Divorce Response Essay

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Recommended: Effects of divorce on children‘s mental health

As divorce becomes increasingly popular amongst society, the family institution faces adverse challenges. Adolescents, however, are immensely affected by the separation of their parents and encounter difficulties adjusting to the new lifestyle. Various contexts discuss how divorce causes adolescents to experience depression, anxiety, and other health-related issues, but this paper will focus on the adjustment factors for adolescents of divorce. The key factors that will be discussed throughout this review are financial support, time sharing, living arrangements, and parental conflict. Although many literary frameworks target the societal problems of adolescents post-divorce, this investigation will determine in what ways the severity of an …show more content…

Studies have shown, “Eighty percent of the teenagers in the psychiatric hospitals are coming from single-parent families” (Cunha, 2010, p. 14). According to Statistics Canada, 70% of children with divorced parents live with their mothers while only 15% live with their fathers, the rest share a living arrangement between both parents (Sinha, 2014). Sinha (2014) supports Cunha (2010), as she describes adolescent’s reactions to being deprived of a parent as heartbreaking. However, Luxton (2011) believes only a minority of children from divorced homes express adjustment problems. Luxton (2011) suggests that divorce itself is not the reason for the negative behaviour, but rather related factors such as income, are what cause the behavioural problems. McLaren (2013) disagrees with Luxton (2011), she shares her own personal anecdote of divorce and explains how it has affected her as an adolescent. She describes how she felt like “being caught in an unpredictable landslide of adult emotions” (McLaren, 2013, p. 52). She too supports Cunha (2010), stating unless children are under highly abusive circumstances there should be no concern with having both parents involved in the child’s

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