Children and Divorce: The Importance of Supportive Adults

Guest post by Talia Rizzo

When a child experiences an adverse childhood experience (ACE) or stress, such as a serious illness, or verbal abuse by a parent, these events are classified into three distinct groups: positive, tolerable, and toxic. A positive stressor is one that is classified as a productive emotional stressor, a normal event that a majority of all children experience, such as receiving a shot at the doctor. This type of ACE allows children to grow and adapt in order to be more prepared for stressors later on in life. A tolerable stressor is an event that can cause severe stress, like divorce, but how it affects a child long-term is largely dependent on the extent to which a protective adult facilitates a child’s use of coping skills, their sense of control, and how they adapt. Tolerable ACE’s are defined by the protection and care provided to the child by an adult and can be most strongly influenced by the mother (Vélez, Wolchik, Tein & Sandler 2011). A toxic stressor, such as child abuse or neglect, results in a change in brain architecture for the child and can increase risk for later health problems such as depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease, and immune disorders later in life (Shonkoff 2012).

            Among the scientific and medical community, the experience of divorce for children is classified as a generally tolerable stressor, especially as divorce has become more common and less stigmatized in our American society with 50% of marriages ending in divorce (American Psychological Association). Despite divorce growing into a more common event for children around the country, however, a child’s individual experience with divorce is characterized by the adult figures present during the transition period – both short and long-term, i.e. two houses, change in socio-economic status for a parent, paternal depression, future mental illness, etc. For children that experience a divorce alongside a loving and affectionate adult, this adverse childhood event is more likely to be considered tolerable, as these children are given tools to adapt to divorce from their quality relationship with a healthy adult (Vélez, Wolchik, Tein & Sandler 2011). Children with present parents, particularly mothers, show reduced mental health problems later in life, as well as more active coping skills. For children that are forced to experience divorce without the presence of a supportive adult – whether it be neglect, paternal depression, etc. – the stressor of divorce can become a toxic stressor for children throughout their lifespan. This is why we as a society must work to provide effective interventions and mental health resources for young children that are undergoing family separation and divorce.

Though divorce is seen as a more tolerable than toxic stressor, it still has the ability to cause a significant amount of health problems, such as depression, anxiety, avoidant coping, early alcohol/drug use, as well as behavioral issues throughout the lifespan of the individual from childhood to adolescence and adulthood. Children of divorce are highly likely to experience long term health issues and changes in brain architecture when they are lacking a maternal figure to help them through the transition. In Vélez, Wolchik, Tein, and Sandler’s 2011 research study on 240 divorced American families living in the southeast of the country, the researchers found that a positive and quality relationship, especially between mother and child, during and after divorce provided the child with a sense of security, opportunity for instruction, reinforcement of adaptive coping skills, and effective discipline which helped to enhance the children’s sense of predictability and comfort in their environment, as well as their sense of control. This research illustrates the way high-quality parenting is the most important resource for a child’s stress, coping, and adaption following divorce.

In my opinion, the way divorce can quickly become a toxic stressor for children that do not have a supportive adult present because of various reasons, the most common being their parent is experiencing paternal depression from the divorce. Depression can manifest through hostile behavior, neglect of the child, and withdrawal from daily life. These results show the need to create more mental health resources in American society for children experiencing divorce or loss of a parent, as well as raising more awareness of preexisting resources in the local community. These actions would inform children and give them the opportunity to access adult individuals that can provide the comfort, affection, and security they are not receiving at home. Some ways society could establish early intervention for children experiencing divorce, family separation, and paternal depression is by implementing free therapy programs within schools or public institutions with therapists and psychologists that have a history of working with youth experiencing family troubles. Giving children a safe place where they are able to discuss how the stressor is affecting them with adults who are trained on the subject could help minimize later mental and physical health problems in the future if the intervention occurs early enough in the child’s life. Along with providing access to a mental health support system for children, public centers with a team of supportive adults that can provide the attention children are lacking, as well as teaching healthy coping mechanisms to children that are undergoing the complex transitions divorce brings would allow for children to have constant access to a quality adult relationship (Ross & Wynne 2010).

            Despite there being a multitude of studies on divorce over the last fifty years, there is still a need for longitudinal studies on the physical and mental health effects throughout the lifespan. Most studies done on children and divorce have only been done on a short-term time scale, around six months, to a year to five years, but what the research needs today are studies that go beyond, that look at the effects of divorce on children twenty or thirty years into their futures. Along with the need for more long-term studies, there is also the need for more research on why mother-child relationships specifically are so influential, and a need for more diverse samples when performing experiments. A majority of the articles I found about children and divorce profiled European American children, with few participants of color and few young males. There is a need to look at divorce and its effects from a more intersectional point of view, meaning socio-economic status, race, age, gender, and sexual orientation of the parents are taken into account and evaluated during the research process.

Works Cited

Marriage & Divorce. (n.d.). Retrieved January 17, 2020, from https://www.apa.org/topics/divorce.

Ross, Lisa T. & Wynne, Stacie. (2010, March 26). Parental Depression and Divorce and Adult Children’s Well-Being: The Role of Family Unpredictability. Springer Science and Business Media, LLC, pp. 757-761.

Shonkoff, Jack P. (2012, January 1). The Lifelong Effects of Child Adversity and Toxic Stress. American Academy of Pediatrics, pp. e232-243.

Vélez, Corinda E., Wolchik, Sharlene A., Tein, Jenn-Yun & Sandler, Irwin. (2011, Jan./Feb.). Protecting Children from the Consequences of Divorce: A Longitudinal Study of the Effects of Parenting on Children’s Coping Processes. Society for Research in Child Development, pp. 244-257.