Does parental divorce affect the children and adolescents in the family?

Does Parental Divorce Affect the Children and Adolescents in the Family?
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ABSTRACT
When parents end up in divorce, most of the people who are always connected to the relationship often get affected. Those that are mostly affected are children and adolescents because of their young age. Most of them never understand the reasons behind the divorce and how they will cope up with a single parent. This makes most of them to become rebellious while others begin to perform poorly in their academics. The relatively low maturity and innocence of children and adolescents are the main reason for their inability to cope with the stresses that are usually brought by divorce. The behaviors of children and adolescents can change from subtle to explosive, and this depends on the levels of stress and conflict among the family members. The parents, on the other hand, have a mandate of ensuring that their children are not affected wholly with their divorce processes, and this can be done through conversations that are geared towards making the duo understand that the relationship can be mended. The society also has a mandate of ensuring healing to broken families and ensuring that the children and adolescents are not left alone during such difficult times.
This paper discusses parental divorce and how it affects children and adolescents. It also highlights various remedies to divorce, and the role parents and the society can play to ensure minimal stress and strife to the children and adolescents.

Indeed divorce affects children and adolescents negatively and it concludes by informing the readers that children and adolescents from broken families can become resilient, and this can only become possible if they are well communicated to by their parents and guardians as a whole.
Does Parental Divorce Affect the Children and Adolescents in the Family?
Divorce is usually stressful for children and adolescents as a whole. At any age, children and adolescents feel angry and uncertain about life when their parents decide to split. It is vital for parents always to make the process of divorce less painful for their children by communicating to them. How adolescents and children are affected by divorce is important for parents and the society at large. Experts have in the past provided wrong advice to parents on how their children are affected by divorce. This has made most parents confused and continued with their process of divorce not caring the long term effects to their children health and performance.
Parents have the mandate of ensuring health relationships among their children after divorce. This is because divorce often leads to various problems in children and adolescents when they are not cared for in advance. Divorce is often stressful for both adolescents and children; this is because most of them never desire their parents to divorce (Albertini, 2011). This is except if such marriages are full of intense anger and conflict which affects the whole family. Most children and adolescents who are attached to their parents often feel neglected after divorce, and this can affect their future relationships. Through stress, the children can start engaging in other vices like drugs and alcohol intake while others can have problems maintaining high academic performance in their schools. There is, therefore, a need for all parents to ensure that their children are communicated to before they start with their divorce processes.
Divorce can also strain children-parent relationships as most of them may feel that one parent was wrong, and this led to divorce (Brand, 2014). Once the children have a soaring relationship with one partner, they will always tend to hate such a parent compared to the one they are left to stay with. The children will end up hating the gender to which the parent belongs as they will feel that they are the main cause of problems in the marriage setting. Young girls may tend to hate their fathers while young boys will hate their mothers. Such a situation often leads to future families that are not stable because of the scars that were left behind because of divorce.
McLanahan (1983) confirms that acts of divorce also lead to losing contact with one parent or create hardships, and this may lead to conflicts between the parents and the children. It is also possible for children to undergo rough times during the divorce process period, and this depends on how long the divorce arrangements take. Managing the stresses involved in the divorce may help children and all the adolescents to make adjustments quickly and continue with their normal lives without problems.
Divorce can lead to behavioral and psychological problems among children and adolescents. All children and adolescents who are angered because of the divorce of their parents often become disobedient and rebellious towards their elders and parents at large. Achievements in schools can also suffer greatly when children know that their parents are separating for good. Other children also become saddened by the events for longer periods, and this may affect their performance and relationships with their friends. As a result their future may be ruined as most of them loose faith and trust to most people they are entrusted with. Others end up being anxious and depressed, and this is signs of a bad future.
In Vélez (2011) a study was conducted among 99 students whose parents had divorced. Those in the study were those that their parents had divorced three years previously. It was reported that the majority of the students who took a high percentage of 73% agreed that their lives would have been different if their parents were not divorced. It, therefore, follows that most divorced families bring about different changes to their children. Pain is therefore not a pathology and grief is not a disorder rather an outward occurrence that comes out as a result of the occurrences. Children should be left to grief while being helped to heal to ensure a better future for them.
Divorce usually affects members of the family in different ways both negative and positive. While other children continue with positive relationships after their parents’ divorce most of them, find it hard to sustain their families in future. This is because of the psychological effects that affect the children when they become part of the divorce of their parents. Such children may end up having bad relationships with their friends and beloved ones when they grow. Parents who want to divorce, but at the same time help their children should always ensure that their children are not affected by their divorce.
Stifling statistics also indicate that most children who come from divorced families are also more likely to divorce their partners (Reiter, 2013). According to different studies, most daughters of divorced parents always have a higher rate of divorce of 60%. The sons, on the other hand, have a 35% chance of divorcing their wives. The main reason for such occurrences is that when parents divorce they usually send a message to their children that divorce is acceptable and the best option to solve conflicts. This makes children desire divorce when they are faced with different challenges when they are married. There is a need always to have appropriate conversations with children as this will help them understand that divorce is wrong and the general reasons as to why their parents are divorcing.
Children can adapt pessimistic perception about marriage when their parents resort to divorce. This is always possible when high conflict levels are present between the divorcing parents. Older children may desire to opt out of marriage to avoid instances divorce and conflicts as was exhibited by their parents. Cooperative behavior between parents is essential when they are in conflict as this will make the adolescents understand that conflict never lead to divorce. This will also help them solve their problems amicably in future. This will also lead to solid families and foundations that are strong.
Having to witness a failed marriage between parents may lead to feeling of anxiety when children decide to date in future. Children often focus more on their parents failed relationship and assume that they will also have to experience similar circumstances. Such feelings lead to the desire to stay alone or get married with the desire to divorce amid conflicts. Anxiety makes relationships to end up quickly without making crucial conversations between the relevant parties. Communication is always important for families when there exist different conflicts among them. This helps them to conquer their feelings and understand that their relationship will succeed without problems. Due to such occurrences children can foster healthy relationships with their friends and loved ones when they are communicated to by their parents.
There are an increasing number of divorce cases currently as opposed to the past occurrences. The need to become better in the society and the levels of technology has accelerated the divorce rates around the world. The use of social media and other technological advancements has made it impossible for families to resort to communication. Most of them become bitter and desire to spread their problems to people who end up spoiling such marriages. The only remedy for divorce can be conversations that are geared towards making changes to the situations in the various marriages. This will also help foster the relationship between the children in the future.
In conclusion, it is also vital to note that most children and adolescents may end up being strong and resilient during the process of divorce. These are children and adolescents who have been well prepared and communicated to by their parents. The stress of divorce can be managed by parents, as this will make their children able to cope up with the situation without problems. Children from divorced families can be similar to those who come from perfect families when they are cared for by their parents. However, the issues of the emergence of divorce in any family often lead to various problems if not attended to well by the parents. The parents have a mandate to ensure peaceful coexistence between them and the children during the process of divorce.
References
Albertini, M., &Garriga, A. (2011).The effect of divorce on parent–child contacts.EuropeanSocieties, 13(2), 257-278.
Brand, J., & Simon Thomas, J. (2014). Job displacement among single mothers: Effects on children’s outcomes in young adulthood. American Journal of Sociology, 119(4), 955-
McLanahan, S. (1983). Family structure and stress: A longitudinal comparison of two-parent and female-headed families. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 45(2), 347.Moon, M. (2011). The effects of divorce on children: Married and divorced parents’ perspectives. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 52(5), 344-349.Reiter, S., Hjorleifsson, S., Breidablik, H., &Meland, E. (2013).Impact of divorce and loss of parental contact on health complaints among adolescents. Journal of Public Health, 35(2), 278-285.doi:10.1093/pubmed/fds101.
Vélez, C., Wolchik, S., Tein, J., &Sandler, I. (2011). Protecting children from theconsequences of divorce: A longitudinal study of the effects of parenting on children’s coping processes. Child Development, 82(1), 244-257.