Children and Divorce: Effects and Protection - Research Paper

Introduction

Divorce is prevalent worldwide; thus, it is essential to understand the impacts it has on children. Such that they can be protected from potentially damaging effects. Divorce has direct implications on the development of children. Children experience the impact of separation in all ages, genders, ethnicities, races, and social-economic levels. Generation being continuous, it is not possible to evaluate the effects of parental divorce for children at each age; instead, the ages can be categorized into different stages according to the stages of the human life cycle. These stages include infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, late childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood (American Institute for Learning and Human Development, n.d.). This paper discusses the effects of divorce on the social, emotional development of children in different age groups from infants to youth.

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The effects of parental divorce in the infancy stage (0-2years) have been shown through research to be minimal, although long-lasting. Although an infant does not understand what is happening in life, divorce at this point will give adverse effects more time to accrue all through the life of such a child. The reason being that even if these children experience emotional disturbance, they are not in a position to mourn the loss. Children whose parents divorced while they are still infants have poor social skills, and others may end up being unable to socialize with other people of their age who are from married families. Single parents are said not to be able to offer so much inspiration to infants, therefore, causing poor social skills during the early life of these children who could end up following them throughout their life (Wallerstein, & Kelly, 1976 p.259).

However, for children in the early childhood stage (3-5years), it is difficult to tell whether they understand what is happening when it comes to the marital dissolution of their parents. Unlike infants, children in this stage are verbal and are now skillful of more progressive cognitive developments, although they are still in the early stage of cognitive development. Therefore, at this stage, divorce can be distressing and can result in anxiety, possible identity formation, and guilt deficiencies. Many of the children at these stage divorce can make them have difficulties in regulating emotions of sorrow, loss, or fear. On the other side, they might not be able to verbalize their feelings. Thus, they may suffer poor social skills, and socializing with children of their age from married couples can be difficult (Lansford, 2009, p.148).

At 6-8 years (middle childhood stage), children are very formative, and they can begin stable social relations with their peers and have started schooling. Therefore, divorcing at these times would result in giving them stress, which leads to impairment of their ability to successfully develop such relations and even other social relationships in the future (Lansford, 2009, p.145). However, the study shows that children at this stage of development experience fewer undesirable consequences of a divorce as compared to different stages.

On the other hand, children at 9-11years (late childhood stage) can cope with the situation o divorce since they are more understanding of the processes and the loss associated with divorce. However, they are still in a developmental stage of life, and thus life changes can negatively or positively impact them. Research by Wallerstein &Kelly (1976) shows that children who experienced divorce at this stage are more likely to have problems in peer relationships, which could be extended to having troubles in future relationships and even marriage (Wallerstein & Kelly, 1976, p.260). At this stage, children are assumed to have an understanding and to demonstrate feelings or others. Due to distress and loneliness, they are likely to experience premarital birth and divorce in the future.

At the adolescence stage (12-20years), most people begin to engage in dating and having romantic relationships at this stage. Therefore, children at this stage are more likely to be affected by witnessing the processes and situations of their parent's romantic relationships. At this stage, the concept of a romantic relationship is more salient and thus parental divorce while making the children have a negative view of marriage and romantic relationships. Also, children at this stage are making transitional decisions such as preparing to leave away from their parent's supervision and sexual activities. Therefore divorce at this stage can be detrimental to their ability to ability to make positive decisions and have a healthy romantic relationship due to stress and disturbances they are going through. According to research carried out by Summers, Forehand, Armstead, & Tannenbaum, females that have experienced parental divorce at this stage, with an average of 14years, demonstrated secure attachments of low levels to their romantic partners ten years later (Summers, P., Forehand, R., Armistead, L., & Tannenbaum, L. 1998 p. 332).

Conclusion

In conclusion, children are exposed to the effects of parental divorce differently at every stage of child development in their social-emotional development. Parental divorce is more related to poor social skills, less secure attachment, and trouble in founding emotional relations, especially those who experience divorce in infancy and early childhood. On the other side, those in late childhood and adolescence experience parental divorce are associate with the likelihood of high divorce rates and premarital births.

Reference

American Institute for Learning and Human Development. (n.d.). 12 stages of the human life cycle.Lansford, J. E. (2009). Parental divorce and children's adjustment. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4(2), 140-152.

Summers, P., Forehand, R., Armistead, L., & Tannenbaum, L. (1998). Parental divorce during early adolescence in Caucasian families: The role of family process variables in predicting the long-term consequences for early adult psychosocial adjustment. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 66(2), 327-336.

Wallerstein, J. S., & Kelly, J. B. (1976). The effects of parental divorce: Experiences of the child in later latency. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 46(2), 256-269.