Here is a whole essay.
These days, people are taking marriage and divorce very lightly not realising the consequences following those events, especially the impact on children. According to the Oxford dictionary, divorce means legal dissolution of a marriage. Malaysia has a high percentage of divorce rates. Based on statistics, the divorce percentage reaches up to 20% per year. In the United States, it is believed that 40% of all marriages end up in divorce . On the other hand, in the United Kingdom out of every 1000 marriage, 12 end up in divorce . Globally, an average of 1.3 per 1000 people gets a divorce
Ending a marriage is not a one-off event, it is a long process and it affects the entire family, including children in every aspect of their lives. Divorce has 6 phases . The first phase is known as the emotional divorce, which involves negative feelings like anger and hatred taking over the nice feelings like love and affection. This is followed by legal divorce, which means that there is certification to declare that the duo is no longer legally married. Then comes the economic divorce, which requires the couple to divide their properties and other valuables accumulated during the marriage equally. The next phase is the co-parental divorce which handles issues regarding the custody of the child. Subsequently, the community divorce takes place affecting the social circle as a result of shifting out to a new community. Finally, the last phase is the psychic divorce, which involves adjustment to being single again. In the case, where there is a child involved in the divorce, the child has to cope through all the 6 phases.
As the effect of divorce, children will go through emotional and behavioural distress in order to adapt to the life after divorce. According to Allison and Furstenberg (1989), children of divorced parents experience more emotional and behavioural distress compared to children with intact families. Among the agony that the children will experience, is a decrease in their academic performance resulting in poor grades in school. This can be understood by analysing the kind of situation that a child will have to cope with due to divorce. The child will go through various emotions such as anger towards themselves and the parent that initiated the divorce, fear, betrayal, abandonment, loss, sadness, rejection and loneliness. The difficulty in making new friends and adjusting to the new environment and teachers are some of the factors that will cause poorer grades compared to his performance in his previous school where everything was within his comfort zone.
A child especially preschoolers will also live with the feeling of guilt. This usually happens when a child thinks that he or she had caused the divorce to take place. The child would think that the fights and arguments that took place in the household is caused by them and that they have no power to control or stop it, which has led to divorce. This could be due to the child’s “limited cognitive abilities" causing them to feel puzzled by their parents divorce They also found that children do not have the ability to manage with all the adjustments that are required of them and these children carry the feeling of guilt that they caused the divorce and they have to patch their parents’ marriage
In addition to the effects of divorce mentioned above, the standard of living and well-being of the child will be affected due to the lost of joint-income as the single parent now has to cope with the living expenses single-handedly. It is not an easy task especially with a child because raising a child can be very demanding. A child will go through deprivation in comforts received prior to the divorce as the child would have lived in a comfortable life out of both the parents’ income. In most cases of divorce, the mothers are usually the custodian of the child who generally has lesser earning capacity than the fathers.
In conclusion, divorce certainly brings detrimental effect on children emotionally, psychologically and financially, and the effects are long-term. Couples with troubled marriages, especially those who already have children should try all means to make the relationship work. In circumstances where divorce could not be avoided, parents should consider keeping the child out of the conflicts that takes place between them. As such, parents should put their conflicts aside and spend time with the child by doing enjoyable activities together The non-custodial parent’s support is essential. To help the child further during the process of divorce, its best for the child to meet a psychologist to discuss his or her anxieties, rage, and puzzlement due to the divorce as this will help ease the child’s emotional distress
