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Brianna Correia

Ms. Wilson

English II Honors

May 10th, 2019

Children of Divorce Facing Serious Problems

The divorce rate has risen over 30% in the US within the past 10 years. This sudden

increase is shedding more light onto the problems a divorced home can cause for children.

Adults in relationships are focusing on how divorce will affect themselves and not their children.

This is a problem because children feel unimportant in their parents lives and feel alienated from

their families, and that leads to anxiety, depression, and drug use.

One major problem kids and teens of divorce face is higher chances of developing

anxiety and depression. “A new study by Blue Cross/Blue Shield shows that from 2013 and 2016,

“among adolescents there was a 65 percent increase for girls” and “a 47 percent rise for boys”

in diagnosed major depression” (Schwarzwalder). The amounts of teens being diagnosed with

clinical anxiety and depression are at dangerous levels. With many different causes varying from

teenager to teenager, one big reason is divorced parents. Children with divorced parents have a

much higher susceptibility to developing clinical depression and anxiety. Some solutions to this

are ones you would find to most teen mental health issues. Therapy, possibly medication if the

issue calls for it, self care, and help and support from parents and other family members when

needed.

Another issue teens with divorced parents face is the children are forced to grow up

faster. Divorce is a very stressful situation, especially for the kids. In many situations of divorce,

some of the kids have to take a place of responsibility that a child their age normally doesn’t
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have to take, and shouldn’t have to take. “Every teen whose parents have divorced — or are

currently splitting up — has a unique story.” (Bernstein). It’s hard to give specific examples of

this because the examples are so different varying from family to family. A common situation,

though, is split custody. With split custody, the child, or children, would spend time at the houses

of both their parents. In this kind of situation it puts a lot of responsibility on the kid(s) to keep

track of themselves, belongings, or even younger siblings. It adds a level of stress and unwanted

responsibility that children should not have to take on. Solutions to this could be asking the kids

what they would prefer and giving the child a say in their own custody to make sure they’re

comfortable with the situation. Increased communication in general between the child/children

and the parents would fix many problems.

The third and final problem I have found is decreased academic success. It is very

common for kids’ grades in school to go down as their parents are getting divorced or have been

for a while. It can sometimes be as a form of rebellion by the kids to try and “get back” at their

parents. But, more often than that, bad grades in these kids are because of stress or increases in

anxiety and feeling overwhelmed with what’s going on in their life. “Between the ten

students who came from divorced parents, and the ten students whose parents

were married, the majority felt that their parent’s negative relationships affected

their academics.” (Odenweller). School is a stressful situation for students who don’t have

anything else going on in their life, so it becomes that much harder when the kids have an

unhappy home, or they feel unhappy in their home. It becomes really hard for the parents to

sympathize with their child on this subject, because they are no longer in school, and it can be

hard for them to wrap their head around their child’s situation and how they are feeling. Parents
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need to have better communication with their children. They can also do their best to leave the

child out of the specific details of the divorce and just try to destress them as much as possible.

To conclude, divorce is a complex situation and puts a tremendous amount of strain on

children. When parents get divorced it is common for them to neglect their children and focus on

their marriage and what they’re going to do to help themselves instead of the relationship they

have with their child or children. It’s hard for parents to sympathise with their children in this

situation because in the previous generation, divorce was frowned upon, and was something

people just didn't do. The main way to solve this is building the relationship between parent and

child, working through problems together, and considering all sides and opinions, especially the

child’s.

Works Cited
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● Bernstein, Linda. “Splitsville.” Current Health 2, vol. 35, no. 2, Oct. 2008, p. 12.

EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=35399003&site=pov-live.

● Stanton, Glenn T. “The Children of Divorce.” World & I, vol. 12, no. 10, Oct. 1997, p.

54. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=9710082972&site=pov-live

● Tahirović, Senija, and Gokce Demir. “Influence of Parental Divorce on Anxiety Level of

Adolescents.” Contemporary Perspective on Child Psychology and Education, 2018,

doi:10.5772/intechopen.71287.

● “Teens, Depression, and Divorce ... and Hope.” The Stream, 14 May 2018,

stream.org/teens-depression-divorce/.

● Tyre, Peg. “The Secret Pain of Divorce.” Newsweek, vol. 146, no. 17, Oct. 2005, p. 14.

EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=18572372&site=pov-live.