Effect of Divorce On Children – How does divorce affect a kid and how can these long term effects be avoided?

effect of divorce on childrenEffect of Divorce On Children

The effect of divorce on children is a sad one indeed. Divorce is an unwelcome visitor in happy families and homes, and the only time it rears its ugly head (or the mention thereof) is when husband and wife drift further and further apart without proper communication. Often, infidelity is the reason why husbands and wives go their separate ways, but other factors such as money, suspicion, mistrust, and deceptive marriages from the outset cause husbands and wives to divorce. Money could be a reason: often, husbands and wives are young newlyweds who barely have enough money to pay the bills and are barely getting by. College and Grad School debt could be responsible for a divorce, since one spouse takes two jobs to cover their loans and their spouse’s loans.

 

There are short-term effects that divorce has on children. Some of them include the following:

 

  • anger
  • sadness
  • depression
  • aggression
  • interpersonal conflict
  • lower academic achievement
  • acting out
  • lower self-concept
  • social adjustment difficulty
  • parental loss

 

Children are often angry when their parents divorce. They do not understand why the divorce happened (which confuses them), and they are upset that they could do little about it. They experience sadness and mourn the fact that their parents’ marriage has come to nothing. They are depressed because they have an intuitive sense that life from that moment forward will be “different around the house,” though they do not understand all that this concept entails. They are aggressive, and they carry that out on anyone they can. Children often become bullies as a result of divorce and seek to put down and degrade younger children or same-age children who are helpless by all appearances. For children who are divorce victims, the goal is to make others feel their pain.

 

Children often experience interpersonal conflict. They are at war within themselves and do not know how to cultivate a healthy self-esteem. At one moment, they like who they are; the next, they have no idea who they are or dislike themselves completely. They often want to change their names, their families, or move away from the town they live in so that they can avoid the stigma of being a divorce child. They often feel ashamed of their identity and do not want to hang around their old friends (social adjustment difficulty). They do not want their parents’ divorce to be constantly brought before them.

 

Low academic achievement is another short-term effect of divorce on children. Often, children who have performed well tend to let their grades slump significantly when dealing with a divorce. School, once important to them, becomes unimportant when they must choose to deal with both 1) their emotions and grief over the divorce or 2) their studies. The symptoms of divorce children are similar to symptoms experienced in depression patients over a long-term period.

 

The long-term effect of divorce on children includes repression of the traumatic event until it surfaces later in life. Children often undergo “the sleeper effect,” where they pretend nothing ever happened or act as if they were never affected by the event. Later in life, however, the feelings come back in the forms of emotional grief and mental anguish.

 

Other long-term effects consist of the following:

 

  • Continued anger at the parent who first started the divorce
  • A continued desire to see the parent who left the home
  • A desire to go back to the pre-divorce family
  • Never-ending regret about the parental divorce
  • Poorer physical health in divorce children (even ten years after the divorce if not longer)
  • Depression in their twenties
  • Parental divorces serve as the foundation for the children’s very own tragic divorces.
  • Children of divorce have a greater probability than children of married homes to divorce in their adult lives.
  • Sexual intercourse early in life, possibly pre-teens or teens
  • Lower economic status

 

Some of the psychological effects of divorce on children include:

  • Clinical depression
  •  A mistrust of their future spouses (if married or dating)
  • Anxiety about adulthood
  • Delinquent behaviors in children (who become lawless in order to act out their frustration and sadness)
  • A reduced ability to maintain close friendships and dating relationships; a need to remain disconnected in order to prevent emotional anguish; children who remain distant emotionally do so to prevent a divorce like the one they experienced as children
  • Adult children have less emotional connection with their parents.
  • Early marriage; often, daughters who are divorce victims as children marry early, thinking that they can find happiness in another person—though they may not even love the person they marry.

 

The effect of divorce on children statistics are even more telling than the long-term and psychological effects of divorce on children. Within the last six years, Judith Wallerstein conducted a study of 100 children who were victims of divorce. For 25 years after the divorces, she followed the divorce victims around and

 

  • Divorced children are twice as likely to become high-school dropouts than children raised in intact families.
  • Divorced children are three times as likely to have pre-marriage pregnancies than their intact counterparts.
  • Divorced children are five times more likely to have poor economic standing than intact children.
  • Divorced children are twelve times more likely to serve prison sentences than their intact counterparts.

 

Of the 100 divorce victims Wallerstein studied for twenty-five years, only sixty married (60%); and of the sixty that married, only 35 remained intact in their marriages (twenty-five divorced). To view effect of divorce on children essays, you can consult the Google search engine for free articles and scholarly articles alike. If you want to see more recent divorce statistics conducted, Google can also be of service.

 

 

The effects of divorce according to statistics and psychological studies, cannot be disputed. An excellent question to follow is, “How can these long-term effects be avoided?” Here are a few therapeutic measures you can take even in the face of an impending divorce:

 

  • Let the children of the divorce know that they are loved. Children automatically believe they are the reason why their parents divorce. Assure them they are not the reason and remind them that both parents love them still. The divorce will never change your love for them—or the other parent’s.
  • Both divorcees should attempt to remain as much in their children’s lives as possible, despite the divorce. The last thing children need is a parent to abandon them in a crucial time. Remember that your children are vulnerable and need to continue to look to both parents as the human “rocks” in their lives. Do everything you can to make them the center of your world, even during the divorce proceedings.
  • Keep the children out of parental discussions surrounding the divorce. The children are tools or pawns for negotiation or manipulation. Parents should do what they can to meet away from the children in a quiet place when discussing their grievances with one another.
  • Do not introduce new persons to the family during or right after the divorce. Understand that your children need to adjust to your divorce; though you may already be over it, be aware that they may not be. Remember that they are the most helpless of everyone in the divorce situation.
  • Plan family outings. Whatever it takes, do what you can to take the children out to the movies, the park, the beach, or even on an extended vacation from time to time. Take some weekends and plan unexpected trips so that they can get some relief from the situation. For them, the home setting is a reminder of the divorce (their helplessness), so getting them away to the beach to feel the wind in their hair, get some sun, and let them put their feet into the water. The getaway vacations will not eliminate their sadness completely, but it will help them cope in some therapeutic sense with what is soon to occur.

 

 

The effect of divorce on children is a tragic one indeed: both short-term and long-term effects are appalling. Nevertheless, you can take cautious measures to help your family transition through this rough period. While your children may never forget the divorce, they can always remember the kindness and gentleness with which their parents handled it.