Divorce and its Effects on Child Behavior

Abstract

With a significant increase in divorce rate and increasing number of children being brought up by single parent in broken families, have increased the probability of delinquent behavior in such children who have gone through the immense pain of parental divorce. The present study aimed validating the fact that children affected from parental divorce in the recent years demonstrated behavior worse than it was ten years ago, describing many factors that determine such child's behavior.

Contents

Abstract2

Introduction4

Thesis Statement4

Discussion5

Conclusion7

References8

Introduction

During the 1960s in United States, nearly 90 percent of the children reached the age of maturity (Wallerstein, & Kelly, 1979) while living with their biological parents as compare to only 40 percent today. The major reasons for this change include the dramatic increase in the divorce rate which itself caused by many factors and increased society acceptance of single parent's childbearing by the society and growing trends in cohabitation rather than marriage. More than 45 percent of the marriages during the 1990s ended in divorce in which affected millions of children. Similar the divorce rate, the nature and effects of this event of family separation has also changed in the last 3 decades.

Many studies suggest that divorce is not act which could be studies or analyzed in isolation, rather the act is just a single phase of a series of long family transitions with the great potential to affect the family and children. Living in an intact family before divorce and living with a single parent have different effect on the process of child adjustment. The high divorce rates and being raised by a single parent has resulted in continuously deteriorating behavior of the child who suffered from the parents' divorce. The changing nature and rate divorce, in the recent times, resulted in the child behavior getting worse as compare to the behavior of children affected from divorce happened some time before. This is mainly due to recent changes in laws regarding divorce, which enabled the separating couple going through the legalities of divorce more speedily now than was possible in the past. This paper attempts to validate the same assertion that behavior of children is worse now than it was ten years ago.

Thesis Statement

Behavior of divorce affected children is worse now than it was ten years ago.

Discussion

Divorce is, indeed, a major loss for a child. Not all the children, however, react in the same manner to their parents' separation. Rather child's reaction to the tragic event greatly depends upon the way he or she perceives the act (Altenhofen, Sutherland, & Biringen, 2010). The children's reaction is also influenced by different circumstances that precede or follow the divorce. While some children exhibit tremendous grief, fear or extreme anger, there are also others who remain largely indifferent to the issue. While some of the divorce affected children develop a feeling of shame and try to hide the news from others, others feel satisfied or even happy especially if the parents have been fighting before the ...