Literature Review on the topic: Divorce and Children - Research Paper Example

 Divorce and Children Review of Related Literature on the Impact of Parental Divorce on Children Divorce and remarriage have radically transformed the family structure in the United States over the years. Researchers have focused much on the temporary impact of parental divorce on the relationship between parent and child, but they have failed to pay greater attention to the enduring consequences. This paper reviews several studies on the impact of parental divorce on children. Divorce is a major life event that changes the lives of those involved. It is accompanied by various risks, such as the greater possibility of divorce in the future relationships of children of divorced parents. A number of theories explain such intergenerational aspect of divorce. The study of Crowell and colleagues (2009) corroborate the theory that one way by which divorce vulnerability is passed on is through the offspring’s experience and perception of intimate relationships. Even though parental divorce was indirectly associated with the offspring’s divorce in the first few years of marriage, it was related to a heightened possibility of insecurity in the offspring’s adult attachment. Earlier studies have reported that insecurity in adult attachment is related to higher functional deficiency in adult attachment, such as manifesting more hostile attitudes, more adverse sentiments or perceptions of relationships, and weaker behavior foundation (Crowell et al., 2009). In fact, findings reveal that the divorced offspring engages in more serious conflict. Crowell and colleagues (2009) also discovered gender disparities that are in line with earlier findings. Females seem to be more responsive to or affected by parental divorce than males. However, the study has a number of limitations. First, it was a study of the development or evolution of attachment relationship in young couples, and hence the researchers did not monitor these young couples past these first few years of marriage to recognize how their relationships grew. Nevertheless, this study sets the stage for the investigation of the role of attachment mechanism in why offspring of divorced parents is of higher vulnerability to divorce themselves later in their lives. The study of Burt and colleagues (2008) reports that the relationship between parental divorce and deviance was found in divorces that had taken place during adolescence and was not found in divorces that occurred before the birth of the adolescent, outcomes that were found in biological children and adopted adolescents. These findings support environmental influence on this relationship and disprove a passive gene-environment correlation. Furthermore, the environment effect of divorce on deviant behavior seems to be weakened by remarriages. These findings hence positively verify environmental effect, strongly indicating that it is the real or actual exposure to parental divorce, and not genetic factors, which creates the relationship between divorce and deviant behavior among adolescents. However, according to the study, the correlation between recent divorce and deviant behavior among adolescents is quite insignificant, suggesting that divorce is not much of a reason for adolescent delinquency. Although small, this level of influence substantiates the findings of earlier studies. Moreover, even though divorce is a significant determinant of child and adolescent deviant behavior, it should be mentioned that it could only indirectly cause offspring delinquency. For instance, the researchers discovered initial findings that remarriage weakens the influence of divorce on deviant behavior. Another probability is that marital problems partly influence the relationship between divorce and offspring misbehavior. In essence, the findings of the study suggest that divorce was related to adolescent misbehavior through common environmental processes, and, more significantly, that parental divorce, and perhaps remarriage, is related to adolescent misbehavior through common environmental processes. These findings substantiate the causal correlation between divorce and delinquent behavior. In the same way, the objective of the study of Oldehinkel and colleagues (2008) was to verify the theory of evolving gender disparities in the impact of parental divorce on depression during puberty, specifically 10 to 15 years of age in a population of Dutch teenagers. The researchers discovered that parental divorce was more directly related to depression in mid-adolescent girls than boys. Even though the impact of parent divorce was almost the same for both genders at age 10, gender-based variations rose during puberty. The relationship between divorce and the depression in boys was not affected by age, but the girls’ sensitivity to depression caused by parental divorce increased as they age. The findings of the study corroborate earlier findings indicating that the impact of traumatic experiences on depressive symptoms is more severe among teenage girls than among prepubescent boys or girls. The discovery that gender-based variations in the impact of divorce became noticeable only during adolescence emphasizes the idea that the sociocultural and biological transformations related to this stage of life have an effect on girls in a different way than on boys. The findings of the study also reveal that the increasing prevalence of depression in teenage girls is somewhat caused by an increased sensitivity to relational episodes, like parental divorce. However, the study failed to take into consideration clinical analysis. In the first few years of adolescence, the incidence of DSM-IV depression is moderate, but subclinical depression, which is identified in a large number of the teenagers, is highly predictive of later occurrences of major depressive symptoms (Oldehinkel et al., 2008). Lansford and colleagues (2006) reported that the exposure to divorce is associated with future academic performance and behavioral patterns of children, but such impact shows a discrepancy in terms of when the divorce happened. The findings of the study confirm the general hypothesis that parent divorce in preadolescence is associated with more negative impact on the ability to internalize and externalize than is divorce later in life, while later divorce is associated with more negative impact on academic performance. The findings are the same as those reported in other studies indicating that divorce and the early transition stage that ensues could be especially problematic for young children. Young children could be less able to rationally understand the reasons and effects of divorce, could be more fearful of neglect or abandonment, could be more at risk of blaming themselves, and could be less capable of effectively using external resources. Contrary to difficulties of internalizing and externalizing, it seems that parental divorce is more directly associated with the academic performance of children when children are exposed to a later divorce. This could be caused by exposure to family conflict and disorder overlapping with a period when academic rules become more and more rigid as children age. The growing demands that follow these episodes could be too much for the child. Family experts argue that changes in the behavior of the parents could result in behavioral patterns in children that significantly contribute to low grades (Lansford et al., 2006). This may explain the deterioration in academic performance for children who were exposed to parental divorce at a later age. These findings show that the point in time of parental divorce is very important to explore and emphasize the significance of evaluating the developmental paths, as well as stages both prior the divorce and period after the divorce, of children exposed to this serious life episode. Divorce, remarriage, and more family structure changes put some adolescents at risk of detrimental effects. The findings of the study of Martinez and Forgatch (2002) verified the reports of Capaldi and Patterson (1991 as cited in Martinez & Forgatch, 2002, 114): The accumulation of family structure transitions was associated with more adverse child outcomes. Extending these findings, we provided evidence that family structure transitions were related to poorer adjustment for boys in three distinct domains of functioning: academic functioning, acting out, and emotional adjustment. The results of the study of Martinez and Forgatch (2002) showed that the correlation between family transition and the ability of boys to adjust works through parenting success. Further transitions were related to declines in parenting success, which was related to weaker child adjustment. These findings show that while divorce is a known determinant of weakened child performance and parenting, investigating the number of family structure transitions could be a more effective way of identifying those in this group who are at higher vulnerability and who could be in greater need of rehabilitative or preventive programs. Children react in their own unique way to transitions in family structure. Some may rebel, some may detach themselves, and others may effectively deal with the transitions. Other major factors that accompany transitions and could determine the adjustment performance of parents and children involve physical wellbeing, family conflict, rebellious personality traits, parental emotional coping mechanism, and social support networks. The findings of Martinez and Forgatch (2002) are in line with several earlier studies on family structure transitions. Young males in families that undergo several transitions in family structure are vulnerable to detrimental effects. Several interesting results have been reported that are in line with other studies. With regard to the families in the study of Pett and colleagues (1999), the findings revealed that divorce is more probably indirectly instead of directly correlated with children’s adjustment performance through its impact on maternal pressure and the kind of interaction that takes place between mothers and their children. These results are similar to other findings and show that family process, strain, and structure all together are major factors that contribute to child performance. Fascinatingly, the same outcome was reached by a research on the impact of family process and structure on teenage misbehavior and a study on the impact of maternal strain on the delinquent behavior of preadolescent boys. The findings of Pett and colleagues (1999) substantiate the idea that divorce is only one of the many strains that divorced mothers and their children go through and have capably adverse impact on the children’s lives. Basically speaking, struggling, unhappy, stressed, and distraught divorced mothers could be excessively concerned about more urgent concerns like finances and their own ability to cope with the everyday needs of a young child. This negligence or lack of attention to the needs of their children could lead to less effective parenting that afterward rouse heightened aggression and adverse relationship between mother and child. According to Patterson and Forgatch (1990), this phenomenon could be a vicious cycle (as cited in Pett et al., 1999, 161): As maternal irritable behaviors continue over time, these behaviors provoke continued irritable exchanges with children, increased children’s aggressiveness, and, consequently, higher levels of maternal strain. In essence, children’s adjustment is a multifaceted concept that should be treated in both a cultural and developmental framework. The study of Fabricius and Luecken (2007) discovered that the greater amount of time children spend with their fathers after divorce, the more favorable and stronger their relationship was with their fathers. Moreover, the greater parental problems children witnessed and experienced, the poorer their relationship was with their fathers. Unstable relationship between father and child and greater distress were also related to weaker observed physical wellbeing as young adults. According to Fabricius and Luecken (2007), a continuous and major failure of divorce research is the insufficient number of studies that examine both the extent of parental conflict and the amount of time children spend with their divorced father. Nevertheless, a key finding of the study was that the impact of time with parent conflict and father-child relationship were distinct or separate from each other. Several researchers have tested the hypothesis that parental divorce will negatively affect the relationship of the children with their parents, pushing adult children to minimally support their weak or ill divorced parents. Lin (2008) tried to verify this hypothesis. The result reveals that after the aspects of children and parents are considered, the timing of the divorce and remarriage of the mother does not influence the support tendency of adult children. The result also shows that even though divorce and remarriage could have enduring impact on the relationships between parent and child, adult children are still eager to support their mothers if needed. The opposite is found in the case of father-child relationship after divorce; children of divorced fathers are less likely to support their father in times of need. The insecurity of parenting during the period of post-divorce and remarriage and the considerable effect of the unexpected changes on the development of children surface as the most important, highly disquieting suggestions of the study of Wallerstein and Lewis (2007). These researchers questioned the convenient dominant belief that the ability of a parent to understand their children and their experiences is a quite constant trait, when attained. Instead, parenting appears to be deeply strained, and even possibly broken, by seriously chaotic and negative life episodes, like divorce. Divorce heightens the conflict between the passionate need of divorcing parents to build a new life and their desire to sustain the nurturing environment so that their children can be barely affected. Wallerstein and Lewis (2007) argue that attachment theory and psychoanalytic theory have examined the different patterns and directions of the relationship between parent and child without adequate consideration of the evolving psychological context caused by the marital conflict or divorce and its consequences, without adequate examination of the intermingling external and internal factors that reinforce or endanger psychological strength, and without concern for inner images, which involve the heightened desire and hopes of the divorcing parents for a new relationship. Wallerstein and Lewis (2007) also demonstrated that the newly formed relationship has the ability to reconstruct the relationship between the children and their biological parent. After divorce, the strong connection that reinforces the individual and joint parenting of the children is broken. Ultimately, what arises visibly in this study is the role of the personal needs and sensitivity of the child in building relationships with the remarried parents. For some smart, good-looking, or capable children, this was a fulfilling task wherein they succeeded; for others, particularly those needing individual parental nurturing or social support networks, it was obviously overwhelming. The study of Warner and colleagues (2009) showed the importance of spirituality for the understanding of and reaction to a parental divorce during adolescence and revealed that these spiritual experiences are connected to their coping mechanism during the initial years of adulthood. Particularly, the further young adults remembered assessing the divorce of their parents when it took place as a sacred failure and went through spiritual difficulties ove the divorce, the further they admitted greater extent of prevailing psychological strain, such as depression, and agonizing thoughts and sentiments about the divorce. Surprisingly, those who remembered turning to resilient spiritual coping mechanism to cope with the divorce also admitted that they experienced increased anxiety and anguish. But in contrast, resilient spiritual coping mechanisms were also associated with a more constructive image of one’s personal development as a consequence of the divorce. The findings of Warner and colleagues (2009) are vital because no studies thus far have investigated how the spiritual convictions of adolescents about or reactions to parental divorce influence their spiritual or psychological coping. The study presents a preliminary explanation of how individuals assess and deal with parental divorce using a spiritual approach. Individuals who grew up in families wherein faith is an important domain of family life could be highly at risk when they experience parental divorce as they try to understand of the separation and desecration of a marriage that was previously viewed as sacred. Conclusions The studies reviewed here verify that parental divorce adversely affects children, psychologically, emotionally, and physically. Parental divorce raises negative feelings and thoughts in children, which could affect their future close relationships and attachment. Divorce does not only disrupt the family structure, it also damages the relationship between parent and child permanently. Moreover, the impact of parental divorce on children is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. References Burt, S. et al. (2008). Parental Divorce and Adolescent Delinquency: Ruling Out the Impact of Common Genes. Developmental Psychology, 44(6), 1668-1677. Crowell, J. et al. (2009). Parental divorce and adult children’s attachment representations and marital status. Attachment and Human Development, 11(1), 87-101. Fabricius, W. & Luecken, L. (2007). Postdivorce Living Arrangements, Parent Conflict, and Long-Term Physical Health Correlates for Children of Divorce. Arizona State University Journal of Family Psychology, 21(2), 195-205. Lansford, J. et al. (2006). Trajectories of Internalizing, Externalizing, and Grades for Children who Have and Have Not Experience Their Parents’ Divorce. Journal of Family Psychology, 20(2), 292-301. Lin, I. (2008). Consequences of Parental Divorce for Adult Children’s Support of their Frail Parents. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70(1), 113+ Martinez, C. & Forgatch, M. (2002). Adjusting to Change: Linking Family Structure Transitions with Parenting and Boys’ Adjustment. Journal of Family Psychology, 16(2), 107-117. Oldehinkel, A. et al. (2008). Parental Divorce and Offspring Depressive Symptoms: Dutch Developmental Trends During Early Adolescence. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70, 284-293. Pett, M. (1999). Paths of Influence of Divorce on Preschool Children’s Psychosocial Adjustment. Journal of Family Psychology, 13(2), 145-164. Wallerstein, J. & Lewis, J. (2007). Sibling Outcomes and Disparate Parenting and Step-parenting After Divorce. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 24(3), 445-458. Warner, H. et al. (2009). When Parents Break Sacred Vows: The Role of Spiritual Appraisals, Coping and Struggles in Young Adults’ Adjustment to Parental Divorce Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. American Psychological Association, 1(4), 233-248. Read More