ive symptoms by the children of such households. Depression was linked to suicidal behavior in children by Asarnow, Carlson, and Guthrie (1987), and by Kazdin (1987). Depression stems from a variety of factors, including abuse, conflict, isolation, loneliness, despair, boredom, separation from loved ones, and a sense of loss of purpose and meaningfulness in life (Lester, 1991). Depression is possibly the most serious of the psychological problems which are faced by children (Siegel & Alloy, 1990). Depression in children often results in suicide attempts (Westefeld, 1990).
Lester and Gatto (1990) found that depressive children tended to be characterized by low levels of interpersonal trust, and that such children were more prone to suicidal behavior than were non depressive children. These children were alienated from their parents and the communications between parent and child were of poor quality.
Divorce, Communications Deterioration, and Aggressive Child Behavior
Workman and Bear (1992) investigated correlations among aggression, depression, communication, deterioration, and suicidal ideation of high school students from homes with divorced and alcoholic parents. Students from divorced homes comprised the experimental group for the research. Students selected for the research sample represented all four high school grade levels. The 105 subjects included 36 freshmen, 35 sophomores, 16 juniors, and 18 seniors. A control group was drawn from students from non divorced homes. The gender distribution of the subjects in the experimental group was 56 males and 49 females. The research found that males generally and subjects from divorced homes were characterized by higher levels of aggression and poorer quality levels of parent-child communication than were females generally and subjects from non divorced homes. Male freshmen were found to be characterized by higher levels of aggression than were male so...