Thursday, June 2, 2011

You Don't Say - Study Shows that Divorce Permanently Harms Children

The news that studies show that children of divorce are damaged shouldn't be shocking, yet it is. This is just another example of how our culture tries to decide what is and what is not good for human development. Children are hurt by divorce. Again, for the life of me I cannot understand how this is so difficult to people to grasp.


In a perfect world we would marry, have children and live happily ever after. But, the world is not perfect. Sometimes people make bad choices for a mate and have children before they realize it. Or sometimes they want children so badly that they go ahead and have them thinking it may make the marriage better (hint, this rarely works) or they are afraid they will lose the chance to have kids and figure they will get a divorce shortly after the child is born. I actually know someone who did that. She had one child already and didn't want her to be an only child. She got pregnant and divorced her husband a few months after the baby arrived.


Children want to please their parents. It is natural for them. They are completely dependent upon them and gaining praise from Mom and Dad is a priority. While every child is different, there are things that are relatively standard. We are all human and our natural instincts do have a guiding factor in our lives, even as much as some would like to pretend that they don't. When children are watching their parents fight over custody, fight over money, and the child is being carted between homes it takes a toll.


Children struggle with maths and making friends when their parents divorce, a study has found.


They often fall behind classmates whose parents stay married, suffering from anxiety, loneliness and feeling sad – and may never catch up academically.


Contrary to some previous research, children through primary school did not show any negative effects before the parents decided to split, the U.S. study found.
One of the problems is that our culture no longer looks at divorce as a failure to be avoided. It has become almost a rite of passage. We make light of the decision of marriage, we have gone as far into turning into a reality show. Like this is how we should be picking a spouse. We spend sometime making out with various people in a hot tub then at the end of the day we give roses to the one we would like to stay on for another few days. While most people don't make decisions on marriage in this fashion, it is likely that we all know people who have jumped into marriage with someone who they don't know very well, or marry someone they know is bad for them. Many women fall into the "Bad Boy" trap and are stupid enough to think that they can change them. Ladies, let me give you a little advice the bad habits they have they day before your wedding don't magically disappear the day after. They usually become more pronounced and annoy you even further when you live with them full-time.


Going into a marriage you are unsure about is not only unhealthy for you, it is very unhealthy for our children. While many parents are able to keep the martial strife away from their children, many do not. Divorces become ugly as raw emotion and attorney's take over. Many parents become completely obsessed about hurting their spouse and have a complete disregard for the effect that this will have on their children. With the divorce numbers as high as they are in our society just think of how many kids this is affecting and what it is doing to our society as a whole.


Children of divorce experience setbacks in maths test scores and show problems with interpersonal skills and internalising behaviour,’ lead researcher Hyun Sik Kim, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said.


‘They are more prone to feelings of anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem and sadness.’


Sadly, we cannot say it isn't so.


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