Divorce not only affects the husband and wife involved, but it also can have an affect on the children. However, this is not an excuse for failure and in no way justifies a divorce that any of the children may have in the future. Everyone makes their own choices and many children whose parents divorced are very successful and have a wonderful marriage. This article will give a few ways that divorce affects children.
1) Divorce often forces the child to choose which parent they like the most! When a divorce happens and the child is awarded custody to either the mother or father, whomever gets custody could try and influence the child’s opinion about the other parent. For example, if a mother is awarded custody of the children and she talks bad about the father of the children, they could possibly begin to believe that he is a bad person. They may not have originally thought this, but brainwashing can change their opinions. The fact is when people get divorced, the children have to live with one parent and visit the other and often they have to choose whom they like the most.
2) Visitation of the other parent can often get lost with the schedule of the children. Although this may not be intentional, the children can easily lose contact with the parent that doesn’t have custody and that can hurt their relationship. Furthermore, if the parents remarry, they have to spend some of their free time on the weekends traveling to see the other parent when they could have just stayed home to do this. Visitation is sometimes once a week, bi-weekly, or once a month depending on the case and the preferences. This affects the kids schedule and can eventually be cut off altogether accidentally if not careful. The parent still deserves to see their child!
3) Children have to hear negative comments made about their parents. People will criticize those that get divorced and the children have to hear the negative statements made. Additionally, children have to hear the negative things that the parents say about each other. Children for the most part love their parents and hearing anything negative about either will hurt the children involved.
Divorce is probably not a fun thing for children to go through, but in case they have to go through it, the parents should keep in mind that their children could be affected in the above mentioned ways.
