Question

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Worksheet: Effects of Divorce

Assignment Overview

For this assignment, you will conduct research on divorce and the effects it can have on a child’s development.

This assignment is intended for you to analyze the effects of divorce and the basic, anticipated biological, psychological, sociocultural, and cognitive responses of individuals from early childhood through late adulthood.

Assignment Details:

Perform the following tasks:

• Complete the reading assignment and the interactive lesson before attempting this assignment.
• Complete the following:
  • Using your text as a resource, write an essay (approximately 100 to 150 words in length) in the space provided in the Assignment Worksheet section on the next page responding to the following:
    • How does the experience of divorce relate to the child’s age at the time of divorce? How would a divorce affect the child differently, depending on the age of the child?
    • How does the age of the parents affect this experience?

Answer 1

According to Terry, who was 3 when her parents separated, ''The worst age for divorceis between 6 and 10; the best is between 1 and 2. '' The younger children do not feel responsible for their parents' divorce and are consciously aware of the advantage of being younger when it happened.

In addition to revealing these difficult emotions, research also has shown thatnegative short-term consequences for childrenafter divorce include decreased academic achievement, poor psychological adjustment, social and emotional adjustment, and negativeself concept.

Effects of Divorce on Children's Behavior

Children of divorced or separated parents exhibit increased behavioral problems, and the marital conflict that accompanies parents’ divorce places the child’s social competence at risk. Even in intact families that have low to medium levels of conflict, children still have “fewer behavior problems than those in the high-conflict, disrupted families.Another study suggests that parental conflict affects the outcomes of children’s behavior problems, regardless of parents’ marital status, and sometimes “there is no statistical difference in the level of behavior problems observed for children whose parents separated or divorced and for children whose parents remained together.”Overall, young adults are best off when raised by two continuously married parents with a low-conflict relationship.

During a divorce, conflict between parents is often accompanied by less affection, less responsiveness, and more inclination to punish their children, which leaves their children feeling emotionally insecure. These children are more likely to perceive their social milieu as unpredictable and uncontrollable.Children who engage in fighting and stealing at school are far more likely to come from broken homes than are well-behaved children. Children of divorced families are more than twice as likely to drop out of high school than children from intact families.Other studies have confirmed that children of divorced parents exhibit more behavioral problems than do children from intact families. Boys whose parents divorced while they were in elementary school tend to develop problems in the years following their parents’ separation. While problem behavior increases immediately following the divorce among boys whose parents divorced while they were in middle school, their problem behavior steadily decreases in the year after the divorce.

1. Behavior at School

Divorce and separation correlate positively with diminished school achievement and performance. Children from intact families have fewer behavioral problems in school. For example, first-grade children born to married mothers are less likely to exhibit disruptive behavior, such as disobeying a teacher or behaving aggressively towards peers, than children born to cohabiting or single mothers.

2. Ability to Handle Conflict

Divorce diminishes children’s capacity to handle conflict. The difference between marriages that remain intact and those that end in divorce lies primarily in the couple’s ability to handle marital conflict and move towards agreement. Parental modeling in divorce diminishes many children’s capacity for stable marriage later in life, though some children may react by doubling their efforts to ensure stability.

For instance, compared to students from intact families, college students from divorced families use violence more frequently to resolve conflict and are more likely to be aggressive and physically violent with their friends, male or female.Parental divorce during adolescence frequently leads to more violent partnerships in adolescence and adulthood.

3. Sexual Practice. -. When parents divorce, their children’s approval of premarital sex, cohabitation, and divorce tends to rise dramatically, while their endorsement of marriage and childbearing falls.They are also more likely to believe that marriage is not important prior to having children and to have a child out of wedlock. This holds true even after controlling for socioeconomic status.

4. Crime - Children in intact families have lower rates of delinquency than children in non-intact families.Robert Sampson (then professor of sociology at the University of Chicago) repotrd In these communities, he found that lower divorce rates indicated higher formal and informal social controls (such as the supervision of children) and lower crime rate.

5. SUICIDE - Child suicide is often triggered by thoughts that his divorced parents reject him or have lost interest in him.The fact that the suicide rate has risen along with the divorce rate is no coincidence.One study reported that risk of a suicide attempt was higher in divorced families, though the association was eliminated after controlling for adverse experiences

6 DRUGS AND ALCOHOL -Parental divorce (as previously stated) predicts externalizing behavior, such as tobacco use, alcohol consumption and binge drinking, and marijuana use. Parental divorce or separation also predicts increased adolescent use of other illegal drugs. The negative effects of divorce on adolescent substance use are not temporary, and tend to persist over time.