Researchers of divorce have found statistics from the mid-1960s to the early
1980s that showed the peak rate of divorce in the United States was 5.3
divorces per 1000 population and that the lowest rate since 1974 was 4.7
divorces per 1000 population (Wong, 1995). Hirsch (1983) has found from her
studies in England that divorce is a problem and that the reconstruction of the
family is also a problem in every decade because growing up is becoming a more
complicated business. Wong (1995) added that since 1972 the numbers of
children under 18 that have been involved in divorce have been over one
million, and half of the divorces were in families with young children with
parents who were married less than seven years.
The Divorce Process
The divorce process begins in marital disharmony or emotional divorce and ends
after a series of crises in the final dissolution of the marriage, according to
Pfeffer (1981), and her studies have shown that another part of the divorce
process includes the children of divorce suffering a period of grief which may
not be different from bereavement after the loss of a parent through death.
Although divorce is a long drawn out process most of the time, Pfeffer (1981)
suggested that there are many developmental issues faced by children suffering
from this new stress placed on them. She and other researchers have noted that
there are many elements involved in a child's learning to cope with the new
arrangements and tensions of the divorce process (Kelly, 1981; Hirsch, 1983;
Wong, 1995; Walczak, 1994; Doob, 1994; Doob, 1995; Forgatch, Patterson, &
Skinner, 1988).
The Impact of
Divorce on Children
Until recently it had been assumed that divorce causes severe emotional trauma
in children and symptoms of maladjustment are sometimes evident in both parents
and children (Viano, 1975). The research of Wong (1991) has found that divorce
has some profound effects on children and the long term effects show that they
suffer psychologically and have social difficulties for years from continued or
new stresses linked to the separation and divorce of their parents. She also
said that children of divorce are anxious about being able to form lasting
relationships themselves as young adults. Divorce has a serious effect on
children according to many researchers like Walczak (1984) who has said, from
her studies in England, that she was able to determine that children were more
unhappy, insecure, and bewildered at the start of their parents' separation
than previously. As Wong argued in 1995, children have some of the same
feelings as victims of a natural disaster may experience, such as loss, grief,
and vulnerability to forces that they can not control.
Pre-school children are affected more severely in the absence of the father,
said Roman and Haddad (1978), but these negative effects can be reversed by an
emotionally stable mother who gives reinforcement in the appropriate sex-type
behavior to the child. Young children may be too immature to integrate the
intensity of the stress of parental loss by separation according to Pfeffer
(1981). Kelly (1981) said while the siblings may be stabilized by the parent,
the older children may be apt to experience more stress and conflicts from
divorce because of the undiluted aggression of the parent. "Egocentric
pre-schoolers, who see and understand things only in relation to themselves,
assume themselves to be the cause of parental distress and interpret the
separation as punishment" (Wong, 1995, p. 95).
According to a ten year study of twenty-one children between two and a half and
six years old, now between 12 and nearly 18, done by Wallerstein, Corbin, and
Lewis (1988), a significant number of children felt that they were deprived of
the nurture of a more protected life that they saw and wished for in intact
families even though these children had experienced divorce first hand for
two-thirds of their lives.
Wong (1995) has said that school children can cope with separation better than
pre-schoolers, even though intense pain, loneliness, and a feeling of
deprivation is present, because young children can only think of the departure
of one parent which is usually the father. She said that they grieve for his
return and fear replacement while the older children think one parent is
responsible, become angry with both parents, and show distressing behavior to
one parent. She also said that not only the separation and divorce causes
difficulty for school-age children, but also their move to new neighborhoods,
schools, and being put in new environments causes a decline in school
performance because they are not focused on learning but are always wishing for
their parents to reunite. According to Doob (1995), about two-thirds of the
children were effected by depression and in some areas were low-achievers.
Wong (1995, p. 95) found that children need a stable environment and the
parents must establish it for them by frequent, repeated, and solid
explanations about "what is going to happen to them," who will and "how will
they be cared for," that they will not be abandoned, and some assurance that
something new will replace the old, enabling them to get focused on reality.
She explained further that, if these essential elements are not met, the
children's energies will convert to "destabilization efforts rather than to
growth and development" (p.95). Hetherington, Anderson, and Hagan (1991) have
said that during the two year crisis period after a divorce and after the shock
and anger have subsided adolescents can properly assess their relationship and
role within the family.
The anxiety of adolescents, Wong (1995) has discovered, is increased by their
worry about the money available for their future needs and school-age children
and adolescents both have a lowered self-esteem, poorer academic performance,
and greater depression than their peers in non-divorced families. She also
noted that divorce causes school-age children and adolescents alike to be
different from peers of non-divorced families because their sexual identity is
affected, their view of both parents is less than perfect, and they are
concerned about their future as a marital partner. Adolescents are highly
resentful and find the divorce of their parents very painful, but they are able
to comprehend the divorce without blaming themselves in the middle of all the
difficult and stressful things that adolescents already go through (Wong,
1995). Pfeffer (1981) suggested that adolescents want the re-establishment of
generation boundaries making parents authority figures not friends, and parents
can do this if they work together to provide loving support and firm limits,
even if they are divorced.
Adjustment of Boys and Girls
Children of divorced mothers, especially boys, tend to harass their mothers,
nagging and whining, in the first year, claimed Roman and Haddad (1978), and
are more disobedient and neglectful toward her than children of intact
families. Wong (1995) also agreed from her studies that boys have more
behavior problems than girls after the divorce. The studies of Berry (1981)
showed that there are more boys than girls in single-parent families and that
few boys stayed with their fathers while more girls stayed with their mothers.
His studies revealed that difficulties arise in the development of children
regardless of their sex in the absence of fathers. Doob (1994, p. 322) said
"Boys tend to have more difficulty adjusting to divorce than girls" because
boys are less likely to have role models than girls for learning gender related
behavior resulting in limited social skills. He added that these limited
social skills may be why it is more difficult for boys to adjust, while the
studies of Pfeffer (1981) showed that there were indications that adolescent
girls of stepparents had higher incidences of aggression, sexual behavior, drug
involvement, and school difficulties than girls of intact families. Berry
(1981) also explained that the courts seem to assume that fathers appear to
perform better raising boys yet the numbers of boys and girls are equally
divided and most single parent families have two children. According to Roman
and Haddad (1978, p. 4), a caring father is willing to cook, sew, "wash
clothes," clean and "tend to minor cuts and bruises, fevers, colds, and rashes"
in order to preserve a family structure. They continued to explain that one
father and his daughters, before and after the divorce, built rockets,
"electric motors, doll houses," "baked bread and sewed dresses, played touch
football and softball," wrote and staged plays, and, without much success, he
tried to teach his daughters how to fish.
