Divorce and It’s Effects On Children
December 14, 2009
The Bottom Line Summary: Within the past 30 years, the rates of divorce have grown so high that over half of US families are directly affected. When a family experiences a divorce, it is a confusing and complex time for the children who may react in many different ways. The child’s self-esteem may be affected, and the divorce may lead to disrupted peer relationships as well as poor performance in school and engagement in risky behaviors (including early sexual experience, drugs, and alcohol).
It is critical to effectively communicate with your child and support them through this unstable time. Addressing your child’s needs in inappropriate ways (or failing to address them) may develop into many more serious problems, including depression, anxiety, conduct disorders, and serious academic underperformance. This brief article explores the effects of divorce on children and the best ways to help them through the restructuring process. This articles provides an overview to parents seeking guidance, and explains why parenting or co-parenting therapy is a wonderfully effective approach to treating this confusing time in the life of your child.
The key points to remember are:
- Divorce is a distressing time which may seriously interfere with your child’s short- and long-term functioning, leading to problems at home and in school.
- Divorce used to be considered a short- or mid-term crisis. But what’s becoming more apparent is that divorce often occurs in families who have been experiencing conflict for a long time: families whose communication styles and parenting may have been dysfunctional for a long time. This means that some children are less equipped to bravely face the challenge of a newly restructured lifestyle.
- If not properly treated, the effects of divorce increase the chance that your child may suffer from low self-esteem, academic and occupational underachievement, unhealthy relationships, depression, and anxiety.
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Current treatments include behavior modification therapy, co-parenting therapy, individual therapy, and sometimes medication.
- Children’s behavioral medications rarely work to solve behavioral struggles over the long-term, have not been tested enough, and have short- and long-term risks that parents should know about.
- Medication is not a solution! While it may be necessary in some cases, it should only be viewed as a complement to behavior-based approaches, or parenting education and training.
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Parenting training, in the form of behavioral types of treatment, is a proven and successful method that gives you the tools you need to help your child cope.
- The parent plays a key role in shaping their child’s coping skills and behaviors, which can be achieved through specific behavior therapy plans.
Reason for Hope:
These findings can be misleading, if we fail to see the critical role that parents play in shaping the world that children experience.
Bad choices by parents compromise a child’s capacity to cope with the demands of divorce. When this goes on for some time, the child’s ability to recover from these parental mistakes grows weaker and weaker.
On the other hand, healthy, child-focused decisions that keep parent emotions away from the child, and avoid putting the child in the middle of any parenting differences, are one significant source of relief for children.
The full solution is more complex, and you can a host of practical, healthy ways to protect your children at www.DivorceFamilyGuide.com.
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