Divorce's Impact on Preschool, School Age, and Adolescent Children - Outline - Assignment Example

Download file to see previous pages Lately, North America has witnessed the escalation in divorce cases. Researchers conducted on effects of such divorces have proved that divorce has negative impacts on the general health of children. The magnitude or severity of the impacts of divorce on children usually varies with age of the individual affected children. This is true considering the variation in emotional and stress management skills across the different ages as children grow. Even though familiar with societies, divorces are reducible and avoidable through effective and timely counselling of the threatened families. In the same manner, it is possible to reduce effects and severity of divorce on children and the affected partners to ensure healthy and peaceful continuity.
Divorce affects preschoolers, school age and adolescent students in different ways. Preschoolers are children between 2 and 6 years old. With consideration of Cognitive Development Theory, children with the age bracket are usually in the preoperational stage where they explore and learn many things within the environment (Carr, 2000). Children in this stage require significant attachment to the parents to provide security and protection as they explore new things. Much of the experienced gained at this stage of development tend to stick and last longer in the brain of the child. In that line, negative experiences as divorce or even the events preceding divorce are likely to hurt the psychological development of a child. A child who sees the parents fighting every day before a divorce is likely to suffer from sadness and somberness.
Separation of parents may also affect the attachment relationship that a child might have developed with one of the parents. For instance, a male preschooler child may have a strong attachment to the father than mother. In the case of separation, court or the couple decide that the child is in custody of the mother to receive better care.   ...Download file to see next pagesRead More