Preview

The Negative Impact Of Divorce On Children

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
192 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Negative Impact Of Divorce On Children
Each year, over 1 million American children experience the divorce of their parents. Currently in the United States, about 40% of first marriages end in divorce. In addition more than half of all divorces involve children under the age of eighteen. “Approximately 5 million Canadians separated or divorced within the last 20 years”, according to data from the 2011 General Social Survey on Families. Substantial evidence in social science research and journals demonstrates that these children are affected mentally, emotionally, and socially and will last into adulthood. It is important to know the impact that divorce has on children. In this paper we will focus on the child’s stress in different age groups due to divorce and how they immediately

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    All over the world, parents decide to divorce and this leaves children hurt and confused. Because of their innocence and immaturity, children are unable to process stressful events as adults are. Their reactions and behavior can range from delicate to quick-tempered. The children may lose contact with one parent or they might decide to makes some bad decisions in their life due to the feelings of neglect. Some of the bad choices could be violence and struggling in academics. There are impacts on teens that could be short term but there are also long term effects too, because children look up to their parents as role models. Family clearly impacts teenagers, especially a divorce. Faber and Wittenborn (2010) report that on average, children in divorced families and stepfamilies, as compared to those in non-divorced families, are more likely to exhibit behavioral and emotional problems, lower social competence and self-esteem, less socially responsible behavior, and…

    • 900 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Parents are often told to “think about the children.” Doctor Judith S. Wallerstein, the Executive Director of the Center for the Family in Transition, California, stated in her scholarly journal : “A comprehensive review of research from several disciplines regarding long-term effects of divorce on children yields a growing consensus that significant numbers of children suffer for many years from psychological and social difficulties associated with continuing and/or new stresses within the post-divorce family and experience heightened anxiety in forming enduring attachments at later developmental stages including young adulthood.” In this, Wallerstein is making the claim that divorce effects children so deeply that they suffer from stress, anxiety, and psychological and social difficulties. While these have been common results, divorce is sometimes in the well-being of all family members. If parents argue often, disrupting and terrifying children, (especially if young) then separating would relieve family members from the anxiety that arguments and fighting cause. Robert E. Emery, a Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Children, Families, and the Law, Virginia, claims experts are often confused on the true effects of divorce on children. In his article, he includes children whose parents’ marriage “was full of intense conflict and…

    • 1392 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This case presentation will demonstrate the impact of family transitions on changes in emotional and behavioural problems attributed to the effects of parental separation including the risk of illegal behaviour in adolescents. This presentation will discuss the outcomes of marital break-up for children and particularly the impact of contentious divorces on children and how children’s perceptions and experiences can have negative emotional consequences lasting from early childhood into adolescence.…

    • 1122 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Divorce In Canada

    • 237 Words
    • 1 Page

    Divorce has become an increasingly common experience in the lives of parents and children. In the 1960s, the divorce rate in Canada quite rated. However, according to Dumas and Peron (1992), in the period of the end of the 1960s and the mid 1980s, the divorce rate grew dramatically, five time increase. Bureau of Review (1990) showed that the number of couples divorcing in Canada was nearly one third of all marriages. In the statistics reported in the 1980s and 1990s, parental divorce in Canada was 262 per 100,000 people (Statistics, Canada, 1997) and there were approximately 74,000 kids became “children of divorce”.…

    • 237 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    According to recent studies, over one million children in the United States will experience the divorce of their parents this year. Divorce for children, at least for the first two years, can shatter a child 's universe setting him or her adrift on an ocean of uncertainty and distress. They wonder if they will see the absent parent again? Will they see their friends again? Some children are also in danger of developing emotional problems that have consequences that go well beyond their adolescence and into their…

    • 2247 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Every year, over one million children in the U.S. have to deal with the hardships of their parents getting a divorce, and almost all these divorces involve the children being under 18 years of age. Divorce impacts everyone involved, but more so the children. Divorce can have an abundantly negative effect on the child’s life, and it can cause problems from the beginning of the divorce and continues on into the times ahead. Some of these effects of divorce on children include: A greater chance of getting divorced in the future, poor social skills and suffering emotionally as well as academically.…

    • 373 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Perhaps no other area in the social sciences inspires as much debate as the issue of parents getting divorced. While many marriages end in divorce and any such breakup of the marital union is understood to be a challenging and emotional event for anyone and everyone involved. Researchers are particularly interested in how divorce affects any children in the family. This effect has been the source of much controversy, as major studies in the past decade have found results are sometimes in direct opposition to each other. Even the methods used to conduct these studies is sometimes leaves suffering families confused and wondering who they should listen to.…

    • 927 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    In Canada, it is estimated that four in ten marriages end in divorce. Despite the “’til death do us part” vow couples participate in at the time of marriage, there were 69,600 separations in Canada in 2004 (Statistics Canada, 2004). It has also been determined that every one in two divorces involves children. Although there have been many studies done which attempt to prove that children who experience parental divorce do have behavioral problems, fail to complete high school, and have emotional discrepancies, the effects of divorce on the overall outcome of a child is not detrimental to his or her development. Those who take the stance that divorce is a determining factor through their various studies have not taken a proper representative sample of cases from children nor considered other determining factors which could also lead to a child 's lack of well-being.…

    • 1722 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The American Psychological Association estimates that nearly fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce in America (APA 2017). Even more startling is the further realization that nearly fifty percent of all American children will experience parental divorce at some point throughout their youth (Anthony, DiPerna, and Amato 2014). With divorce becoming more and more common throughout American society, sociologists become increasingly interested in the effects of this phenomenon on the family unit. It can be easy to underestimate the effects that divorce has on the children involved, particularly when it comes to academic success. I believe that many social and cognitive issues arise from children witnessing their parents’ divorce, and that these issues will adversely impact a child’s academic performance in high school. This, ultimately, results in lower scores on standardized tests than those of children of the same demographics and class but with cohabitating parents.…

    • 1784 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Watching parents take a home from a traditional family lifestyle to a "broken" home by getting a divorce is very devastating to a child's mental well-being. As Judith Seltzer notes, "Recent reviews summarize evidence that children are emotionally distressed by parents' separation. Young children, especially, are depressed and anxious, and they feel torn by loyalties to both parents" (283). While some researchers believe "[p]arental divorce is associated with substantial short-term elevations in children's emotional distress…, [t]here is a great deal of evidence…that for some youths divorce remains problematic throughout adolescence" (Aseltine 133).…

    • 1759 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The topic I chose to write about is how divorce affects young children. There are many reasons I chose this topic. One reason is because many adults do not think about how their actions affect their children. Another reason is because a lot of times have their children pick sides in a divorce. This causes the children to believe that neither one of their parents love them. When in essence the do but they don’t know how to help their children through divorce proceedings without them having to pick which parent is their “friend” without hurting the other ones feelings.…

    • 767 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unfortunately divorce has become a common occurrence in children’s lives, both for young children and young adolescents. According to the American Psychological Association, the statistic of divorce in the United State has reached forty to fifty percent levels. Approximately half of the forty to fifty percent of divorced couples in the United States affect children under the age of eighteen.…

    • 924 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    On the 11th of June, 1996, the Family Law Reform Act 1995 came into effect amending certain sections of the Family Law Act 1975, in particular, those relating to the care of children involved in divorce situations. The object of these amendments, according to the new act, was to ensure two things. Firstly, "that the children may receive adequate and proper parenting to help them achieve their full potential," and secondly, "to ensure that parents fulfil their duties, and meet their responsibilities, concerning the care, welfare and development of their children." These recent amendments are clearly a positive step forward for family law because the law has recognised that the child is the only important factor in a divorce and that it is crucial that the rights of the child are protected. To fairly evaluate the effectiveness of these recent amendments in protecting the interests of the child, the social implications of the act, the principles taken into account when deciding a case, the impact on stakeholders, and criticisms of the act must all be taken into consideration.…

    • 1661 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Divorce is not uncommon anymore like how it used to be looked down upon. Today according to the American Psychology Association there is a 40 to 50 percent chance of married couples will end up in divorce. The divorce rate today is higher than what it has ever been. About 25 percent of children in the US live with only one parent (Bernet, Children of high-conflict divorce face many challenges). Most of the time a divorce will take a toll on the family, some families cope with the divorce well, while others have a more difficult time coping with it. Children of the divorced family normally have the hardest time coping with the split family. Children can have many short-term and long-term effects from a divorce such as parental alienation, anxiety, trust issues, behavioral problems, and emotional issues.…

    • 943 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Divorce and Children

    • 3166 Words
    • 13 Pages

    In today’s society, divorce is becoming an increasing epidemic of married couples with or without children. Such divorces that involve kids become increasingly difficult due to the stability of the children involved. Many children feel a sense of guilt when he or she learns that their parents are getting a divorce. Children often take the blame and feel as if he or she was the cause of their parents’ problems and the reason for divorce. Lansky also accredits divorce to being the single most traumatic experience within a child’s life that does experience the divorce of their parents (Lansky 2003).…

    • 3166 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays