Divorce and their impact on kids

Photo courtesy Flickr user Cordell and Cordell via the Creative Commons license.

Photo courtesy Flickr user Cordell and Cordell via the Creative Commons license.

Angel Bacol, Editor-in-Chief

As children grow older, they each experience different events that may or may not impact their life. With each event, everyone is not going to react the same.

One of the many events that can impact a child’s life is a divorce. By witnessing a divorce, kids are watching their parents’ lose their love for one another and breaking their marriage. Children with divorced parents have to adjust with going between two different households in order to visit one parent. They deal with living with one parent while being absent of another.

“I was very heartbroken.“ said by an anonymous high school senior when she found out about her parents’ divorce. “But I understood because they were fighting a lot and were very distant with each other.”

Depending on the ages of the children, they react individually to the divorce. Young children are known to become more dependent towards their parents while teenagers try to become more independent and have the desire to control their life.

“We all handled it differently. My youngest brother became very emotional because of it. As for the desire to have control in life, I’ll agree with that because sometimes I can not control what happens, so it makes want to either try to control it or crawl into bed and sleep because I’m exhausted trying.” the anonymous senior said.

Every major event can bring in good or bad memories that help shape a person’s personality and attitude. While dealing with the the pressures of high school, they also have to deal with more responsibilities than an average teenager would normally deal with.

“It was the first week of school in seventh grade when my mom moved out. I had to take on more responsibilities such as taking care of my younger brothers and making dinners. My therapist told me that because of the divorce a lot of family relationships were strained and that I had to grow up faster than most.” She said.

In the United States, roughly around 40 – 50% of married couples end up in divorces. So in today’s society, it is nothing new. People are used to either having friends who have divorced parents or having divorced parents themselves. The change in the family dynamic gains some getting used to but in the end there are always other people who are used to it and handle the situation better. Although, they are not always able to enjoy the events that normal family do.

“I do not like holidays as much as I used to when I was younger. My mom does not celebrate holidays anymore because there was a lot of build up she did not like that involved how my dad’s family ran holidays. I’d rather spend the holidays with my mom because she does do a little bit of things like making a christmas tree out of branches for the fun of it. While I’m forced to go to dramatic family gatherings with my dad, and have no choice in the matter.” she said.

While divorces are now common in the United States, it does not mean that a lot of people are aware of what occurs between the families. There are some people who act ignorant about the situation or do not understand. Although, hopefully people can learn a couple thing or two on what the children experience.