In today’s society, divorce has become a norm in our lives. Married couples today are getting a divorce due to many different reasons, either because of conflicts in the marriage, lost of romantic feelings, a spouse committing an affair, and other type of marriage problems. Most of these divorced couples have children that are very young and due to their age, have no idea on how to deal with an event like a divorce. These children will have to learn to deal with their parent’s divorce at such a young age, affecting them in a positive or negative way. The effects of recent enlargement in divorce rates are negative effects.
To understand the post-divorce family you must begin with the consequences it has on family, but for many reasons America’s greatest concern is that of the children. Children are not responsible, but yet reap all of the emotional pains of a divorce. Amato and Thompson (1999) informs us that: The increased expenses and lowered living standards following divorce may create many more specific pressures for children. The family may have to move to a less expensive house or apartment; children may have to change schools; contact with friends in a neighborhood or school may be lost as a result of these changes; the residential parent may have to begin working or work longer hours; children may have to be placed in child
Divorce affects each member of the family which children experience it differently. Parents should sit down with their children and discuss the situation, but not going into detail, that would give mixed feelings towards the parent that is in fault. Even though parents are getting a divorce, they still are the most important people in a child’s life. Children tend to feel lonely, depressed, and rejected because of the situation. Children’s emotions, feelings, and how they cope with depends on how the parents display their coping skills (Lewis, 1999).
Then we will see how divorce affects children spiritually. The traditional lifestyle of living with both parents and being a family is almost rare in today’s society. Divorce is a very tragic situation especially when it involves children. Children undergo different changes in their lives as a result to divorce. Sometimes the effects of divorce can be short or long term consequences.
It is likely for a couple to lose the motivation and desire they once had as a newly together couple. After marriage, life gets busy, work starts getting in the way, and the children come along. Several years of indifference and tiring daily lives, a couple can start to only consider on his/her own. This can cause tremendous results such as frustration, and stress, and broken bonds both physically and mentally in the household. They will begin to constantly bicker and argue, usually about the most pointless reasons.
Kids are highly influential especially at a young age. A child who sees a father abusing his mother might grow up and find it acceptable to beat on his own wife and kids, alas the cycle continues. Society also play a very big part in this, we now see and accept divorce and broken families as a new normal. Since many fathers generally are not the major caretakers of their kids after a divorce, bad feeling are formed with the kids. These negative feelings are due to dads not regularly seeing and interacting with their kids.
In a divorce situation most persons had a changed lifestyle and it can affect mainly young children and person now entering the adolescent stage. Divorce tends to intensify the child's dependence and it tends to accelerate the adolescent's independence; it often stimulates a more relapsing response in the child and a more violent response in the adolescent. For some persons, divorce shakes trust in dependency on parents who now behave in an extremely undependable way. They surgically divide the family unit into two different households between which the child must learn to transit back and forth, for a while creating unfamiliarity, instability, and insecurity, never being able to be with one parent without having to be apart from the other. As the functionalist state, the family is like an organism, containing different parts, each of which must work together for the well-being and equilibrium of the organism.
To what extent does divorce affect children, and what factors surrounding divorce influence child outcomes? Estelle Valencia Kwin Penda Psychology 212 Dr. Annie M. Cardell October 11, 2011 A brief definition for a divorce is, the legal dissolution of a marriage by a court or other competent body. It is the result of a bad collaboration between a Man and a Woman, therefore two parents. They are the ones that have duties and responsibilities on their children as a team. Having parental responsibility also means assuming all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority that a parent of a child has by law.
Usually infidelity is not always the root cause for marital problems. Infidelity is simply the catalyst that sets the divorce in motion. Occasionally infidelity is a manifestation of other problems, including lack of commitment and financial stress. Financial stress can be a huge cause for divorce. Money is one of the biggest stress factors for married couples.
For the government, it might appear to be a necessity and they may feel they are compensating the affected people well by remuneration. However, the affected people know that they are being uprooted from their homeland. Although temporarily better off, they have lost the place they called home once. We can see this Theory being manifested in lot of circumstances, if only we observe and try to understand. Right from a student getting bad grades as a result of a submission they couldn’t complete due to being unwell, to the difficult situations faced by a single mother in this society.