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Abstract
Divorce of the parents is in most cases a stressful event in a child’s life. There are both short-term and long-term effects of divorce on children. The difficulty of these negative effects is determined by a set of factors: age and sex of the child, the extent to which the child was involved into the marital conflict of parents, the socioeconomic well-being of the family, and the level of support and understanding established in the parent-child relationship. In this paper the most important influences affecting the child after the divorce of their parents are studied, and the effect on the quality of adult life is being observed. Measures to protect children from after-divorce stress factors are suggested.
Keywords: divorce, risk factors, negative effects, short-term effects, long-term effects, family, children
Divorce as a Long-lasting and Painful Procedure
One of the most important concerns that people have before divorcing is how the divorce will affect their children. Usually children associate their parents’ divorce with a very negative experience, and only in exceptional cases children do not suffer from it. Children who experienced the divorce of parents are at higher risk of developing a wide range of different negative consequences, influencing their childhood as well as their adulthood.
Divorce rates in the US reached their highest point between the years of 1970 and 1977. At that time, the percentage of the divorced rose to the dramatic point of 79%. In the years after this percentage decreased, however, according to the data gathered in 2011, 53% of married US citizens have decided to dissolute their marriage. This means that more than a half of all of the marriages in the US collapse.
It is important to understand that the divorce itself is a complicated procedure. Marriage does not simply end in one day, when people decided to cancel it and regain freedom. Divorce is in fact a complex procedure and manifests itself in a series of painful events, changing almost all of the aspects of people’s lives.
The Six Stages of Divorce (according to Bohannan)
According to Paul Bohannan (cited in Kaslow, 1980, p. 720-742) there are six phases of divorce.
The first stage is the emotional divorce, which usually starts months or even years before the couple is legally divorced. Most of the married couples cannot state clearly at what point the emotional divorce started, but usually their loving and affectionate feelings towards each other are gradually being replaced by anger, mistrust, dislike or even hatred. Noticeable is also the perception that these negative feelings will never be replaced by positive ones again. The second stage according to Bohannan is the legal divorce, resulting in receiving the legal documentation stating that the couple is no longer married to each other. The third stage is the economic divorce, at which the material goods accumulating during the years of marriage is being divided between the two. If the couple cannot manage to reach common ground in these material questions, the decision is made by the court. One of the most emotional stages is the co-parental divorce, which deals with custody and visitation. Traditionally in the US mothers were automatically given custody of their children, except the cases when they were proven to be unfit. Nowadays the situation changed, and the decision made by court depends on the case. In most cases, the child, or children are placed with one of the parents, another having rights to visit the children. Usually, the parent not living with the child supports the custodial parent materially. In single cases both parents are given equal rights and responsibility to raise their children, so the children are living equal amount of time with every parent. The fifth stage is the community divorce, meaning that the range of people that the couple has spent time with changes, because married couples are more likely to socialize with other married couples. The last, sixth stage, is the psychic divorce, which occurs when the person is starting to live alone. This means more responsibility in making daily decisions, and more autonomy as well. This stage can be especially difficult to cope with since the part of the person’s identity which used to be a part of a family, is lost.
Some of these stages can take a long time to be completed, and some, like the psychic divorce, can last forever. All of the abovementioned stages are listed in this paper because of the fact that the child or children have to cope with every single stage of the divorce along with their parents.
Risk Factors for Children
There is a wide range of factors that determine the difficulty of stress resulting from parents’ divorce for a child. The child’s perception of the parents’ divorce will be determined by two largest factors first and foremost: the gender and the age.
The gender is a very important risk factor for a child. Usually, children associate themselves with the same-gender parent more. Because in most cases the custodial parent is mother, the boys are at higher risk of losing the same-gender parent. Living without having a male role-model in the family poses a great challenge for the boys specifically. The proof of the fact that the divorce affects boys and girls differently is found in the work by Lesley Foulkes-Jamison (2001, n. p.): “Boys and girls tend to react differently to their parents' divorce. As a rule, girls tend to become anxious and withdrawn, while boys tend to become more aggressive and disobedient. Girls from divorced families may become sexually active earlier than girls from intact families. Interestingly, boys often adjust better when their mothers remarry, while girls have more difficulty”.
The age is another influential factor. Younger children (preschoolers) have a more flexible psychology and tend to adapt to the changes in family quicker. The effects of divorce on younger children are short-term because they do not fully understand the meaning of the surrounding events. However, situation is often different for school age children. They tend to feel themselves guilty of the fact that their parents decided to have a divorce. These children do not understand that the divorce comes only from the relationship of their parents, and think that if they had better grades at school or helped around the house more, their family would remain full.
For pre-adolescents and adolescents the situation is different. For some of the children of the mentioned age group the short-term outcomes of the parents’ divorce are less destructive because their close alignment with peers substitutes their attachment to parents. Nevertheless pre-adolescents and adolescents are more likely to experience trouble later in life, because they are able to understand the problems and events in their family much better, and make logical conclusions. Sometimes, due to the transition age which adolescents experience, it is easy for them to blame their parents for their misunderstandings and for the fact that their family is being destroyed.
One more factor influencing children after the divorce is the socioeconomic status which may change dramatically. Less money can become an obstacle for meeting all of the child’s needs, and the way of life that the child became used to is being replaced.
It is also important to take into consideration the extent to which the child was involved into the marital conflict of their parents. Some children can live through the parents’ divorce easier if their family was a type of the so-called conflict-ridden marriage. Living amidst abuse, offence or conflict is a far more hurting experience than the divorce that can become a solution to the mentioned problems. But even in this case the children are affected by the divorce.
If a child is raised in a family with supportive and understanding relations between them and the parents, it is likely that the outcome of the divorce will not be as harsh as in other cases. In opposition to this, a family where the parents cannot separate their role of a spouse from their role of a parent, places a higher risk for the child to be affected negatively.
Some children tend to perceive the loss of the non-custodial parent very hard. They may feel abandoned and unwanted irrespective of the attempts of both parents to nurture the child-parent relationships.
Generally, all of the effects of the divorce on children can be divided to short-term and long-term effects. Both influence the life of a child and make changes to their life experience, as well as to their personality.
The Short-term Effects of Divorce on Children
The short-term effects of divorce are those that can be observed during first two or three years after the divorce. Almost always the children of the divorced parents face the increase of the responsibilities entrusted to them. The child spends more time on their own or with other close relatives while the parents are undergoing the legal divorce procedure. Because of this, the child may be feeling lonely and not taken care of. In some cases, especially in those when the marriage ends with an angry conflict, parents can potentially experience lack of attachment to their children.
Children may experience emotional frustration or confused feelings as a result of one parent’s gradual disengagement from their life. This is especially true for the families in which the non-custodial parent is the father, who is often associated by a child as a person who protects and takes care both for themselves and for their mother. The feeling of insecurity and uncertainty about their future is very common for such children. Moreover, the child has an unsophisticated prospective, but is able to think logically and make conclusions. The children witness the loss of love between their parents. Consequently, they can become frightened of the loss of love for themselves. This can provoke anxiety and questions like “What is going to happen with me?”, “How we are going to live now?” etc.
Children can also experience anger for one or both parents, manifesting aggression and misconduct in order to protect themselves from the pain and suffering. Such effects make the child difficult to control, they become less susceptible to parental supervision. Usually these effects can be observed in adolescents and pre-adolescents. Such children can oppose themselves to parents, and tend to spend more time with their friends than with the family.
Some psychologists distinguish a few positive effects of divorce on children. In some cases the divorce can make the child understand the world better and feel more responsibility over their lives and the lives of their younger siblings, if there are ones. Children become less idealistic and start to understand that there are negative life experiences which are important to overcome. Divorce of parents makes can make children more conscious, and teach them to treat family as one of the greatest life values. Although studies show that children of the divorced parents tend to end their own marriage in divorce more frequently than those grown up in full families, some children are an exception. When they become adults they can realize that they do not want their children to live through such a negative and painful experience, and try to save the family in every possible way. According to the study conducted in 2014, “Half the participants reported that they felt their parents’ divorce had had a positive impact on their ability to maintain a relationship in some way” (Mohi, 2014, p.24).
There is a range of measures that can be taken by the parents in order to relieve the stress of their child. The quick resolution of the marital conflict and establishing normal relations between the couple influences the child’s perception very positively. The successful management of the parental role of the custodian parent is of great importance. The custodian parent must compensate the loss of non-custodian parent by spending more time with their child, helping them to develop in the proper way, finding ways to make the after-divorce consequences less harsh for the child. It is very important for both parents to talk with their children, to explain why they behave the way they do, why they have to split the family in two and to make sure that the children do not blame themselves for the separation.
Long-term Effects of Divorce on Children
There are also long-term effects of divorce on children that in some cases can be more life-changing, influencing one’s personal life and relationships. Studies show that in a wide range of cases the long-term effects of parents’ divorce are quite persistent. For example, Alan Booth and Paul Amato (1996, p. 356-365) state the following: “Research suggests that problematic parent-child relations associated with divorce persist throughout the life course.” In his other book written in collaboration with Bruce Keith it is said that: “the long-term consequences of parental divorce for adult attainment and quality of life may prove to be more serious than the short-term emotional and social problems in children” (1991, p. 43-58).
Children can experience a psychological condition called the “sleeper effect”. It is referred to negative emotions and feelings, denied in childhood, but emerging years after. This is a delayed reaction to the traumatic events. This reaction can appear in different psychological symptoms. Judith Wallerstein in her longitudinal study of 113 children of the divorced parents has determined the most widespread of them: fear of betrayal and abandonment, rising anxiety, anger and hostility, depression and low life satisfaction (1985, p. 545-553). Another study says “children from disrupted families are significantly more likely to express discontent with their lives as measured by an index of life satisfaction” (Furstenberg& Teitler, 1994, p. 173-190).
There is also a set of sociological effects that children of the divorced parents experience later in life. The most noticeable is the fear of such people to have unsuccessful relationship and repeat their parents’ mistakes. Such people have less trust for their spouses and are more likely to end their marriage with divorce. Also, the study shows that in general the “children of divorce” have lower socioeconomic status in adulthood. The “daughters of divorce” are more likely to marry and have children in early age, or to have children before marriage.
The divorced parents should be very attentive and sensitive to the needs, feelings and behaviour of their children. Children need predictability and support in order to grow up normally. Showing love to children, involving them into various kinds of activities, making it possible to communicate with the non-custodian parent and not exposing them to new relationships with opposite-sex members suddenly, can alleviate the negative psychological effects of divorce.
Conclusion
As a conclusion it should be stated that parents’ divorce is a life-changing event for most children, introducing a wide range of mostly negative effects to the child’s psychological well-being as well as having serious consequences in adulthood. Children of the divorced parents tend to be more vulnerable, feel less secure and satisfied with life than their peers growing up in full families. Parents need to be aware of the fact that divorce is a painful and long-lasting procedure and children will have to process through all of its stages along with themselves. Grown-up children of the divorced have less belief in the values of marriage and family, less trust for their spouses and are more likely to experience divorce themselves.
References
Amato, P., & A. Booth (1996). “A prospective study of divorce and parent-child relationships”. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58, 356-365.DOI: 10.2307/353501
Amato, P. R. & Keith, B. (1991). Parental divorce and adult well-being: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 53, 43-58. DOI: 10.2307/353132
Foulkes-Jamison, L. (2001). “The Effects Of Divorce On Children”. Gainesville Family Magazine, 1. Retrieved from http://cpancf.com/articles_files/efffectsdivorceonchildren.asp
Furstenberg, Frank F. & Teitler, Julien O. (1994). Reconsidering the effects of marital disruption: What happens to children of divorce in early adulthood? Journal of Family Issues, 15(2), 173-190.
Kaslow, Florence W. (1980). “Stages of Divorce: a Psychological Perspective”. 25 Villanova Law Review 718: 720-742. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/vlr/vol25/iss4/6
Mohi, Grant W. (2014). “Positive Outcomes of Divorce: A Multi-Method Study on the Effects of Parental Divorce on Children”. The University of Central Florida Undergraduate Research Journal, vol. 7.2: 24. Retrieved from http://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2600&context=honorstheses1990-2015
Wallerstein, J.S. (1985). Children of Divorce: Preliminary Report of a Ten-Year Follow-up of Older Children and Adolescents. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 24 ( 5), 545-553.. DOI: 10.1016/S0002-7138(09)60055-8
