Helping Children through Divorce Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Helping Children through Divorce - Essay Example Parental education about divorce, interventions designed to help children open up, discuss issues and to acquire problem solving skills as well as peer support do help. Schools are important in helping a child to adjust. This essay presents a discussion about ways to help children through a divorce or a reorganization of their family. The Western world, including United States of America and Canada, continues to experience a disturbing trend that shows high divorce rates (Harvey, 2003, pp. 3). In the 1960s, three out of ten marriages were likely to end in a divorce in the United States of America, but the divorce rate increased to five out of ten in 1975. This rate continued to persist until recently, when an increase in the number of couples living together without getting married skewed the marriage and divorce statistics (Jayson, 2005, Paragraph 1). Those who are living together can break up without causing much of a stir and this means that close relationships remain fragile. Thus, the Western world in general and the United States in particular, continue to experience weak family structures with high rates of solo parenting. Research suggests that the impact of a divorce on children is often devastating, because of divided loyalties between parents, the emotional and financial tensions, split families with former spouses living apart and continued conflict between parents (Harvey, 2003, pp. 3 – 6) and (McCormick-Wege, 2001, pp. 14 – 17). More than a million children in the United States of America now become children of divorce every year and these children are more likely to develop psychological problems compared to others, even if their financial and economic support continues. Children of divorce experience adjustment problems that do vary depending on the age, developmental maturity, gender, the time since the divorce and the nature of the support systems