Introduction
The rate of divorce has increased over the years. Research indicates that for every three marriages that take place in today’s society, one of them ends in divorce (American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 2011). Furthermore, the majority of the families that divorce have children. Consequently, divorce causes various impacts on children depending on how they perceive it and what kind of life they lead after it occurs in comparison with the past. Some children often take the blame on themselves for being responsible for their parents’ divorce and this will have devastating impact on their lives. Mostly, adolescents are the most affected children of divorce.
Literature Review
According to a study carried out in the University of Chicago, it is indicated that an early divorce for parents that have children under the age of five results in short-run behavior problems in children (Galer, 2012). These behavior problems may also last into pre-adolescence age of 12. It was generally noted that there is a variation between how a child born and brought up in marriage and the one whose family has undergone divorce. According to Galer (2012), children under the age of five need the presence of both parents in order to develop well psychologically. The absence of one of the parents as a result of divorce causes changes in their behavior especially the way they associate with others. One of the negative behaviors that may be observed in these children is self-withdrawal.
Lane (2013) points out that stress seems to affect all people irrespective of age. Owing to the fact that divorce is always stressful, it often creates a disruption in children’s routine life. They lose a sense of safety and security as they start getting worried of where they will live and the person who will tuck them in when they sleep. Moreover, if the divorcing parents are yelling at each other, fighting, breaking things, children under the age of five can often become anxious.It is at this time that they regress. They are likely to display more signs of illness, or become unusually frilly and ill-tempered. A study reveals that children pick up the mood of their parents. That means that if a parent is distressed or anxious, the infants also pick on it and become stressful and anxious. This can be noted when they become unresponsive to soothing. However, adolescents react more aggressively to divorce than children of other ages.
Lane (2013) also points out that toddlers perceive divorce as a confusing experience. The fact that they recognize that one parent is absent confuses them a lot since they have no idea as to why that parent went away. Consequently, they become moody, aggressive and anxious. They are likely to act out more often in order to express the troubling feelings they have that they cannot put into words. This too affects a child’s normal growth pattern as explained by Lane (2013). On the other hand, Foulkes-Jamison (2001) indicates that teenagers have a different approach towards divorce. Most of them think that they are responsible for their parents’ divorce. They believe that something they said in anger may have caused the divorce or they were not good enough. Therefore, they are always under pressure to fix the problem they caused of making their parents’ divorce. This pressure is tremendous for a teenage child and may deny them a chance to grow normally.
According to an article of Royal College of Psychiatrics (2013), the process of divorcing is in itself devastating to children. Irrespective of the age of a child, when they witness quarrels, fights, yelling at each other, destruction of property and other emotional actions exhibited by parents during the process of divorcing, it makes them behave younger than they are. For instance, a child may start bedwetting even if they were not doing so before. They also experience nightmares, and the fear of the unknown.
Gender Characteristics
An article written by the department of justice Canada (1997) provides in-depth information on various responses children have to divorce. The article indicates that both girls and boys showed poorer performances in their academic work in relation to children from intact families. This however may continue to be the case for boys even after five years after divorce but girls are able to adjust. The article also indicates that children experienced disruptions in play circumstances following a divorce. Additionally, this effect appeared to be more persistent in boys than girls. Mathews (1998) points out that a research conducted for a ten year follow up of children from divorced families indicated that girls were able to adjust within eighteen months after the divorce while boys still appeared to be troubled.
On the other hand, another research has indicated that there are more harmful effects for girls than boys following divorce. Mathews (1998) denotes that adolescent girls from divorced homes showed more behavioral problems and lower self-esteem than boys of the same category. Furthermore, 63 percent of adolescent girls from disrupted families had worse psychological problems one year after divorce as paralleledto 27 percent of the boys. However, research shows that there are more negative effects on children following divorce of parents. Pickhardt (2011) summarizes by showing that divorce is devastating to children of all age group and that it impacts their lives differently.
Socio-Economic Effect
In any divorce, it is apparent that the obvious impact on a child is the drastic deterioration in the standard of living. When parents live together, they are more stable than when they go separate ways. The reason is that they combine their income and provide for their children more effectively than when separated. As Pickhardt (2011) elaborates, children, especially those from lower socio-economic set experience more hardships after the divorce of their parents. This in turn translates directly to problems they encounter in life such as behavioral difficulties in schools and psychological maladjustments. Fagan (1999) also states that economic hardships a parent may be undergoing as a result of divorce is directly imposed on children. This also makes them to have difficulty in adjusting to new living standards.
In addition, Fagan (1999) states that adolescent children are also affected by divorce of their parents academically. Due to financial constraints as a result of divorce, most parents from a lower socio-economic group are forced to transfer their children from their schools to lesser paying schools. Consequently, their learning pattern is interrupted. The learning environment also changes and adjustment takes time. This results in a cycle of unprecedented events that may not have been the result if parents did not divorce. A child is forced to live a life that is totally different from the one they had anticipated. Consequently, this often leads to development of unpredictable and undesired characteristics and behaviors in children such as drug abuse.
Emotional, Social and Physical Magnitudes of Divorce
In a research conducted by Wallerstein (2012), it is indicated that about 44 percent of children of divorce reported persistent feelings of loneliness they felt for many years after divorce. This is significantly high as compared to reports given by children from intact families. Research showed that loneliness in children may be triggered in different ways. Among them is separation of parents or divorce. However, some children feel lonely if one of the parents especially the father does not spend time with them. It has been shown that about 70 percent of fathers do not have considerable contact with their children. Additionally, if mothers start dating again after divorce, then children may have less time with either parent. This may also contribute to their feeling loneliness.
Wallerstein (2012) also describes that children, especially adolescents are also faced with the fear of losing both parents and this brings emotional insecurity. Due to this sense of emotional insecurity, children’s relation towards others may change. They express this insecurity towards others by acting arrogantly and angrily. Some of them frequently break rules, they experience sleep problems, may indulge in drug abuse and or alcoholism. They also start early sexual activities and defy the teachers and also develop suicidal thoughts. Wallerstein (2012) continues to point out that children from divorced families develop negative emotions such as depression, a feeling of sadness and anger. This in turn leads to development of other problems such as difficulty in school and poor health.
Another research by Lebowitz, (2001) showed that adolescent children from divorce families generally struggle socially than those from intact families. They have poorer relationships with their peers and this alters their normal development. They are likely to be more aggressive and have just but a few friends as compared to those from intact families. The research further indicates that children from divorced families have also been observed to participate less in extracurricular activities such as sports, music festivals and other programs such as summer programs. It is speculated that this happens because of absence of a parent to drive them to the places they are required to attend the occasions or lack of money to pay for such events.
Moreover, children of divorce families end up receiving less parental supervision. Consequently, researchers believe that these children are vulnerable to the influence of their peers to indulge into immoral behaviors such as drug abuse, smoking and alcoholism. Research has also shown that some children have become defiant to rehabilitation and reformation after being involved in drug abuse no matter the efforts made by parents to help them. As Wallerstein (2012) indicates, children of divorced families have low esteem in the society and this makes them vulnerable to peer-group influence than those from intact families.
Another thing that has been noted in adolescent children from divorced families according to Wallerstein (2012) is that they are less likely to acquire vital social skills in the home like negotiation, cooperation and compromise. These social skills are essential for success in life. In addition, they also develop poor communication models as a consequence of their parents’ continual quarreling and fighting. Reiter et al. (2013) assessed junior and high school students from divorced parents to find out their self-concept status. This was then compared to those from intact families. It was found out that children from divorced families had low self-concept in comparison to those from intact families. This is said to contribute to the development of poor communication and social skills in these children.
Wallerstein (2012) also states that research has shown that children of divorce have more health complications than those of intact families. They have a 50 percent chance of experiencing health problems such as asthma, injury and headaches than children of intact families. In this research, it is indicated that increased anxiety, emotional insecurity, and stress are the factors contributing to high chances of developing health problems. The research further states that adolescents of divorce have less life expectancy than those of intact families.
Educational Consequences of Divorce on Children
As noted earlier, Wallerstein (2012) has indicted that children of divorce have a lesser chance of graduating from college or universities than those of intact families. This happens owing to the fact that they suffer from stress, depression and other related vices such as low esteem which make them not to perform competently. However, some parents also undergo financial constraints hence they are unable to pay school fees for their children. Additionally, parents may also fail to closely monitor their children’s performance at school. They are often overwhelmed with work and hence have less time with their children.
Apart from poor academic performance, adolescent children of divorce do not set goals for university or college studies for they think that their parents may not be able to support them financially. Nonetheless, the few that get to college do complain about not receiving financial support from their parents. This is according to a research conducted by Pickhardt (2011) which indicates that children of divorce have difficult times at college to cope up and live with the rest of the students from intact families. The research shows that the greater percentage of children of divorce perform poorly or even drop out of college as a result of lack financial support.
Religious Consequences of Divorce on Children
Pickhardt (2011) has also studied the effect of divorce on children’s religious and spiritual perspective. It was found that children of intact families attend church more regularly than those of divorce. Adolescent children of divorce are generally defiant towards religious believes than those of intact families. It is also indicated that these children think that religion cannot address more important issues that surround their lives. They believe that they can find the truth by themselves without depending on religious organizations. This is probably as a result of their parents’ divorce taking place yet they attended the same churches or religious organizations.
Apart from adolescents becoming defiant to religious matters, Pickhardt (2011) has indicated that they also lose trust for their parents. Adolescent children tend to become more independent and less dependence on their parents as a result of divorce. Divorce is said to elicit more withdrawal response of a teenage to themselves than a child of intact family. In this perspective, these adolescents become more attached to the outside world than to their families and hence loss of religious beliefs and faith in religious institutions.
According to Shaw & Ingoldsby (2013), the stage of adolescence is very important for personal identity. It is indicated that it is at this period that children are faced with the identity crisis. Adolescents get to discover themselves through the close association they have with their parents, friends, peers and adults. Shaw & Ingoldsby (2013) denotes that if the process of self-identification is achieved well at this stage, they then become very important people in the society. However, there is a likelihood of children developing undesirable behaviors such as drug abuse and violent behaviors if they do not identify their purpose and position in the society. Divorce is one major force that makes teenagers not to discover themselves as they should. Lack of one parent as a role model or the effects of quarreling and fights experienced during divorce may contribute to it. Consequently, teenagers develop defiant behaviors which generally make them not to perform well in the society.
Loss of Interpersonal Relationship
Research done by Shaw & Ingoldsby (2013) denotes that adolescents of divorce families lose their parental attachment during after divorce takes place. Depending on how the teenagers were attached to either parent, they are likely to lose the interpersonal relationship they had with the parents. Due to this loss, teenagers often extend their feelings to their peers, friends and other people. Consequently, they are unable to develop good interpersonal relationship with the rest of the people in the society. Because of their age and the hormonal imbalance, teenagers have been noted to be the most affected by divorce of parents. The relationship between the parents, children and even other people in the society develops poorly with teenagers of divorce as compared to adolescents of intact families. Shaw & Ingoldsby (2013) also pinpoint the fact that divorce causes long term effects on teenagers since they are unable to differentiate between the feelings that arose as a result of hormonal imbalance and those of divorce. Due to this, adolescents have been observed to be the most affected negatively from a divorce.
Conclusion
In summary, divorce has various effects on adolescent children. Research has clearly indicated that divorce generally impacts negatively on all children of all ages. However, teenagers perceive the divorce process in a more negative manner than the rest of the children. The infants, toddlers and pre-adolescent children are generally depicted to receive the news of divorce with a lesser impact than adolescents. Children of these other age groups also deal with stress and other negative impacts created after divorce within a year or two and adjust accordingly. However, adolescents tend to take too long or even for the rest of their lifetime to heal from the effects of divorce.
Additionally, divorce tampers with a child’s normal development pattern. Children of divorce, especially adolescents, are affected psychologically, emotionally and physically. Even the health status of these children is affected negatively as a result of divorce. It is also observed that children of divorce perform relatively poor academically due to negative emotional and psychological effects of divorce. In addition, majority of adolescents from divorce families do not study to college level due low esteem, lack of financial support and peer influence. They also have more than 50 percent chance of becoming drug abusers, smokers and alcoholics. Therefore, divorce has more negative impacts on adolescents than the positive impacts.
References:
American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. (2011). Children and Divorce. Retrieved 3rd August, 2013 from http://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/Facts_for_Families_Pages/Children_and_Divorce_01.aspx
Fagan, P. (1999). The Effects of Divorce on Children. Retrieved 3rd August, 2013 from http://worldcongress.org/wcf2_spkrs/wcf2_fagan.htm
Galer, S. (2012). Divorce Can Hit Children under Age Five Especially Hard. Retrieved 3rd August, 2013 from http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2012/09/17/divorce-can-hit-children-under-age-five-especially-hard
Lebowitz, M. L. (2001). Divorce and the American Teenager. Sex, Drugs, Rock ‘N’ Roll, 695-698.
Matthews, D. W. (1998). Long-term Effects of Divorce on Children. North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, 1-6.
Reiter, S.M.et al. (2013). Impact of Divorce and Loss of Parental Contact on Health Complaints among Adolescents. Journal of Public Health, 35(2)
Royal College of Psychiatrists. (2013). Divorce Or Separation Of Parents - The Impact On Children And Adolescents: Information For Parents, Carers And Anyone Who Works With Young People. Retrieved 3rd August, 2013 from http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/expertadvice/parentsandyouthinfo/parentscarers/divorceorseparation.aspx
Shaw, D.S. & Ingoldsby, E.M. (2013). Children of Divorce. Retrieved 3rd August, 2013 from http://www.pitt.edu/ppcl/Publications/chapters/children_of_divorce.htm
Wallerstein J. S. (2012). What are the possible consequences of divorce for children? Noted Divorce Researcher, 76-92.
