Divorce, a legal separation of a married couple that has profound effects on the people involved. There are both long-term and short-term effects that arise after a divorce occurs. When a married couple with children separates, not only are the two adults are affected by it, but more importantly, the children are affected largely as well. Divorce tends to have a strong emotional and psychological impact on the minds of children transforming their mentality of relationships for years to come, quite possibly forever.
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“ Divorce Effects on Children: Long-term Impact ”
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This impact that occurs causes the children to handle their future relationships differently, even if they don’t realize they are doing it. Some of the effects are visible immediately after the divorce while others may take several years to show themselves. Children who have grown up in split families show signs of negative, long-lasting effects in their own relationships, inside and outside the family, that are directly parallel to the influence their parents’ divorce on their lives.
Divorce in a family affects everyone in the unit to some degree, no matter how big or small. It all begins with the immediate effects. Some of these short-term impacts are anger, depression, aggression, interpersonal conflict, economic hardship, life stress, lower academic achievement, and social adjustment difficulty. These are only a few of the countless effects that can occur in a situation like this. The range of the short-term results varies from family to family depending on the relationship the children have with both parents before and after the divorce.
In many cases of divorce, the parents and children become disconnected emotionally.
A few of the factors that play in to how strongly the children will be effected are ‘parental ability to resolve post-divorce conflict and anger, ability of the custodial parent to successfully resume the parenting role, ability of the non-custodial parent to maintain a mutually satisfying relationship with the child or children, [and] personality characteristics of the child and the ability to develop coping skills [‘]’ (Matthews 3). The parents are adjusting to their new, single lives and having to deal with several issues such as getting money, a place to live, or a job. The parents let up the reins they used to hold on their children and become more aware of their own problems rather than focusing on the connection they hold with their children and what their children are doing. If this happens, and the parents do not handle the situation well or cope positively with the situation, there is a higher probability that the short-term effects that impacted the children will turn into damaging long-term effects.
There are countless outcomes of a divorce that can leave the children involved with serious and long-lasting difficulties in the upcoming years of their lives. Even if the divorce happened at an early age when the child did not completely understand what was happening, the trauma of growing up in a separated family takes its toll on the child’s mind whether he or she realizes it or not. A study was done on children of multiple different families where each child’s personal thought process was traced over a ten year period. When the first follow-up was taken after five years, the short-term effects that had remained were anger, specifically at the parent who asked for the divorce, a longing for the absent parent, a wish for the family to be put back together, and moderate to severe cases of depression (4).
As adults, ten years after the divorce, the study followed up once again. The research showed that the children were not so much pushing for their parents to get back together as they simply expressed sorrow that their parents had not gotten back together. Any hope they once had that their parents may constitute their relationship once again had disappeared, and the children accepted their parents’ decision. Several of the students agreed that their lives would have been much happier if their parents had stayed together, and they were able to grow up in a strong family unit. The outcome was devastating, but they could do nothing about it, and had to respect it. This shows the maturity the children developed as they entered into adulthood, giving them a different outlook on the situation that would allow them to cope easier with what happened to them ten years ago and with all that has happened since then because of their parents’ decisions. Although this acceptance is extremely healthy for the healing process, children whose parents are