Divorce and Young Children

Children who experience parental divorce face the challenge of adjusting to new family arrangements and life situations in a society that has negative perceptions and stigmas associated with divorced families. Changing family dynamics contribute to children experiencing behavior problems. There is often a common misconception about their ability to cope with a divorce without it having much impact on their lives. Regardless of what the situation may be, a divorce always affects children in some way or the other.
Children can display a wide range of behavioral changes due to experiencing the traumatic effects of divorce, from difficulty in sleeping to highly harmful behavior like violence, drug abuse, etc. Divorce is not only a loss in the parents’ lives, but also in the children’s. Hence, they experience feelings of grief. Even though they may not display signs of anger, many of them do feel angry too.
When their parents’ divorce, children feel as if their stability, their security, and their world are all falling apart. While some children may be scarred psychologically on a long-term basis, others may feel the emotional pangs for a short period of time, and then learn to cope with it, perhaps even getting over it.