The Effects of Divorce on Children “Nearly half of the children born to married parents in this country go through a divorce experience before they are 18—about one million children each year.” (Clarke-Stewart and Brentano 106). This statistic may come as a shock to most Americans. Even though divorce is increasingly common and acceptable in US culture, many people do not consider the large amount of children impacted by the loss of traditional family structures. With increased divorce in the USA, some children are not receiving a quality upbringing due to overly dependent parents,_ lack of guidance, and the loss of ties to close family. “It is overburdening that seriously inhibits a child’s freedom to separate normally and to lead a healthy adolescence.” (Wallerstein, Lewis, and Blakeslee 9).
Children today do not have to deal with as much stress. I know that schools and teachers today are expecting a lot more out of kids which does cause pressure. During the depression children were expected to take care of their siblings and household chores. They were exposed to more parental conflict and unhappiness then many children today. This caused them to develop emotional difficulties and poor attitudes toward school and work.
First, the distraction caused by changes in the family may prevent a child from completing assignments. In addition, meditation about the divorce could cause lapses in a child's concentration in the classroom. Children are also affected by divorce in other ways. Some children may blame themselves for their parents' divorce, and subsequently harbor unrealistic expectations that they can bring their parents back together again. This prevents them from accepting
Homeschooling also offers parents the opportunity to spend more time focusing on subjects they feel their child needs improvement on. Not only are they able to put more importance on certain subjects, but it also opens windows for exposure to a variety of activities that public education may not provide. In adolescence children seem to be more susceptible to peer pressure. This pressure can often lead to not only drug use and violence, but sexual activity as well. With high teen pregnancy rates, the lack of social exposure with homeschooling appeals to concerned parents.
Boarding schools are seen by most of the parents as the gateway to success, a privilege that not many could afford for their children. It is a major transition in a child’s life, which is instrumented by the parents with the express desire of ensuring their child’s bright future. This transition from the family life to a boarding school life is sometimes not a smooth process and it could inflict a set of psychological scars on a child’s personality and, on other occasions, it could enhance the child’s potential for success. Joy Sceverien, in his essay “Boarding School: The Trauma of a ‘privileged child’ identifies the problem of ‘double bind’ in which the child is forced to inculcate the parental view regarding the boarding schools, which eventually leads to other psychological damages. On the other hand, Nick Duffel in his ‘Surviving the Privilege of Boarding School’ points out how this transition could force the child into reinventing himself.
Most kids do not want their parents to divorce. A bad marriage can become worse when kids are involved, especially during a divorce. Kids are always the people in the middle watching and listening even from a distance. The children in a bad divorce case are asked to choose a side if not one would be chosen for them. Some kids feel betrayed by their separated parents.
Keywords: divorce, children, impact, negativity, spirituality, childhood, development “Approximately half of all American youth will experience parental divorce at some point during their childhood” (Anthony 2014). These numbers can seem alarming given there are many negative impacts on the children involved with divorce. Findings in research conducted by the Barna Group consisting of 3792 adults who have been divorced was that “there no longer seems to be much of a stigma attached to divorce; it is now seen as an unavoidable rite of passage." (Barna Group 2009). The proposal that divorce is an issue of only non-believers is no longer a received idea.
Children usually are not involved in the discussion of divorce by the parents. Between divorcing parents there are some effects of the children that need to be discussed including how to keep good communication between parents after the separation, transportation of the children, deciding parenting time, how to handle situations where the children might try and turn each parent against the other, how the discipline of the children will be handled and the emotional instability that divorce brings. It is not uncommon in divorced families for the parents to try to communicate to one another through the children. Children are told “tell your Mom this” or “tell your Dad that.” The parents do not realize that poor communication and using the children to speak for them often causes the child to be afraid to express any feelings at all. Children need to be able to communicate and express their feelings and the parents need to have an open line of communication with each other for their children, or they can expect emotional problems to arise such as depression or anger.
Despite opposing ideas that suggest parents don’t have the qualifications or resources to successfully educate their children and are pursuing home education only to avoid opposing values, research show the positive social, emotional, and psychological development of homeschoolers; there are, in fact, many public school parents that would benefit greatly by embracing some of the characteristics of homeschooling that create such a positive learning atmosphere. People oppose homeschooling for a number of reasons. The two primary points of concern are children’s necessary resources and the parents’ alleged lack of teaching qualifications. One homeschooling article states that homeschooling short-changes students by leaving them without trained teachers, proper resources, a comprehensive education, and exposure to more than a single intellectual or ethical point of view (Lee & Maureen, 2011). Another suggests that because public schools are regulated, they are also obligated to educate children who fall behind, and parents who homeschool have no such accountability (Rawls, 2012).
In this paper we will examine the effects of divorce and the implications of staying in an unhealthy marriage. In today’s society approximately half of children in the United States are being raised in a single parent home thus putting the sanctity of marriage into question. (Warshak, 2010) Some of these families are a product of divorce while others are a forced situation because of an absent parent due to other circumstances. Undeniably children have a right to parental support from two parents both emotionally and financially. Children who are raised in a divorced family environment have an increased need for this support however they have fewer resources to obtain it.