Unfortunately divorce has become a common occurrence in children’s lives, both for young children and young adolescents. According to the American Psychological Association, the statistic of divorce in the United State has reached forty to fifty percent levels. Approximately half of the forty to fifty percent of divorced couples in the United States affect children under the age of eighteen.
Although, it is both psychological and painful for all children experiencing divorce of their parents, the effect is different between young children and young adolescents. You cannot compare which level of age group is affected more from the parents divorce because as a young child you are very dependent upon both parents to be there for security and support. The effect of a young adolescent is one of the more independent due to the fact that the young adolescent who is now a teenager becomes more distant from both parents and starts to develop a social life with friends. (Carl Pickhardt, 2011)The young adolescent feels since the parents were selfish in their divorce that they can now become selfish themselves.
Another interesting statistic is the affect on the gender of a child affected by divorce. Male children are affected more by the separation in terms of cognitive performance, where female children are affected more by the separation, which leads to having a very negative behavior towards their mother (Clarke – Stewart et all, 2000). There is also a difference of psychological and social behavior between children of divorced families and intact families. The percentage of children that have these issues is between twenty and twenty five percent as compared to ten percent of children having social behavior from intact families (Kelly and Emory, 2003). Another glaring statistic How Divorce Affects Children3 is that children from broken families are two to three times more likely to drop out of school then children of intact families (Kelly and Emory 2003).
Some statistics from second marriage families are also quite interesting as children in these situations are twice as likely to have physiological, behavioral, social, and academic problems then children from non divorced families. When these children from divorced families begin there own intimate relationships they encounter more problems then children from non-broken families. Children from divorced parents tend to begin relationships at an earlier age then marry earlier than children of non-divorced parents (Kelly and Emory, 2003). The children that marry earlier become dissatisfied earlier and end up more likely divorcing. This literally compounds the problem of the divorce rates.Also, what is quite interesting is that children from divorced parents have an attitude if you don’t marry you cant divorce which also presents another issue in this country.
A disturbing statistic from Mckenly Irving (2012) indicates that half of all American children will witness a break up with their parents’ marriage. Since severe changes in there routines of these children will cause much stress and mental suffering. These problems can interfere with the learning process of all these children from broken families. Some school-aged children experience mood changes, depression, and energy levels which intern affects the devolvement through education (Douglass, 2006). Adolescent children can also experience negative emotions that could include anger, fear, loneliness, and guilt.
They will mostly feel abandoned by there parents and some will run away from the household and others have the pressure of trying to grow up too How Divorce Affects Children 4 quickly.This causes children and young adolescents to not grow and mature in a normal cycle of life. Some studies done by Cocoran (1997) suggest that boys had a greater social and academic problems then girls from the broken families. Boys will engage in physically confrontations with friends and classmates.On the other hand, girls worry about how there families will be taken care of including their mom.
Many of the worries these young adolescent girls experience leads to depression and anxiety. Other attributable results for children of divorced parents are sleeplessness, restlessness, and compulsive eating. (Douglass, 2006) All of these are intertwined and feed off each other.Children blame the father seventy five to eighty percent of the time for being the cause of the divorce (Douglass, 2006). Even though the statistic children still have anxiety and concerns for the father if they do not see him for more than a week (Douglass, 2006)All the statistics breaking down the different impact on children of any age or sex is still debilitating.
There is always on going studies and analyzations on the effects of children from divorced families, which usually indicates many negative impacts. Since divorce is on the rise there will be continues studies and statistics to analyze why and how children are affected.
