Research Reveals Divorce Impact Children

In this article Hyun Sik Kim shared his research on the hypothesis that parental marriage affects the development of children. His research involved verbal and nonverbal communication in that most of his data collected was based on interpersonal and intrapersonal premises. In this blog post I will share some of his main points which identifies with the title of this post; Research Reveals Divorce Impact Children. You can feel free to access the actual 30 page research paper on this study. He studied children whose parents stayed married in the course of their lives and children whose parents went through divorce. Hyun Sik Kim is a PhD candidate in the sociology program at University of Wisconsin.       

            He studied the children of divorced parents in three different stages; pre-divorce, divorce and post-divorce. In this three-stage model he examined their social behaviors. Unlike others research on the effects divorce has on children, Kim’s was unique because of his framework of integrating stage-specific effects. During the recording of his data he was able to group certain behaviors do a particular stage or category of the divorce process. These children were in elementary school students. With the children who did not belong to divorced parents, Kim observed their behavior as well. He considered them be normal to the children development process.

            The procedure to Kim’s research analysis was; He followed these children for about eight years, recording consistencies and changes in their school productivity, interpersonal communication and their overall behavior. After including much of surveying and scientific calculations, his final work was model-building strategy which is based on a two piece-wise growth curve model. In the conclusion I will present his finding.                               

            The data Kim collected showed that there were more negative effects on the children who parents split than from those who stayed together. Her finding shared the children were effected in each stage. During the pre-divorce and the in-divorce stage she noticed affected the behavior of the children. This is the stage where children fear of the unknown for what the future holds for them. During the post-divorce their hurt and fear lowered. This data varied from the different age groups that he observed. The older children’s (7-11 years old) development in the entire divorce process were least affected.

            The heart-ache this puts on children costs more than filing the divorce paperwork. Parents today are in an extreme dilemma when it comes to these types of decisions. I understand that, but with every decision we must count the cost as to what consequences may incur from the decision of getting a divorce.  Yes there are some legitimate reasons to get divorce but to those who do it irresponsibly must become awaken to the impact it cause on children and family.