How Divorce Impacts Children?

Divorce is a painful and disturbing process. For adults who understand the dynamics of the divorce better, the processes could be endured with some distress that might go away through post divorce counseling. For children, however, the ability to understand and cope with the process is very uncertain.

It is important to understand that children do not possess the emotional mechanism that rationalize things and ensure an emotional insulation that protects and diffuses the situation to some extent. This is one of the reasons why it is important to make sure that children are able to understand the situation and incorporate it in their lives with minimum of disturbance.

Factors that could affect the children

One of the difficulties of dealing with the children’s response to divorce is the parents’ inability to judge the responses accurately. The problem is augmented by the fact that children often have developing emotional response mechanisms. This is why it is important to understand the factors that could shape a child’s response to the divorce. Experts consider following factors important in assessing a child’s state of mind during a parents’ divorce:

Age

The age of the child is the fundamental factor that has the most impact on the psychological wellbeing of the child during the divorce. Generally, older children who could understand the nature of the change have a better chance of smoother transition. It is difficult to explain to younger kids about the continued absence of the father or mother without a lie.

The children’s ability to cope with stress

This is the most unpredictable factor because of a simple reason. Every child has a different threshold of stress and a consequent coping mechanism. Since breakup of the family as they know it is one of the most stressful events in their lives, it is very important that parents should monitor the coping up behavior of the children to ensure that they are able to handle the stress.

Children’s ability to manage change

Management of changes in life is difficult enough for adults and very complicated for children. Divorce introduces a permanent change in their lives and hence the change management abilities of the children are stress to the limit. This is directly related to the stress management capabilities of the child.

These three factors combine together to determine how children behave during and after the finalization of divorce. They often go through a lot during the process. Since every child has a different combination of these three factors, there is no standard set of signals and symptoms that could indicate stressed out children with an inability to cope with the situation. This is why many experts recommend working with an experienced counselor who could monitor the children for signs of stress.

Contested vs. Uncontested divorce

Children are often the main reason why many couples opt for uncontested divorce. To understand this it is important to see the impact of a contested divorce on children.

A contested divorce is usually preceded by arguments that could turn into shouting matches between the spouses. Children see and hear all the venom and hatred that is exchanged between the spouses. When the legal proceedings start, children are already in a state of high stress and anxiety.

The court appearances and the increased stress of the legal proceedings do nothing to alleviate the situation. Finally, the big question of child custody arises. This is where the children have to see the breakup of the family first hand.

It is easy to understand the impact of a contested divorce on the stress mechanism and psychology of the children.

The good news

One of the comforting factors for parents who are going through divorce is the fat that children often possess a lot of resilience. It has been observed that a vast majority of the children who have witnessed their parents’ divorce do not develop serious mental and psychological issues. This low incidence of emotional problems can be attributed to resilience of the children who are able to weather the storm with little side effects.

On the other hand, there are ‘children of divorce’, who carry emotional scars of the process for the rest of their lives. The degree of the problems could vary but these children do exhibit symptoms of going through a painful divorce. However, the relatively low number of these children is an indication that majority of the children survive with little impact on their future lives.

A well-managed divorce is one of the best ways of shielding children from the stress and anxiety of a divorce.