Discussion Text

The Impact of Divorce for Children
by : Mardhatillah

In this 21st century, divorce is no longer a taboo phenomenon in the society. Divorce seems to be more socially acceptable and is also the common phenomenon that happens nowadays. However, it is bad for a couple to divorce if they have children because divorce is crippling and impeding to the development and growth of children. There are different impacts on children depending on the reason for the divorce of their parents. Children learn not only from what they hear, but also from what they see. Hence, when they see another family smiling and they see their own family frowning with tears, they start to understand that divorce is the result of the unhappiness in marriage. The following reasons will present both negative and positive sides about the impact of divorce for children.

On the negative side, children become the most painful victims in divorce. Most children feel stressful, miserable and also unable to concentrate on studying. The situation and condition surrounding the divorce often make it hard for the children to focus on academic goals. In such cases, children are bound to lose their self confidence and lose all motivation to study. When children feel so much anger because of divorce that they perforce for doing crimes, teen pregnancy before marriage and taking drugs as a way of dealing with their anger. As a result, many children have higher chances of becoming delinquents. According to the statistics from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), “ When the divorce happens so the children consist of two boys and a daughter just live with her mother, the daughter should be pregnant; one of the boys should have committed suicide; and the other should be a drug addict”. That is way, when a couple gets divorced, they hurt their children more than they hurt themselves.

According to Horn Wade and Busy in “Marriage and Welfare Reform” from Hudson Institute Executive Briefing said that there are 40% of children growing up in the world today without one of their parents. Many children in the world whose parents divorce feel as if their worlds are falling apart. During the divorce, children also lose the care and support from one of their parents who ever stays with them in a united family. They feel unsecured because they do not have enough protection, care and attention from parents. They feel that they lose one of their parents who are being around them before. Sometimes, children who have ever seen the parent’s separation, fails to make relationships on their own because they do not see any successful relationship.

Most people think that there is nothing positive about divorce because the negative is more obvious and is often talked about. However, divorce can be a positive thing when the human trafficking happens in the family. There are fathers who traffic their children in order to earn money. That father has worked hard on his own, but the salary that he gets still cannot fulfill his family’s needs. Moreover, if he has many children and his wife does not work. He has to be responsible on all of them.

Another reason can be seen in a person who had ever been in a broken family. He will become more precautious in his choice for a mate because he does not want to put his children through the pain like he has felt. Divorce can also be a positive thing, when the marriage is in a high conflict and the children are faced to be in an environment where they see a lack of affection, respect and trust. Perhaps it is better to end marriage rather than let children have a bad development. According to Judith Wallerstein, who is one of the experts on divorce, has admitted that divorce is necessary when children are being exposed to violence, or receiving physical, or sexual abuse that cannot be resolved by individual or family therapy. In these instances, the children survive and even thrive in time, having been saved from a harmful environment. Obviously, a parent has to use wisdom when marriage is untenable or destructive.

Following this debate, there is so much controversy concerning the impact of divorce for children. Some people agree if the divorce has a lot of negative impacts for children while others disagree because there are a lot of positive impacts too. However, I stand on my opinion that the divorce has a lot of troubles according to the misery which damages the children more. Divorce will impact children’s psychological, mental and emotional. Therefore, couples that have children should think carefully before they end their marriage in divorce; otherwise their children may be deeply painful and become victims for this situation.
Sources:

http://www.monash.edu.au/lls/llonline/writing/general/essay/sample-essay/index.xml

http://www.children-and-divorce.com/

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/fcs/pdfs/fcs482.pdf