different responses to this painful turn of events occur if the boy or girl is still in childhood or has entered adolescence. Basically, divorce tends to intensify the child's dependence and it tends to accelerate the adolescent's independence; it often elicits a more regressive response in the child and a more aggressive response in the adolescent. (Pickhardt)

Pickhardt provides insight on why this is to be. He asks us to look at a child's world. We know that a child's world is a dependent one. Parents are their heavily favored companions and they are very reliant on the care of their parents. The adolescent world is a more independent one, more separated and distant from parents, more self-sufficient, where friends have become favored companions, and where the major locus of one's social life now extends outside of family into a larger world of life experience. (Pickhardt) A younger child has a harder time because divorce shakes the foundation of trust in dependency on parents who may not be as reliable as they were before the divorce. Research has also shown that the transit between two households is also more difficult for the younger child. (Jolivet, 2012)

Various case studies throughout the years have revealed gender specific issues that result from divorce as well. Female subjects experience a greater number of ongoing depressive symptoms in adolescence and early adulthood when compared to their male counterparts and male subjects seem to suffer more anxiety disorders. (Barczak, et al., 2010) Another interesting factor concerning males is the profound effect divorce can have if they are in the midst of their "Genital" stage of development in relation to the Freudian Psychosexual Developmental Stage perspective. There has been conclusive evidence that suggests that the distress related to the parents' divorce can cause males to become partially arrested in this stage of development and they will subsequently struggle to complete this stage for possibly a few years. (Barczak, et al., 2010) Examining the Freudian perspective from case studies involving females has shown similar evidence. A specific study involving an eleven year old girl shows a girl who is in the midst of her Freudian "Latency" psychosexual stage, might experience significant difficulties in consolidating her expected gender roles and identity due to distress related to her parents' marital difficulties. (Barczak, et al., 2010) While we could spend significant time discussing gender specific developmental problems that arise from the dissolution of marriages and families, data has shown there are numerous problems that affect both genders. In a study by Kinard and Reinherz (1984) involving 202 boys and 192 girls in third grade from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, their major findings were that children in recently disrupted families had significantly more problems with attention at school, withdrawal, and dependency. (Demo & Acock, 1998) There was also evidence that immediately following the divorce, children's grades begin to drop due to the stress of the new living arrangements. These are real causes for concern, but there are even more serious problems that children who are affected by divorce are at risk for. Roustit et al. (2007) utilized data from the "Social health Survey of Children and Adolescents (in Quebec, Montreal, Canada)" to focus on the psychosocial effects of divorce on adolescents. (Barczak, et al., 2010) The associations between family dissolution and adolescents' subsequent risk of eventual development of internalizing disorders, externalizing disorders, ( non-alcoholic) substance abuse, and/or alcohol consumption. The findings