Divorce has become something of the norm now, with one in two marriages are resulting in separation (Center for Disease Control And Prevention, 2012). The conflicts caused by divorce does not only affect the spouses but profoundly impact the children. Often, this event leads to children having issues with their social, mental, and physical health. Parents play the most significant role in a child's life, and their stability is crucial for the children to lead a balanced life. The children of divorced parents are often neglected in research, as researchers often forget to focus on the impact that disturbed households has on one’s childhood. The children of these broken homes are more vulnerable to experiencing more anxiety and stress as they are likely to receive inconsistent discipline from each parent. There is also the fear of rejection, as the children often feel the need to please both parents separately while possibly blaming themselves for their parents’ marital status. This paper reviews current research on this topic, analyzing past studies’ purposes and limitations as well as their results.
In a longitudinal study, Vousoura, Verdeli, Warner, Wickramaratne, and Bailey (2011) did 25-year-old research on the connection between interparental conflict and the negative impact it makes on children. The study was conducted on one hundred seventy-eight with a mean age of 13.9 years, with three generations. This included children of depressed and non-depressed parents, as well as their grandparents. The data was collected in 4 different waves. Wave 1 was the baseline visit, followed by W=wave 2 (after two years), wave 3 (after ten years), and then wave 4 (20 years) and wave 5 (25 years). As mentioned before the subjects were divided into three sections, G1 as the probands, i.e. the grandparents, G2 as children of the probands, the parents, and G3 as the grandchildren of the probands. Again, the subjects from G2 and G3 were sorted into high-risk and low-risk category, depending one if they had at least one depressed parent. The result was analyzed that there was no apparent connection between the divorce and the depression of the children. From the group of G3, with parents and grandparents who had a diagnosis of depression, there was no significant association found between the divorce of their parents in the G2 group and their psychopathology. Seemingly, there seemed no connection between G3 subject's psychopathology, and the marital status of their parents/grandparents in G2 and G3, who were not diagnosed with depression. However, there was a significantly increased risk of internalizing disorder in the group G3, whose parents in G2 had divorced. Anxiety disorder risks were threefold among the G3 subjects, with grandparents with depressive disorders. The result was consistent in that the grandchildren and children of subjects with depression were more inclined to be affected by the marital status of their parents. However, these children were more affected with anxiety disorder than depression.
In a study conducted by Koch (1961), 22 preschool age children were split into two groups and compared to one another based on anxiety level. The first group consisted of children with divorced or separated parents, while the second group consisted of children with married parents. Koch determined the anxiety level in each child using a projective anxiety test as well as interviews with the children’s parents. The projective anxiety test consisted of happy and sad faced icons which the subjects pointed to when shown various photographs depicting several routine activities such as eating, dressing, and sleeping. The parent interviews revealed that the children in the broken home group predominantly faced absent fathers, insecure mothers, mothers who are unwilling to accept responsibility for their child, or mothers who resented their child. The results indicate that children who come from broken homes experience far more anxiety than those who come from homes in which the parents are together. In the case of children from broken homes, they are more likely to experience anxiety because of rejection or inconsistent discipline, whereas in the case of children with two parents in one home experience the most anxiety when their parents disagree with one another. The results of this study are consistent with other findings, however the study only used 22 children. The results are therefore limited by the very small number of cases studied. Additionally, the method of conducting interviews with the parents of these children presents a limitation as well. It is possible that a parent may worry about being shamed by the researcher and therefore not be entirely truthful about everyday life in their household or how the child was raised.
Stevenson, Fabricus, Braver, and Cookston (2018) did a longitudinal study which involved the experience of having one parent relocated. In order to carry out this study, the researchers chose a sample of 81 children at the age of 12 who had divorced parents and were living with their mother and a man who had been acting as a father figure for at least a year. 38 of the children studied lived over an hour away from their biological fathers. The researchers collected data by interviewing both the mothers and the children at the ages of 12.5, 14, 15.5, 19.5, and 22. The results showed that between the ages of 12.5 and 15.5 the children experienced the most insecurities and doubted how much they mattered to their mothers, fathers, and stepfathers, thus resulting in heightened anxiety levels. Additionally, from the ages of 15.5 to 19.5 they were found to be more likely to engage in risky behavior or behave aggressively. The subjects also showed intense symptoms of anxiety in depression at these ages. This study supports the hypothesis that children with separated parents are more likely to feel great anxiety because of their possible fear of rejection or the doubt that they do not matter to their parents. This study is limited, however, because it only accounted for children who had another father figure in their life and children whose mothers had remarried by the time they were 12 years old. This limitation leaves a possibility for further study which would incorporate anxiety in children who grew up in a one parent household.
A study conducted by Riggio (2004), shows the long-term consequences of parental conflict in young adults, by comparing individuals who are from divorced and intact families. The study included 566 students, the sample ranged from 18 to 32 years old and were separated by the type of family they have, divorced or intact. There were five measures that the participants had to complete in fixed order: The Social Support Questionnaire, The Anxiety Subscale of the Relationship Awareness Scale, The Parental Attachment Questionnaire, Demographic Information, and The Parental Conflict Scale. Each measure used the Likert scale to describe the severity of the measures. The social questionnaire was used to indicate the amount of people whom they can rely on for social support in different types of situations and the degree of satisfaction of their support. The anxiety scale was to indicate the tendency to experience anxiety in close relationships. The parental attachment questionnaire was to show the quality of relationships with each parent as sources of emotional support and to also show which parent facilitate independence. The demographic information is the background information of the individual such as, sex, age, and if they are coming from a divorced family or not. Lastly, the parental conflict scale was to measure the severity of the parental conflict by showing how often biological parents disagree with certain issues and how often they become physically violent. Once the participants complete the measures, they were instructed to describe the relationship between their biological parents towards the end of the study. Although, the results showed greater availability of social support and lower anxiety in personal relationships, there are several factors shown in the study. One of the few factors that introduced error in the study is that majority of children are under primary custody of their mother during a divorce, which is suggested that majority of the participants in the study were more likely to state that they were raised by their mothers only and the father was not part of the picture. With parental custody being a factor, children who have poor relationship with their father show greater anxiety in relationships due to insecurity.
A study done by Hashemi and Homayuni (2012), shows the psychological and physical effects of parental emotional or legal divorce in children. The study included 81 children ranging from 10 to 12 years old who were attending fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. The sample of children were divided into two groups; legal divorce group and emotional divorce group. In order to determine which child falls under the two categories, the mother of the child had to complete an emotional divorce scale measuring the emotional state of their divorce. The measures that were administered to the two groups were the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21) and the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ). The DASS-21 is a self-report scale that the respondents have to rate the severity of each mental state over the previous week. The result of this study show that children coming from an emotional divorce home had high levels of depression, anxiety, and stress compared to children from a legal divorce home. The Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire is also a self-report measure but it has more items than the DASS-21, which only has 7 items. The BPAQ measures the aggressive behaviors in the children, which resulted in children from emotional divorce homes showed higher levels of not only physical aggression but also verbal aggression compared to the children from legal divorce homes. This study supports the hypothesis by showing that children with divorced parents show a significant difference in anxiety levels than children with intact families. The study also shows that the type of divorce, whether it was legal or emotional, brings a great impact for the children’s well-being. There were a few limitations in this study, such as the time span of when the mother of the children in the legal divorced group had taken the emotional divorce scale from when the divorce had happened. It was suggested that a study can be conducted by considering the years of when mothers had a legal divorce and determine if there will be a significant difference.
In conclusion, these five articles show the profound impact of divorce in children. These reviews contain different studies to determine the changes a child goes through when there is interparental conflict. Anxiety disorder is a common result of parental divorce. One of the above mentioned studies spoke of the children of emotional divorce showed more signs of anxiety than that of legal divorce (Hashemi & Homayuni, 2012). Another study done by Vousoura, Verdeli, Warner, Wickramaratne, and Bailey (2011) took a different viewpoint, by bringing in three different generations, with family history of depression and divorce to see the child’s psychopathology, and it was recorded that the children were more prone to anxiety disorders than depression. Similarly, the study done by Stevenson, Fabricus, Braver, and Cookston (2018) showed that the children whose divorced parents had remarried showed signs of both depression and anxiety. In the study done by Koch (1961), it was concluded that the children were showing signs of anxiety because of the conflicting and irregular corrective actions taken by the divorced parents at separate times on separate matters. However, contrary to that the study done by Riggio (2004), the results were different from the other studies, concluding that the children of separated parents were showing greater signs of independence, as the were facing additional household chores and were given the task of taking care of their younger siblings. This study also showed results that the children with divorced parents were showing less anxiety when it came to starting relationships themselves, as they saw the result of the divorce as a positive symbol of happiness for both parents. Because the children of divorced parents show slightly inconsistent results as to whether they are showing symptoms of anxiety, there is opportunity for further research to be conducted on this topic.