Children and Divorce

There are a number of obvious short-term impacts on the children of divorce. Some of these are positive. For example, when divorce occurs in a household that has been characterized by violence and battering, the level of violence is likely to decrease if the courts have awarded custody to the non-offending parent. Divorce can reduce conflict in the home, since the warring parties are no longer living together.

However, there are also many more difficult effects. The family of a single parent is likely to suffer from many deprivations. There is less money for everything and less time, too. Children are likely to get less attention, because they are only dealing with one adult.

A friend of mine talked about this problem. Her parents got divorced when she was 12 years old and she began living with her father, who she still lives with. The court ordered her mother to stay away from the family, because the mother is a drug

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are quite flawed, oftentimes only working with a tiny population and no control groups. The recent Judith Wallerstein study is an example of that. Although she studied her subject over a long period of time, the group was quite small. Yet, she made vast, sweeping generalizations about the impact of divorce based on this exceedingly small sample. Wallerstein conducted a 25-year study of the results of divorce on children, using a group of 130 children from 60 families in the Marin County area. The study began in 1971 when the children were from 2-6 years old. Wallerstein studied and interviewed the children at intervals that ranged from every 18 months to every five years (Kato, 1997). Wallerstein concluded that divorce affects children psychologically, economically, and socially. She noted that half of the young people in the study had been engaged in serious drug or alcohol abuse, often quite young. She also indicated that the legal system does not address the needs of children as they mature, and that it and custody are designed to take adult needs and wishes into account, ignoring those of the children. Essentially, Wallerstein concluded that parents should not divorce at all unless they had a good reason (Kato, 1997)
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Approximate Word count = 2123
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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