Divorce, once uncommon in our society, is now becoming more and more frequent, disrupting our children’s state of well-being. Some children of divorced families have long-term behavior problems such as depression, low self-esteem, poor school performance, acting out, and difficulties with intimate relationships. Children with divorced or divorcing parents often have a sense of abandonment, because their parents become too preoccupied with their own psychological, social, and economic distress that they forget about their kids’ needs (Lamb and Sternberg, 1997). In 1988, Professor Jeanne Dise-Lewis conducted a survey of 700 middle school students. The students were asked to rate certain events as to the stress they causes. The death of a parent or close family member was the only thing that outranked divorce (Zinsmeister, 1996). A divorce in the family creates a major life change for most children. Loss of contact with friends, schoolmates, neighbors, teachers, and sometimes moving to a new location may bring a lot of psychosocial stress upon the children, and that stress can be very harmful.

Since the divorce boom started in the 1960’s, father-mother divorces have increased at

1. The emotional divorce. The spouses withhold emotion from each other--they grow apart--because their trust in and attraction for each other has ended.

Parental Actions: Custodial and Nonresidential

These six stations of divorce are the reasons why most parents involved in a divorce forget about their child’s needs, and why a divorce is so hard on a child. There may be situations where a parent or child is in physical danger and a divorce is the best answer. However, it should not be the easy way out for the parents. “Divorce is now the single largest cause of childhood depression. Marital disruption, quite clearly, can wound children for years” (Zinsmeister, 1996).

Some topics in this essay:
Paul Bohannon, Lamb Sternberg, Jeanne Dise-Lewis, Children Divorce, United USA, Nonresidential Children’s, Custody Support, On-Line Available, United Kingdom, Experience United, sternberg 1997, lamb sternberg, lamb sternberg 1997, on-line available, nonresidential parent, zinsmeister 1996, children’s behavior development, 1997 142, effects divorce, divorce children, children’s behavior, on-line available http//gw3epnetcom/ehostaspkey=xwbrpg6&site=ehost, behavior development adjustment, behavior development,