Divorce, its Impact on Children

Renee Peltz Dennison & Sun-A Lee & Bonnie L. Barber

Divorce is an inevitable outcome for over half of all marriages today, and every year more than 1 million children in the United States experience the divorce of their parents (Amato & Keith, 1991). Although there is a good deal of inconsistency in the divorce literature, there is general agreement that when compared with children with continuously married parents, children with divorced parents are disadvantaged in several ways, including conduct, psychological adjustment, academic achievement, and close relationships (Amato, 2001). These differences between children from divorced and married families are not large, and many children in divorced families adjust well. Furthermore, recent research suggests that these differences may be due more to factors such as parental conflict and less effective parenting than to the divorce itself, which suggests that there are potential targets for efforts to promote child well-being after divorce. Much research effort has focused on the differences between children ...

Users without subscription are not able to see the full content on this title. Please, subscribe or login to access all content on this website.