make an adjustment. These tasks of adjustment are:
(1) Acknowledging the reality of the marital rupture. Both small and older children have some tendency to deny that their parents are in fact living separate lives with all that this entails. Some children can become overwhelmed by feelings of abandonment or retreat into fantasies of reconciliation. However, by the first year of the separation, most acknowledge that a rupture has occurred.
(2) Disengaging from parental conflict and distress and resuming customary pursuits. Many children will react to divorce by thinking of it constantly; as a result their cannot play or do school work. In other words, there is a refusal to engage in their usual activities. What is needed for their own emotional welfare and growth is a disengagement from their distraught parents. The research of Wallerstein and Kelly (1980) suggests that this occurs by the end of the first 1 to 1 and 1/2 years following the separation.
(3) Resolving loss. Divorce is accompany by a good deal of loss; there is the loss of the parent they are no longer living with, the loss of security of feeling loved and cared for by both parents, the loss of familiar daily routines and family traditions, and the loss of a whole way of life. Resolving these losses is considered by Wallerstein and Kelly (1980) and Wallerstein (1983) to be the most difficult task that children face. This resolution can take many years and some children never completely resolve it; as a result, they often carry feelings of rejection, and unworthiness into their adulthood.
(4) Resolving anger and self-blame. Wallerstein (1983) has stated that:
Children...do not believe in no-fault divorce. They may blame themselves. (p.239)
Because children realize that divorce is a voluntary action, they can stay angry with their parents for years following a divorce, viewing it from the perspective that their parents have personally done ...