From the textbook on page 391, there is research done on the effects that divorce has had on children, and studies that has made some conclusions. From the studies, it shows that the many children go through a divorce without any long-term emotional damage. Another interesting fact that was found is that the emotional damage was more likely when the parents had more intense conflicts leading up to the divorce. However, they also make it clear that some children are prone to more emotional damage after a divorce.
I think that learning about the effects of divorce on children is important especially in a society today where many marriages end in divorce. Personally, I can think of many examples when I read this of friends or people I know whose parents have gone through a divorce, and I feel like each person experiences different effects. Something that I feel would be interesting to further investigate on top of the research that has already been done is more research conducted on the effects on children regarding the proximity of the parents, and how emotionally close they still are. For example, finding the differences between the effects of children whose divorced parents live in the same city, or across the country, or even on the other side of the world. In addition, studying the mental health of children whose parents still talk and are friendly versus parents who do not speak to each other.
Divorce and CHildren
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I wonder how much distance effects children as well. However with technology, such as skype, facetime and other video things it makes it so that those far away seem closer. Then asking what impact does that have. Are the effect different then those of 20 years ago before this technology?
At least from what I have observed, it seems that the westerners who grow up in a divorced family are easier to tell others that their parents are divorced than Chinese. I think the westerners sort of have a better attitude to the parents' divorce, which helps themselves weaken the negative influence from the divorce in their childhood.
I think it is pretty accurate that emotional damage of children of divorce depends on the messiness or nastiness of the divorce. I myself am I child of divorce. I was in the first grade when it happened, but I now know their split was pretty amicable. I don't remember much about it, I think this is because it was pretty clean, and as far as I know, i don't suffer from any emotional damage.
I did not have any close friends whose parents went through divorce until this year, so for me, divorce has always been somewhat of a strange, abstract concept. I think that those studies would be excellent ones, but I do think that the messiness of the divorce would play an incredible factor in distance, as well as emotional attachment to the parents.
Divorce is always a difficult topic to deal with. I have a friend who went through a divorce and it was one of the hardest things he has dealt with in his life and as his friend it affected me as well. It something that trickles down from the parents and when finding out more details of why the split happens can be even be more devastating. I think studies on this would be a great idea to really dive deep to see the emotional harm it does in a young child's life. I would also be interested to see the difference between a young child's reaction to a divorce vs. an older more mature man/woman. It would be interesting to see the whether it affects older or younger folks more.