CHILDREN AS TRUE VICTIMS OF DIVORCE
BY
ELAIKPI A. ABADA
KUW/U14/MCM/2015
Divorce is the termination of a marital union, the
dissolution of marriage or in some instances the reorganization of the legal
duties and responsibilities of marriage between a married couple under a
particular culture, religion or laws of a particular country.
Divorce law varies considerably around
the world, but in most countries it requires the sanction of a court or other
authority in a legal process. The legal process of divorce involve issues from
spousal support, child custody, child visitation/ access parenting time, child
support, distribution of property, and division of debt.
Divorce can be a stressful experience affecting finances,
living arrangement, household jobs, schedules, parenting and the outcomes of
children of the marriage as they face each stage of development from childhood
to adulthood. Where children are involved they naturally become the victims.
The true victims of divorce are indeed the children who
suffer extremely in so many ways and forms. Psychologically, children and adult
offspring of divorced parents, display greater unhappiness, less satisfaction
with life, weaker sense of personal control, anxiety depression and greater use
of mental health services. There are suggestions of evidences in researches
around the world that shows that divorce has a causal effect that breeds these
outcomes.
Children of divorced parents are also more likely to
experience conflict in their own marriage and are more likely to experience
divorce themselves. They are also more likely to be involved in short term
cohabiting relationships, which often dissolve before marriage.
According to Nicholas wall, former president of the Family
Division of the English High Court, “people think that post-separation parenting
is easy in fact, it is exceedingly difficult and as a rule of thumb my
experience is that the more intelligent the parent, the more intractable the
dispute. There is nothing worse, for most children, than for their parent to
denigrate each other. Parents simply do not realize the damage they do to their
children by the battles they wage over them. Separating parent rarely behave
reasonably, although they always believe that they are doing so and other party
is behaving unreasonably.
Poorly managed conflict between parent increases children
risk of behavior problems, depression, drugs abuse, poor social skills, and
poor academic performance leading low self-esteem. Fortunately, there are
approaches by which divorce professional can help parent reduce conflict. Option
includes mediation, collaborative divorce, and parenting management.
Children who have experienced a divorce are more likely to
have lower academic achievement than children from non-divorced families. In a
review of family and school factors related to adolescents’ academic
performance, it noted that a child from a divorced family is two times more to
drop out of school than a child from a non-divorced family. These children from
divorced families may also be less likely to attend college, resulting in the
discontinuation of their academic career.
In view of this issues and many more that are not mentioned
here, there is need to put the victims first, we need to understand more about
victims of divorce, and the impact it has on their lives. Some of this is
obvious but there are other perhaps more surprising results. We know that there
are some people that are more likely to be victims: people living in villages,
less affluent urban areas particularly.
The child is the future of tomorrow and we all are
responsible directly and indirectly in shaping the views, hope and aspirations
of our children. Marriage has to do with more than love for the couples but
love for the children and humanity as a whole. Couples should know and always
remember that; divorce is indeed an option but with grave consequences that
should be handle with utmost caution especially when children are involved.
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