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In a previous article, I reviewed the effects of divorce on the divorcing individuals.1 In this second article of the series, I shall discuss the effects on the children of those couples, a group which too often falls victim to irreparable marriages. There are a number of ways in which children may be impacted by parental divorce, and, as is generally the case when divorce is studied, there is variation and disagreement in the literature about the nature and severity of adverse consequences to children.
Before commencing a review of that literature, it might be helpful to put into perspective how far-reaching the effects of divorce are for children. Though somewhat disputed, it is generally believed that the divorce rate in the United States hovers around 50 percent. One-half to two-thirds of those who divorce remarry. One of every six adults in the US divorces two or more times. Half of all divorces involve minor children, with one million children a year joining the ranks. Forty percent of children in this country will experience parental divorce, and half of them will reside at least temporarily in a single parent household. One in three will live with a step-parent for some period of time before the age of 19.2
LENGTH AND SEVERITY OF ADJUSTMENT PROBLEMS
While researchers agree that there are differences in life adjustment and psychological well-being between children of divorce and those from intact families, there is considerable disagreement about how large those differences are and how long they last. For some decades through the 1990s, findings indicated that children of divorce scored lower on measures of academic success, conduct, psychological adjustment, social competence, and health.3 Evidence suggested that these negative effects lasted into adulthood.45 Summarizing their 25 year longitudinal study in a 2004 article, Wallerstein and Lewis concluded that the lives of these children "changed radically almost overnight," that 25 years after the divorce the now-adult children still recalled the shock, unhappiness, loneliness, bewilderment, and anger, and that divorce is not an acute stressor from which children recover, but rather is "a life-transforming experience."6
In more recent years, while disagreement about impact remains, there has been a trend toward finding more benign long-term outcomes. Studies have concluded that children do indeed struggle as...