School or Institution Name (University at Place or Town, State)
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Child development
Topic
Parental divorce and offspring depressive symptoms: Dutch development trends during early adolescence.
Research question
How is parental divorce linked to depression in adolescents?
Subtopic
How is parental divorce linked to depression on adolescents?
How parental divorce affects adolescent’s future relationships?
Parental psychological distress as a mediator or if the effect of parental divorce is altered by time.
Literature review
Parental divorce and depressive symptoms
Sociology mainly deals with human relations and how these relations affect an individual's life. Many pieces of research have proved that family is the basic unit for a person that protects him/her and plays the most important role in the development of the child. Any disturbance in the family directly cast negative impacts on the psychology of individuals (van der Wal,et,al,2019). There are many elements that affect hazardous effects on child passing through their adolescence. Researches have shown that divorce is a multifaceted process that becomes that root cause of a family’s parting (Burns,et,al,2000). Various studies have found that children whose parents divorce, likely to have more bitterness in behavior and conflicts in life than children who grow in a family where their parents enjoy their marriage.
According to Kelly and Strohschein, divorce increases the rate of depression increase if parents get separate (Chun,et,al,2016). According to Jacobson and Rowe, girls during adolescence get into more depression than boys if parents get divorced. There is another scholar Sigmon who claim self-reported depressive symptoms could be biased as boys have a greater tendency to underreport symptoms of depression. Parental divorce causes various problems during the adolescence that triggers depressive symptoms, depressed mood, feelings that makes them realize that they are worthlessness and guilt, issues in sleeping and ideation for suicide.
Divorce timing and depression
Family being the support system for children helps them in their development so that they could learn how to be a functional part of society. Family is the main thing that shapes up the personality of children, but according to study that has been done in Korea, it has been seen that rate of divorce is getting increased and as this number of divorce is increasing likewise problems of children passing through adolescent are getting increased (Cartwright,et,al,2006). They became a victim of depression and isolation overtakes them. Greater impacts on the behavior of children could be viewed. Researches show that the influence of parental divorce has become a social issue that needs to be investigated for saving children who pass through the delicate adolescence phase (van Gils,et,al,2014). Separation of parents inculcates in children feelings of loneliness and as they are being deprived of parental care, they start losing the importance of family. They get neglected by parents as they could be together and mostly parents overlook psychological issues that children suffer from (Størksen,et,al,2006). According to Kalter and Wallerstein, parental divorce not only affects children in their adolescent but also there is a greater risk to fall a victim of major depression in adulthood as well. Children feel insecure when their parents’ divorce and they start feeling that there is no one who bothers about them. There could be seen a deterioration in their physical as well as psychological health. They started associating negative things even when positive things. They became unable to see the positive aspects of life and they start getting lose the spirit and energy for living a good life. They become unable to overcome the issues that they face and eventually became unable to fight and survive in this world one of the main things that has been seen is that parental divorce is increasing depressive symptoms that lead them to suicide.
Family disruption and functional somatic symptoms
According to the studies and latest researches, there could be seen a clear increase in the functional somatic symptoms in the children who passes through late adolescence with increased family disruption and disturbance. Parents being the founder of a family have a greater influence on the development of children. Functional somatic symptoms the physical symptoms that even organic pathology cannot be explained. According to Berntsson and Zeman, there are approximately 20-25 % of children who are suffering from obvious symptoms of FSSs that are abdominal pain, musculoskeletal pains, and headache etc (Xerxa,et,al,2019). Parental divorce is not only affecting the physical health of adolescent at the same time it is having drastic effects on the mental health of children and adolescent. According to Eminson, FSSs is getting more common in adolescent as it has been found that there are biological.
Psychological and social factors involved in spreading this issue. Parental divorce and family disruption are the main social factors that increase the risk for children and adults for developing more functional somatic symptoms (Summers,et,al,1998). According to Boey and Goh, did a research and found that Malaysian schoolchildren who lost a parent because of death and parental divorce increased abdominal pain that shows that FSSs increases with an emotional disturbance that is mainly caused by family disturbance.
Developmental trends in adolescents
Parental divorce and depressive symptoms go hand in hand as studies shown increased Dutch developmental trends in the early stages. Keeping into consideration the increasing rate of a psychological and physical health crisis of adolescent many researchers and scholars tried to track the reasons why children especially in the west are committing suicides and are getting engage in negative activities. According to Latten, parental divorce has become a common experienced by an adolescent in Western societies. Though gender difference is not a big issue in western societies even there has been seen a clear need for emotional support for girls from parents (Servaty,et,al,2001). According to Kelly, parental divorce increases the chance of extreme depression in offspring though both males and females are confronted equally with depressive symptoms it has been seen that girls are more affected by parental divorce. Many pieces of research are being made on finding the real cause that why this gender difference emerges in adolescence. Pieces of evidence show that because of hormonal and sociocultural changes, during adolescence girls need more care, concerns, and affection of both parents. It won’t be wrong to say that girls are more sensitive than boys.
Well-being and adolescent adjustment
The ratio of the adolescent is getting higher continuously as parental divorce is getting increased and studies have shown that child adjustment with such situations are becoming a real problem as they face many psychological issues because of the separation of their parents (Martínez-Pampliega,et,al,2019). According to Pakiz, adolescent whose passes through family disturbance like parental divorce became anti-social and lose interest in activities that used to be their favorites. Life becomes tough for adolescent for those does not get the attention of parents. Intrapersonal adjustment of adolescent has been witnessed as an issue that drastically affects children's life. They lack the competence to deal with society as compared to those who spent their lives in happy families (Cohen,et,al,2016). Parental divorce promotes feelings of hatred and insecurity. Adolescent doesn't like to interact with people and wanted to stay alone, that makes them more depressed.
The adolescent is the age where children need parental care at most and it is the age where they are going to adopt things permanently. According to the work of Rodgers, girls and boys in divorced families depict more externalized and they have no or less confidence when it comes to face various situations that are hard to face (Oldehinkel,et,al,2008). Children passing through adolescence phase in non-divorce families are more competent. Studies that show that these depressive symptoms are much clearer in children with divorced parents also accept the fact that there is a lack of clinical diagnoses that are making this situation worst. Parents being aware of this thing try to understand to promote those medical programs that are paying more attention to taking of care of such children who are passing through such a crucial phase of their life.
Effects of parental divorce on adjustment of adolescent
One of the most drastic effects on the psychology of children is problems regarding their behavior that gets out of control when the parents get separate as parents being the guardians help them in coping all type of situation, but when their parents no longer stay for their support, they become a victim of loneliness that incorporates in them all the negative feelings that forces them (Lansford,et,al,2009). Scholars have been long searching for the reason why the street crimes are regularly increasing in number for the past few decades and they have reached a conclusion that anti-social behavior is directly related to the rate of the divorce that has become a new trend in Western society. Children, whose parent gets a divorce, are found to be more involved in street crimes and all other destructive activities.
According to Tambs and Moum, there are five basic scales for measuring anxiety and depression in adolescents. Scholars found that there are direct effects on child development as it is the age ion which personality of children becomes a permanent part of their life. Studies that have been done by the researchers for checking the effects of parental divorce on ten adolescent development shows that not only there are negative impacts of it on the behavior of adolescents but at the same platform, there have been seen hazardous effects of the academics of the adolescent. There have been seen clear connections between academic problems and parental divorce. Parents did not pay much attention to the school tasks of their children after their divorce. Parental divorce ends the support that used to be given to the children when they are in schools and need proper guidance and training of their parents.
Effects of parental divorce on me being a child
During the studies, scholars have witnessed that during the researches, they have met many adolescents whose parents got separated and they have been living without the emotional support of their parents (Duerr,et,al,2019). Scholars found that they have found clear differences in the behavior of those children who went through a stage of life when they are experiencing the moments when their parents were getting separated. These adolescent were clearly different in behavior from those who were having the support of their parents. Life-story interviews were conducted from around 40 children who were ranging from 19 years to 29 years and that study was done in New Zealand. All these participants had faced the same issue of parental divorce and going through the same phase. There has been witnessed a basic difference in these participants and they could be divided into two groups.
One of the groups was happy about ten decision of their parents that they separated but on the other hand, there was the other group who believe that their parents did not take a good decision as they are still dealing with the negative impacts of the decision taken by their parents about their divorce. Similarly, there were other scholars, Burns, and Dunlop who conducted a study and studied the effects of the child-parent relationship after being separated for 13 years. This research includes many interviews that show that parental divorce cast lasting effects on the development of children even after years of their parent’s separation.
The relation between parental divorce and personal characteristics of adolescent
Many of the researchers have found that in Australia when the implementation of the Family Law Act, 1975 there have been witnessed around one million children are those whose parents get separated after divorce. According to Amato, a tendency is being incorporated for generations for divorce and relationship breakdown and personality issues have been seen as one of the obvious issues within children. The view that has been presented by Amato is readily accepted by other researchers and scholars that marrying at young age is also a major factor because of which rate of the divorce is getting increased as there are many reasons such as young age at which youngster mostly don’t take right decisions, low education and inability to handle the situation because of no experience.
One of the main things that have been seen by, McGue and Lykken are that adolescent sees their parents getting separate from each other, mostly does not have a stable relationship and have been seen ending their marriage by divorcing their partners. Though they know that what issues they have faced because of the divorce of their parents, but still they lack the ability to keep up their relationship and it is one of the impacts of parent’s divorce. Children whose parents divorced each other are seen likely to have less positive characteristics. Parental divorce inculcates in these children negative feelings even they became unable to see that positive side of anything. Personal characteristics are less positive in adolescents see their parent getting separate from each other and these issues are more common on children who are more common in girls as compared to the boys.
Parental divorce and early problems in the early adolescent
The claim that has been done by most of the scholars in this article is viewed as correct by most of the scholars who evaluated this article that in the United States there are 50 % marriages that end up with divorce. Studies have shown that there are almost 1.5 million children every year whose parents get separate. The early adolescent is the main phase of life when children need more care for their parents as they are the ones who explore all the positive sides of their children and help their children in overcoming all the negative sides and things that are associated with them. As per the study of Emery, children whose parents get separated not only face difficulties while interacting with society but because of the lack of self-confidence. It has been seen that there are mainly three types of issues with which scholars come across while studying the effects that parental divorce cast on early adolescent and these three issues are a parent-child relationship, interpersonal conflict, and maternal depressive symptoms that are mainly bei9ng focused by scholars according to this article.
Quality of marital quality and family conflict
Parental divorce has been seen as one of the emerging issues mostly in western societies where the value of family is getting decrease with time. Family being one of the basic support systems in children development helps in making up the personality of adolescents. The claim that has been seen proposed by Blakeslee and Lewis, children who stay with the parents who do not have the good martial relation, their children are seen to face conflict and issue as compared to those whose parents because of unstable marital relationship gets separate.
The claim that has been proposed by the above mentioned two researchers, is been widely accepted by most of the other scholar as it has been seen that children who used to see their parents living together along with having conflicts in their ideologies (Kelly,et,al,2000). There have been seen clear pieces of evidence presented in this article that quality of the marital relationship of parents greatly determines the adjustment of children in their early adulthood. Parental divorce and marital quality have a direct relation with the conflict faced by the adolescents as it has been seen that if the quality of marital relation of parents is good it would cast great impacts on the early development of the adolescent.
Adjustment to loss among adolescents
Many studies have been conducted that shows what are the effects of parental divorce on adolescents and how it affects their adjustment with society and other close relations. In these articles, scholars have revealed another major aspect that cast negative impacts on the development of the child. There has been made a comparison between children whose parents get divorced with the children who lost one of the parents. Pieces of evidence have shown that parental death and divorce both cast negative impacts on the development of the children. It has been seen that the death of a parent is unique for disturbing the perceptions.
Parent death is the main factor as compared to the parental divorce that drags the adolescents in isolation and makes them a victim for whom it becomes difficult to handle the social situations that other adolescent could deal very easily. Studies have shown that children who loss one of the parents, needs more emotional support from the peers, teachers, relatives, and community so that they could be saved from all the negative impacts that isolation could cause on their personality.
References
Burns, A., & Dunlop, R. (2000). Parental divorce, personal characteristics, and early adult intimate relationships: A longitudinal Australian study. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 33(1-2), 91-109.
Cartwright, C. (2006). You want to know how it affected me? Young adults' perceptions of the impact of parental divorce. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 44(3-4), 125-143.
Chun, S. Y., Jang, S. Y., Choi, J. W., Shin, J., & Park, E. C. (2016). Long-term effects of parental divorce timing on depression: A population-based longitudinal study. International Journal of Social Psychiatry.
Cohen, G. J., Weitzman, C. C., & Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. (2016). Helping children and families deal with divorce and separation. Pediatrics, 138(6), e20163020.
Duerr, H. P., & Hautzinger, M. (2019). Quantifying the degree of the interparental conflict-the spectrum between conflict and forms of maltreatment and abuse. Child indicators research, 12(1), 319-330.
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