When couples decide to create a person together, they don’t consider the dire effects on their children if they would later split up. But given that nowadays more and more couples, at some point in their life together, decide to split up, people must consider very seriously the effects that separation has on children, before they decide to create ones.

The chances of a child to go through the split up of its parents are very high.physical and social effects
Half of all children in the U.S will experience the breakup of their parents. Of these, close to half will also experience the breakup of a parent’s second marriage. And one of every 10 will experience three or more parental marriage breakups.
Researchers estimate that about 40 percent of all first marriages, about 60 percent of second marriages, and about 73 percent of all third marriages, end in divorce. The average first marriage that ends in divorce lasts about 8 years. Creating a person before marriage can increase the risk of divorce by about 25 percent.

The risk of divorce is 50 percent higher when one spouse is a child of divorced parents, and 200 percent higher when both partners are. In addition, children of divorced parents are 50 percent more likely to marry another child of divorce.

And these divorce statistics don’t accurately reflect the real numbers of children who are no longer raised in one place by two parents, as many people live apart without officially separating, and many others start a family without ever getting married, so if they split up they are not counted in the statistics. These children may not be part of the official statistics but obviously they are affected just as much, as clearly it is not the marriage part which matters but the fact that their parents are not together anymore. Having said that, this doesn’t include children of single parents, because the main trigger behind most of the effects is the parents splitting up, not that there was one parent in the first place.
Another important factor for that matter is that not all of the misfunctioning couples decide to split up. Many decide to maintain their toxic relationships and many children are being raised in a toxic environment which tremendously affects them.

Starting a family, people rarely consider the consequences of that family someday splitting up. Had people considered creating a person seriously, they would have first considered the various potential consequences of their relationship not working out very well (something that happens to most people at some point) on the person they are creating, including very serious emotional, physical and social effects.



Emotional and Mental Health

Children in the process of a divorce, go through the psychological phases which are often associated with loss, such as denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. During the denial stage, the children do not accept the separation of their parents, they keep believing that their parents will reunite.
The denial stage is often followed by the accusation phase, in which children blame their parents for ruining their life by not getting back together.
In the bargaining stage children are trying to fix the damage done by changing their own behaviors, believing that their parents have split up because of their supposed misbehavior.
During the depression stage children are depressed, tired, sad, and may have difficulty in controlling their emotions.

Children are usually aware of tension among their parents, they usually know that something is wrong. However, even children who know what divorce means, and who have witnessed the continuous tension and fights between their parents, are not really prepared for the news that their parents are splitting up. Once it breaks out, often when one parent leaves home, the child is shocked. Naturally, children miss the parent who left the family. Drifting away from a parent, even if it is an abusive one, horrifies a child.

The ongoing conflicts between the parents, even after the split up, trigger an anxiety disorder among many children. Anxiety may manifest itself in children in the form of different reactions, some children withdraw in order to avoid any worrying situation and abstain from social activities, while others develop defense mechanisms, such as retreat, rejection, repression and projection.



Generally speaking, the existence of negative factors, such as the conflicts experienced by the child within the family, the lack of communication between parents, economic difficulties and stress factors, makes it hard for children to adapt to the new stage in their lives. As a consequence of the inner conflicts they experience, they may suffer from fear, sorrow, anger, guilt, insecurity, helplessness, loss, loneliness, abandonment, rejection, sense of being unloved, and physical problems like stomachache, headache and chest pain, and psychosomatic disorders like oversleeping and overeating, particularly within the first years following the divorce. However, a study of children six years after a parental marriage breakup revealed that even after all that time, these children tended to be lonely, unhappy, anxious and insecure.

More specifically, various effects of divorce are age related:

Between Birth and Age of One
The thought that babies in their infancy will be least influenced by a divorce, assuming that they are still unaware of many things, is wrong. Prominent changes in behaviors of babies at these ages were observed after divorce. The most common ones are crying, sleep disorders, malnutrition, and the loss of interest in toys. Ignorant parents may feel free to argue in front of their babies, significantly harming them, for the short and long term.

Between the Ages of One and Three
Children find changes to be very challenging.
They are scared of separation and the visits from one parent’s home to another’s might be rather traumatic.
They may show bad temper or may cry for the other parent.
They may want to stay with one of the parents and never let it out of their sight, and when that parent attempts to go, they may desperately cling to him/her.
They may suffer from sleep disorders such as suddenly falling asleep or staying awake the whole night.

Between the Ages of Three and Five
Children fear of being abandoned.
They feel guilty, angry, nervous, scared, sad and confused.
They are concerned about whether or not they are safe or loved.
They blame themselves for the divorce.
They believe that their hostile thoughts or bad tempers caused their parents to split up.
They tend to develop tantrums, irritability, and sometimes stuttering.
They dream about the reunion of their parents.
They make futile efforts in order to unite their parents.
Behavioral regression such as wetting the bed, lapses in toilet training, thumbsucking, sleeping with a discarded doll and etc., are also common.

Between the Ages of Six and Eight
Children feel physically torn apart by loyalty conflicts.
They assume they will be deprived of food and toys or will be neglected by their parents.
They usually feel abandoned.
They may have feelings of rejection, loss, and confusion as to whom they should be loyal, along with the feelings of guilt.
They fear that they have lost the separated parent eternally, and they get scared of the idea of another person taking their place.
They often cry and show bad temper.
They feel emptiness and have difficulty concentrating at school.
They may regard the divorce as a battle requiring them to take sides.
They long for the parent living away from home and try to unite them again, and some even write notes full of love, pretending to be the other parent sending the note to his/her spouse.
They develop nervous attitudes, such as nose-picking, hair-twisting, making faces, stuttering, nail-biting and chewing pencils, and etc.
They may get furious and aggressive.
Contrary to younger ones, children at this age do not take the blame on themselves but put it on their parents. They feel rage against their elders, are disappointed and consider themselves rejected.

Between the Ages of Nine-Twelve
Children in this age feel ashamed of what’s happening in their family, they feel they are different from other children.
They may fight with their peers or just keep away from them.
They may start having nightmares.
They may get offended or nervous without knowing the underlying cause.
They may feel a sense of anger, pain, anxiety and weakness.
Emotions like the feeling of loneliness, loss and deprivation may lead to depression or other emotional problems.
Since the children at this age tend to distinguish everything as black or white, they are quite sensitive to the pressures put by their parents with respect to taking sides in the matter.
They understand the psychological states of their parents more easily and wonder whether they will be able to take care of them or not.

Between the Ages of Thirteen-Eighteen
During this period, it may be rather painful and shocking for a child to see their parents divorce.
They may show reluctance in getting involved in emotional relationships.
They experience a sense of loss and rage.
They may be scared of getting hurt, or assume that their own marriage, one day, will also fail and they may be afraid of repeating the same mistakes their parents made.
The financial matters and the psychological states of their parents worry them a great deal.
They may have difficulty concentrating at school.
They feel discomfort with their parents’ dating and sexuality.
They may experience chronic fatigue.
They may easily sink into a depression because of the fact that family is now no longer a safe harbour to rely on.
Teenagers with divorced parents are a lot more likely to experience mental health problems that will require medication, counseling, or both.
This is the age group in which divorce is mistakenly thought to have the least impact on children. Whereas, at this age, children who already carry the burden of puberty, are facing an additional stress factor with the divorce of their parents.

More generally, parents splitting up increases the risk that children would take positions which are unsuitable for their development stage. These can be emotional such as supporting one of the parents and younger siblings, or practical such as housekeeping. That is more likely in the earlier stages of the split up, when parents are usually deeply immersed in the battle between each other, and often feel hurt, furious and lonely, so they are not attentive to their children’s needs or appropriate roles in the family.

While children go through their parents’ divorce, unresolved conflict may lead to future unexpected risks. Research has shown children who have experienced divorce in the previous 20 years were more likely to participate in crimes, rebel through destructive behavior which harms a child’s health, with more children reporting they have acquired smoking habits, or prescription drug use.
Studies have also found depression and anxiety rates are higher in children of divorced parents.
A study of almost one million children in Sweden demonstrated that children growing up with single parents were more than twice as likely to experience a serious psychiatric disorder, carry out or attempt suicide, or develop an alcohol addiction.
College students whose parents were divorced were more likely to experience verbal aggression and violence from their partner during conflict resolution.
Children of divorced parents may have lower scores on self-concept and social relations.
Anxiety and depression seem to worsen after a divorce event.

Children whose family is going through divorce may have a harder time relating to others, and tend to have less social contacts. Partly, this is a result of abandonment issues that affect adult children of divorce for many years afterward. As children, they cannot make sense of why mom and dad split up, and as adults the fear of abandonment, the notion that love can simply stop, or that conflict leads to permanent separation, continues to harm them.

Children whose parents have split up develop problems trusting people. They believe that when things get rough, they would be abandoned. Many never learn skills for solving conflict in relationships. They desire intimacy and love, but the closer someone gets to them, the more terrified they are of getting hurt, or being abandoned.

The physical health of children is also highly affected. While at least some of the emotional effects of parents’ separation on children are intuitive, many of the physical effects, and mostly their prevalence and impact, are very surprising. For example it was found that children of divorced parents are at a greater risk to experience injury, asthma, headaches and speech defects than children whose parents have remained together. And in general, they are 50% more likely to develop health problems.

Social Effects

The emotional storm that children growing up with separated parents experience, as well as the significant interruption in their daily lives, very often affect their academic performance. Clearly, the more distracted children are, the more likely they are to not be able to focus on their school work.
They are more likely to have a learning disability or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder regardless of parents’ education, income, or area of residence.
They have less language stimulation.
They are more likely to have lower grade point averages (GPAs) and are more likely to repeat a year of school.
A study of eleven industrialized countries showed that children growing up with separated parents had lower math and science scores.

Teenagers are more likely to drop out of high school when their parents get divorced. This is not simply an expression of teenagers’ rebellious spirit. It can often happen because teenagers drop out of school so they can get a job and help their family to pay for rent and food.

Children of separated parents may lose economic security as custodial mothers experience the loss of 25–50 percent of their pre-divorce income. Children living with single mothers are much more likely to live in poverty than children living with both parents.

Children of separated parents may have a weakened relationship with their mothers since divorced mothers are often less able to provide emotional support as they are forced to work longer hours to support the family. Besides increased work time, loss of income may lead to a change in residence which usually also negatively affects children.

Children of separated parents may have a weakened relationship with their father because they spend much less time with him. A study found that fewer than half of children living with their mother after a divorce had seen their fathers at all in more than one year, and only one in six saw their fathers once a week.

Children of married parents attained higher income levels as adults.
Children growing up with separated parents are four times more likely to experience problems with their friends and peers.

Children growing up with separated parents tend to be sexually active at a much younger age.
Of course, this is not necessarily bad in itself, but it is bad because it is not coming from a healthy place and it is not going to healthy places. For example boys have earlier sexual debut and higher rates of sexually transmitted diseases when they have experienced divorce in their family, and girls whose fathers left the home before they were five years old were eight times more likely to become pregnant as adolescents.

I realize that considering all that may come off as a very high standard, but considering the enormous effect that parents’ separation has on children, and the high probability of parents splitting up, it must be another critical thing to seriously consider before creating a person who will anyway be significantly affected by the parents’ relationship, especially in the highly likely case of them splitting up.

The least that parents can do is avoid, by any means, dragging their children into their own battles, and overburdening their child with their own frustrations. But that’s exactly what happens very often. During the divorce process, parents experience a roller coaster of emotions to which their children are extremely sensitive, and they are often the main victims of it. Furthermore, their parenting skills are at a low ebb during the separation process, and that is exactly when their children need them the most.

There is guidance information of how to tell the child about the decision to get divorced which includes instructions such as:

  • Parents should explain to their child about their decision to get divorced in a secure and familiar environment the child is used to and should act together in this.
  • The child should be given detailed information as to where s/he will live after divorce, with which parent s/he is going to stay with, how often s/he can see the other parent and what sort of changes will take place in her/his life.
  • While parents are having a conversation with their children, they should avoid any mutual argument, nor should they blame each other in front of the child.
  • The child should never be asked to take sides in this matter, in other words, s/he should never be put in the position of a referee.
  • Even if one of the parents feels hatred or rage against the other party, no negative criticisms or remarks about him/her should be made behind his/her back.
  • The remarks or expressions likely to hurt the child or make him/her feel guilty should carefully be avoided.

But probably, in most cases, none of this ever happens, and in all cases, it never happens all of the time.

I tried to avoid focusing on the ugliest aspects of parents splitting up, and concentrate on the common issues of common cases of separation, but the fact that millions of children are being used by their parents as weapons against the other parent can’t be totally disregarded.
No child has ever asked to be created and no child has asked to be neglected, pushed aside, or being weaponized due to the separation of the parents.

So many harms, some surprising, at least in the sense of how significant and deeply affecting they are, yet people don’t and will not take all of that under a serious consideration.
Some of it is a result of people’s tendency to think that bad things only happen to other people and never to them, but most of it is a result of people tendency not to think at all about the consequences of their actions, no matter how dire and harmful they may be, even to their own children.

References

Blackwell, D.L. 2010. Family Structure and Children’s Health in the United States: Findings from the National Health Interview Survey, 2001–2007. CDC Vital and Health Statistics. 10: 246

Bramlett, M.D., and L.F. Radel. 2014. Adverse Family Experiences Among Children in Nonparental Care, 2011–2012. National Center for Health Statistics, n. 74, http://www. cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr074.pdf

Carlsund, A., Eriksson, U., Löfstedt, P., & Sellström, E. (2013). Risk behaviour in Swedish adolescents: is shared physical custody after divorce a risk or a protective factor? European Journal of Public Health, 23(1), 3-8. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/cks011

ChildStats.gov. 2013. America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2013: Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties (2013). http://www.childstats.gov/americas children/health3.asp

Cohen, G.J. 2002. Helping children and families deal with divorce and separation. Pediatrics 110: 1019–23

Dunlop, R., A. Burns, and S. Bermingham. 2001. Parent-child relations and adolescent selfimage following divorce: A ten year study

Edwards, A.N. 2014. Dynamics of Economic Well-being: Poverty, 2009–2001: Household Economic Studies (2014). United States Census Bureau Web Site. http://www.census.gov/prod/2014pubs/p70-137.pdf

Ellis, B.J., J.E. Bates, K.A. Dodge, D. M. Fergusson, L.J. Horwood, G.S. Pettit, and L. Woodward. 2003. Does father absence place daughters at special risk for early sexual activity and teenage pregnancy? Child Dev 74: 810–1

Emery, R. E. (1999). Marriage, Divorce, and Children’s Adjustment. (2nd ed., Developmental Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications

E. N., Song, J., J. G., Mailick, M. R., & Floyd, F. J. (2015). The relative risk of divorce in parents of children with developmental disabilities: impacts of lifelong parenting. American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. 120(6), 514-26. doi: 10.1352/1944-7558-120.6.514

Fagan, P. F., & Churchill, A. (2012). The effects of divorce on children. Marriage & religion research institute

Forehand, R., Biggar, H., & Kotchick, B. A. (1998). Cumulative Risk Across Family Stressors: Short- and Long-Term Effects for Adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 26(2), 119-128

Jeynes, W.H. 2001. The effects of recent parental divorce on their children’s sexual attitudes and behavior. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage 35: 125

King, V. 2002. Parental divorce and interpersonal trust in adult offspring. Journal of Marriage Family 64(3): 642–56

Mooney, A., C. Oliver, and M. Smith. 2009. Impact of family breakdown on children’s wellbeing evidence review DCSF-RR113. London: University of London, Institute of Education, Thomas Coram Research Unit

Pong, S.L., J. Dronkers, and G. HampdenThompson. 2003. Family policies and children’s school achievement in single-versus two-parent families. Journal of Marriage and Family 65: 681–99

Rotermann , M. (2007). Marital breakdown and subsequent depression. Health Reports. 18(2):33-44. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17578014

Strohschein, L. 2005. Parental divorce and child mental health trajectories. Journal of Marriage and Family 67: 1286

Soria, K. M., & Linder, S. (2014). Parental Divorce and First-Year College Students’ Persistence and Academic Achievement. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 55(2), 103-116. doi:10.1080/10502556.2013.871919