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In America and all over the world we are going through an epidemic of early divorces. Back in the day, everyone grew up with the thoughts of everlasting love and the big happy family. In recent years there has been a spike in divorces which most people would not think twice about how it is affecting the children of this generation. Everyone always thinks a child is happy and oblivious to the bad that goes on in the world and at home, but truth be told children are very intuitive. Children who come from a separated family no matter the age at which the separation occurred will have negative tolls. Children of divorce suffer from short-term and long-term emotional trauma as well as the toll the divorce puts on the child/parent relationship.
The first issue at hand is the short-term emotional trauma that these children go through because of being in the hostile environment of parents going through a divorce. In most cases, divorces are ugly and nasty for many reasons. Parents trying to keep the drama out of their children’s lives for as long as they think they can. What they are not seeing is that little Tommy knows mommy and Daddy are not happy anymore and will start to act out. Short-term emotional traumas these children experience are feeling abandoned, feeling like they are the reason mom and dad are not happy, and acting out for attention. When a child starts acting up at school and no one knows why, looking behind closed doors will tell you that it is because they do not know how to react to mommy and daddy fighting.
Now this child is all grown up and is still single, never to have been in a serious lasting relationship.” Difficulties in leaving home and starting school may continue as difficulties in interpersonal relationships at age 16 and as depression in young adulthood.” (Paloson)One will ask why that is, well is it one of the long-term effects divorce can have on children? Children of divorce who have grown up can show long-term emotional trauma such as thinking all relationships are meant to be doomed. Others follow in one of their parent’s footsteps and become chronic cheaters and think it is perfectly normal. Another effect that is seen is the child finds themselves in the exact kind of relationship mommy and daddy had and because they saw the divorce, refuse to let go of the toxic relationship and stay unhappy to be “happy”. It is quite ironic to watch a child grow up and follow the exact mistakes their parents made and expect a different outcome. Not all children handle the separation so well and take it out on themselves, whether it is with drugs, drinking, or even self-harm into adulthood those scars are always present and haunting. Depression and becoming suicidal is one of the extremely long-term effects that can hit very hard and most of the time everyone else is in the dark about it until it is too late and even then help will only help so much after the amount of damage that has been done, can not be undone.
With every major event in a child’s life, there always comes a psychological effect. “There are studies with larger and more representative samples that support the view that marital disruption has detrimental effects on young people that extend into adulthood.” (Zill) Mommy and daddy are distant, they have different houses and sometimes even new families; these children now start to self-blame. Many children will think a divorced and remarried parent no longer loves them or wants them in their life because of the big change in environment. One split parent starts a new family the child will drift towards the other parent not wanting the new and, in most cases, refusing to accept the unwanted change. Children of split custody situations usually become overly attached to one parent and completely distance themselves from the parent they believe is to blame for the separation. In most cases, a child will prefer mom to dad and blame dad for the break. Parents may think that the divorce will not affect their relationship with their child/children when their relationship will never be the same.
However, there are a few cases where the divorce is nice and clean, and the child completely understands and prospers from the separation. Some children like the fact that they get two Christmases’ and two birthdays due to separate households. Two houses, four parents, and new siblings are what make some children happy. Sometimes these children prosper more than children who have tier parents together because the separated parents overcompensate for splitting up. These parents will spoil a child rotten because they do not want to think they are bad parents There is the occasional child who is completely oblivious to the unhappy environment and grows up completely normal to have a happy and successful relationship. A child accepts daddy’s new wife and loves their new baby sister without any resentment whatsoever. Some divorces are completely mutual and there is no hostile environment to expose the child to. While it is not as common some children want the divorce more than their parents and could not be happier about the outcome.
On the whole, divorce is becoming a normal thing. The American dream of falling in love and having a huge happy family is coming to become a rarity. It is not like in the ’50s when people talked about knowing right away, that they were the love of their life, and now forty years later they are married still with children, grandchildren, and sometimes even great-grandchildren. Nope sorry kiddies the new world of marriage end is more divorce than not and, in some cases, even more than one divorce. While it is sad it is also the truth and with this growing trend comes the need for awareness. Awareness for the children who suffer in silence are afraid to ask for help and are afraid to talk about the changes at home that they think are their fault. Divorce creates a hostile environment for children to develop leading to short-term and long-term psychological effects, and the weakening of the relationship between child and parent.
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