Divorce's Impact on Preschool, School-age, and Adolescent Children - Essay Example

Divorce's Impact on Preschool, School-age, and Adolescent Children Outline Introduction: Definitions and social significance of divorce. There have been substantial changes over time in scientific and public perspectives regarding children's adjustment to divorce in the US. Decades of divorce research have created a more complex and nuanced understanding of how divorce impacts children and adolescents. The stressors and risks which divorce presents for children, the resiliency demonstrated by the majority of children, and protective factors which are associated with better adjustment following divorce are described, and distinctions drawn between painful memories and psychopathology. This more differentiated body of research is helpful in policy formation and for educating divorced parents about known risk factors for their children and what protective behaviors may enhance their children's longer-term adjustment. 2. Impact on children of different age groups Life stress associated with marital disruption was found to account for the majority of children's adjustment problems. Children from nonintact homes show poorer adjustment than children from intact homes. Siblings experience increased closeness as a result of the shared experience of going through the divorce of their parents together. The young women also report turning to each other for support as a result of the emotional unavailability of their parents during the divorce. From the point of view of children, divorce is a stressful experience because of the disruption of the home and its financial, emotional, and social costs. The adverse impact, however, can be minimized by realistic and sensitive attention to its effects on children. Although divorce alters the living arrangements of affected families, it does not end family relationships. Most teenagers and their parents adjust to divorce and later regard it as having been a constructive action; but one-third do not. In those instances the turbulence of the post-divorce phase plays a crucial role in influencing pathological reactions in affected teenagers. Divorce is common in the contemporary way of life and deserves objective study. 3. Focus questions Does divorce have effects on children of different age groups What does literature say about it If these are negative how they can be avoided If these are positive, how can they be utilised in clinical practice 4. Review of literature 5. Search strategy based on key words, exclusion and inclusion criteria. 6. Findings from literature review: Critical review of contemporary literature on parental divorce and its effects on children, their mental health, social performances, economic parameters, and performance. Analysis of the causes and effects. Identification of the positive and negative aspects of these effects and their practice relevance. 7. Way forward: Summary of findings of literature review and suggestion for practice. Discussion about the ways to minimise divorce and improvement of coping mechanisms of the children. 8. Conclusion: Summary of the work. Introduction The ratio of marriage and divorce rates has been stable at about 50 percent for the past thirty years, indicating that, during this time, for every two marriages there has been one divorce. The number of divorces peaks only two and a half years after marriage; most divorces occur within ten years. In 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report about marriage, divorce, and remarriage trends based on a nationally representative sample of women fifteen to forty-four years of age. The data indicated that, after only three years, 12 percent of marriages had ended in either separation or divorce. After five years, 20 percent of all first marriages had ended; after ten years, 33 percent; and after fifteen years, 43 percent. The risk for marital disruption is greatest in the first years of marriage and noticeably levels off after the fifth year. Thus, the risk for divorce decreases with the length of the marriage (Bramlett and Mosher, 2002). Data in 2004 indicate four out of 10 marriages end up with divorce. The question remains what are its impacts on those who suffer it. Literature, research, books, movies, songs all portray its effects on those whop suffer directly, but it is also a fact that children out of such marriages go through severe social, psychological, financial, and familial impacts based on the stage of their lives when they experience separation of their parents. Rationale and Social Significance There have been substantial changes over time in scientific and public perspectives regarding children's adjustment to divorce in the US. Decades of divorce research have created a more complex and nuanced understanding of how divorce impacts children and adolescents. The stressors and risks which divorce presents for children, the resiliency demonstrated by the majority of children, and protective factors which are associated with better adjustment following divorce are described, and distinctions drawn between painful memories and psychopathology (Jekielek, 1998). This more differentiated body of research is helpful in policy formation and for educating divorced parents about known risk factors for their children and what protective behaviors may enhance their children's longer-term adjustment. Nearly half of the children born to married parents in this country go through a divorce experience before they are eighteen, and thus this may involve children in virtually all age groups, pre-school, school age, and adolescence. These are the stages of important developments in a child's life, and the social, psychosocial, and economic changes in their lives from parental divorce impact their lives to a great degree, and literally, for them, life is no longer the same. Life stress associated with marital disruption was found to account for the majority of children's adjustment problems (Cartwright, 2003). Children from nonintact homes show poorer adjustment than children from intact homes. Siblings experience increased closeness as a result of the shared experience of going through the divorce of their parents together. The young women also report turning to each other for support as a result of the emotional unavailability of their parents during the divorce. From the point of view of children, divorce is a stressful experience because of the disruption of the home and its financial, emotional, and social costs. The adverse impact, however, can be minimized by realistic and sensitive attention to its effects on children. Although divorce alters the living arrangements of affected families, it does not end family relationships (Booth and Amato, 2001). Most teenagers and their parents adjust to divorce and later regard it as having been a constructive action; but one-third do not. In those instances the turbulence of the post-divorce phase plays a crucial role in influencing pathological reactions in affected teenagers. Divorce is common in the contemporary way of life and deserves objective study. Focus Questions This assignment is designed to derive the answers of the questions regarding the impact of parental divorce on the children in different age groups through literature on divorce research and critical review of them. These are Does divorce have effects on children of different age groups, namely preschool. school age, and adolescence What does literature say about it If these are negative how they can be avoided If these are positive, how can they be utilised in clinical practice Search Strategy Seminal literature and research literature will be searched through a keyword based search from different databases. The keywords will include, "divorce", "parental divorce", "impact of divorce", "children", "children of separated parents", "preschool", "school age", "adolescents", "impact", "social", "psychological", "psychosocial", "performance", "economic and financial", "familial", and "resiliency." The available literature will be categorized based on the groups such as "preschool", school age", and "adolescents." Literature that would show the suggestions of solutions of these impacts would also be reviewed in order to suggest practice. Review of Literature For children, even more than for their parents, divorce can be an extraordinarily difficult experience. Children see no benefit in divorce. The end of their parents' marriage is a complete loss, turning their lives upside down. Reactions vary with age, but across the board, children experience feelings of confusion and betrayal as they watch their family fall apart and feel neglected while their parents struggle with their own problems (Booth and Amato, 2001). They just wish their parents would get back together and shape up. They suffer permanent psychological and physical problems. They have trouble in school. They are "victims" of the breakup in the same way some adults are (Aughinbaugh, 2001). This issue of how much and how divorce affects children's well-being has attracted a lot of attention from researchers. The main goal of research on children of divorce has been to compare the functioning of these children with that of children in intact, two-parent families. These comparisons provide ample evidence that children from divorced families have more behavioral, emotional, health, and academic problems. The differences are not large and they are not necessarily permanent; nor are all children affected equally, but the differences are consistent across studies and statistically significant. Compared with children in intact families, children from divorced families are more likely to have conduct problems and show signs of psychological maladjustment (Amato, 2003). They have lower academic achievement, more social difficulties, and poorer self-esteem. Children with divorced parents had lower levels of well-being than children in intact families. The largest differences were in the areas of aggressive conduct and poor social adjustment, although significant differences also indicated that children from divorced families did more poorly in school achievement and psychological adjustment. Studies have shown children with divorced parents did significantly worse than children with continuously married parents in terms of academic achievement, self-esteem, popularity and peer relations, misbehavior, depression, and anxiety (Booth and Amato, 2001). Differences were noted also in physical wellbeing. Their parents rate them as being less healthy, and the children themselves report more physical symptoms, which may impact their future health; a link with diabetes has also been found out (Amato, 2003). Research has demonstrated that there are more subtle costs for children when they have to cope with their parents' divorce, costs that do not necessarily show up on standard tests of achievement, behavior, or health. These emotional costs include embarrassment, fear of abandonment, grief over loss, irrational hope of reconciliation, worry about their parents' well-being, anxiety about divided loyalties, and uncertainty about romantic relationships (Amato, 2001). In the early years after their parents' divorce, all children feel sad and almost all feel angry, and these feelings do not disappear easily. These feelings will express differently in different stages of development. In one study of college students, researchers found that those who had experienced their parents' divorce reported distressing feelings, beliefs, and experiences. These were resilient young people and the divorce had occurred years earlier, but still they harbored painful feelings. They were functioning well enough to be attending college, and their scores on standardized measures of depression and anxiety were not elevated, but they struggled with inner fears, worries, and regrets (Alpert-Gillis, Pedro-Carroll, and Cowen, 1989). Summary of Findings Findings from literature will be critically reviewed based on methodological rigors, and then the findings will be classified according to age group. It is highly likely that certain gap areas of research may be found out, and a future research may be designed based on this. More than likely, these studies would also suggest some intervention measures at least for these children, and these measures can provide a guideline for practice. Conclusion The summary of the whole work and its salient points will be presented. It is clear from this plethora of studies that divorce has some negative emotional, social, physical, and cognitive effects on some children. In this chapter we discuss these negative effects for children at different ages. It is often assumed that divorce will not have a strong effect on babies who have not yet developed an emotional attachment to the parent they will be losing. Infants are vulnerable because they are helpless; they survive and thrive at the whim of the environment. Infants may have a strong reaction to losing their father. Children who are a little older are likely to find divorce bewildering. These preschool-age children do not understand what is going on. School-age children (six- to eleven-year-olds) understand better what the words "separation" and "divorce" mean, but they may be just as shocked and just as worried as younger children. Understanding does not relieve their pain or anxiety. They still long for their intact family and yearn for their lost parents. With adolescence comes greater awareness of the parents' problems and greater understanding of the separation, but not necessarily less sorrow, sadness, or fear at the end of their parents' marriage. Sadness, shock, and disbelief were the most common feelings expressed at the time of the divorce in another study of young adolescents; they wanted their parents to get back together and were angry at one parent, but they were less likely to blame themselves for the separation and divorce than younger children. References Alpert-Gillis, L. J., Pedro-Carroll, J. A., and Cowen, E. L. (1989). The Children of Divorce Intervention Program: Development, implementation, and evaluation of a program for young urban children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 57, 583-589. Amato, P. R. (2001). Children of divorce in the 1990s: An update of the Amato and Keith meta-analysis. Journal of Family Psychology, 15, 355-370. Amato, P. R. (2003). Reconciling divergent perspectives: Judith Wallerstein, quantitative family research, and children of divorce. Family Relations, 52, 332-339. Aughinbaugh, A. (2001). Signals of child achievement as determinants of child support. American Economic Review, 91, 140-144. Booth, A., and Amato, P. R. (2001). Parental predivorce relations and offspring postdivorce well-being. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63, 197-212. Bramlett, M. D., and Mosher, W. D. (2002). Cohabitation, marriage, divorce and remarriage in the United States. National Center for Health Statistics Vital ealth Statistics, 23(22). Cartwright, C. (2003). Therapists' perceptions of bioparent-child relationships in stepfamilies: What hurts What helps Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 38 (3 -4), 147-166. Jekielek, S. M. (1998). Parental conflict, marital disruption and children's emotional well-being Social Forces, 76, 905-936. Read More