Divorce

One of the most difficult transitional periods in a child's life is to go through the experience of their parents divorcing each other. While the effects of divorce may be different on children according to their stage of development, age, and gender, research has shown that despite reconciliation efforts via family counseling, most children suffer during and after the process. When their parents divorce, children feel as if their stability, their security, and their world are all falling apart.

The Effects of Divorce on Children's Feelings

Children can react in various ways with an impending divorce. Some children can become very sad, showing symptoms of depression and even be unable to sleep. Their levels of anxiety become very high as they experience feelings of being rejected or abandoned by one parent and sometimes even both. Some situations of divorce can even end up making children feel extremely lonely, which is usually because one parent may be absent for a long time.

Regardless of what the situation may be, a divorce usually affects children in some way or the other. While some children may be scarred psychologically on a long-term basis, others may feel the emotional pangs for a short period of time, and then learn to cope with it, and perhaps even get over it. Of course, a lot depends on how well the situation is handled by the parents.

Some of the main effects of divorce on children's feelings are:
• Children feel that they are not loved anymore by their parents and experience feelings of desertion and desolation.
• Once they understand that they cannot get their parents back together, they experience feelings of helplessness and powerlessness.
• Even though they may not display signs of anger, many of them do feel angry.
• Often, they feel that it is their fault, believing that it is because of something they said or did that has resulted in a parent leaving.
• Divorce is not only a loss in the parents' lives, but also in the children's. Hence, they experience feelings of grief, which is akin to the mourning of death.
• They also feel guilty about the loyalty conflicts they experience.

The Behavioral Aspects of the Effects of Divorce on Children

Children can display a wide range of behavioral changes due to experiencing the traumatic effects of divorce, from difficulty in sleeping to highly harmful behavior like violence, drug abuse, and sometimes even suicide.

Some other behavior can include regressive behavioral patterns like using comfort items, displaying fears, and bed-wetting, as well as repetitive physical behavior, nervous habits, and problems in school.

They can become whiny and clingy and require greater attention and understanding of their behavior and moods. This is the period when they require greater emotional nurturance.

Many children feel that they must take care of their divorced parent. One of the widespread behavioral characteristics displayed by children of divorced parents is to take on the care of emotionally disturbed parents.

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/effect-of-divorce-on-children.html

EFFECTS OF DIVORCE ON CHILDREN

Infants
Although infants may not understand the exact conflict, they do react to the difference in their parent’s mood and energy change. Some effects an infant may have include a loss of appetite and an increase in spit up.

Pre-School Children
Children this age range from 3–5 years old and may often mistake the divorce as their own fault. At this age, children may feel as though they are alone and fear the thought of abandonment. From a child’s perspective, the unimaginable has happened – a parent is no longer at home. Children may be deeply afraid that the other parent is going to “disappear” too and leave them alone in the world. Children of divorce may feel lonely. They may miss the intimacy, comfort and particular parenting skills of the absent parent. Some of the effects for children at this age may include baby-like behavior such as old toys, a baby blanket, or even wetting the bed. They also may become depressed, uncooperative, or angry.

School-aged Children
Children at this age have more of a difficult time adjusting to the parental divorce than younger or older children. At this age, children are able to understand the pain they feel due to the separation of their parents’ but are too young to control how they respond to the pain. Children of divorce may feel rejected and unloved by the parent who has left. Many times children experience feelings of anger, grief, and embarrassment. In order to deal with the situation and cope, it is important that children become involved in activities with other kids. It is very common for children this age to hope that parents will eventually get back together.

Adolescents
Teens experience some of the same feelings as school-aged children. They feel anger, fear, depression, loneliness, and guilt. They may believe that the divorce is their fault, caused by something they said or did, or just the way they are, and feel a deep sense of guilt and shame. Even difficult teens may be afraid that their behavior has contributed to the divorce and made it easier for a parent to leave. Some teens feel as though they must take on new responsibilities such as new chores and taking care of siblings. Teens may also doubt his or her ability to get married or stay married.

http://www.dealwithdivorce.com/effects-divorce/emotional-effects-divorce-children/30/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce Introduction

Divorce is defined as the legal termination of a marriage, but in its real sense there is a lot more to it than just the end of a relationship. Nowadays many marriages end in divorce, and surprisingly most of them end at their early stages. This is an important study in the sociological research today as along with divorce rates going up, people’s level of tension and hesitation about marriage is also increasing. Nowadays the society accepts divorce very easily and even suggests it as a solution to the trivial problems faced in a husband-wife relationship. Therefore marriages and family life are at risk. If the numbers of divorces keep on rising in this pattern, marriages might as well become extinct. To add to the existing problem, various law firms and websites provoke divorce through various methods such as advertising the benefits of divorce or by offering customized divorce forms online. The soaring divorces are not just questioning the importance of relationships and ties but they are also creating severe after effects in the life of the divorcees. There are harsh emotional, medical, financial and psychological implications of divorce.

In the world today, there are a lot of people wanting to marry the first person they fall in love with. However, many of married couples realized that this kind of marriage is not what they want, so they turn to divorce as an answer. Divorce is always painful. Unfortunately, these days about 50% of the marriages end in divorce. The reasons are very different, but most of the divorced people just cannot get along with each other. Instead of seeking for the solutions to their problems, they choose the easiest way out – to stop their marriage. Even though there are many ways to fix the problems that occur in a marriage, but sometimes, nobody wants to use them. It is certain that the causes of divorce varies from couple to couple, yet most people believed that cheating, communication, and finances are the most three common causes of divorce.

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=4386&cn=42
http://www.scribd.com/doc/44690945/Reseach-Paper-on-Divorce