The Effects of Divorce on Children

Thesis Statement

Children coming from divorced families face significant challenges during their school years, and society should embrace family therapy as an efficient early intervention system for parents and children alike that will provide a support system and result in diminishing any damage that the divorce might have caused.

I. Introduction: The Divorce Dilemma

One of the major social changes to characterize the last three decades of the twentieth century was the marked increase in the divorce rate worldwide. In the United States, about half of all marriages end in divorce, and in Great Britain the ratio of marriages that end in divorce is four out of ten (Sillars, 13). The rising number of divorces has become a new “cultural universal,” and social scientists examining the impact of family breakdown on the welfare of women and children conduct their research on the presumption that this emerging “divorce culture” is here to stay.

Much research effort has focused on the differences between children in divorced and married families, leading many to conclude that children from divorced families are behind children from married families on psychosocial developmental tasks (Rogers, 59). However, according to a careful review of the divorce research done in the 1990s, those differences are statistically small and dependent on how the studies were done.

Conduct problems have been the most frequently examined effect of divorce on children. Many existing studies illustrate that children, especially boys, from divorced families show more aggression, disobedience, demandingness, and lack of self-control than children from married families do (Orbuch, 79). In fact, children from divorced families are overrepresented among delinquents. However, many researchers argue that those deviant behaviors are due to decreased parental supervision following divorce rather than due to divorce per se. In addition, these findings could reflect preexisting differences in the children prior to their parents' divorce, or could be in reaction to factors such as parental conflict, which may have been present before the divorce (Lewis, 19).

Research is less consistent on internalizing problems of children from divorced families. Although there are some studies showing that children from divorced families are more depressed and have lower self-esteem than children from married families, many other studies find no differences (Lamb, 41). In addition, when differences do exist, they decrease over time.

II. Challenges in School

Every divorce is unique, and no two people will experience it exactly the same way. Nevertheless, there are clearly definable stages in the decision and recovery process that are similar to stages of grieving other losses (Lamb, 11). Divorce, even when it is wanted and planned, represents a loss of previously held hopes, dreams, and wishes for the future, as well as concrete losses such as financial stability and a familiar living situation. At first, as people are deciding whether or not to divorce, they typically experience intense ambivalence and uncertainty. The pain of a troubled marriage is weighed against the pain of ending it. People question their own ability to cope and wonder what impact a divorce will have on ...