Children & Divorce, Anxiety, Alcohol, Drugs & Depression

Children and Divorce

The potential negative effects of divorce on children, has been very well documented over the last forty years. A light spirited child can withdraw to an introverted insecure little person. Stress uncared for can trigger more serious issues of depression and anxiety.

Most separations and divorce are tough. They are tough with good reason. There are many losses. Just a few are:

• Loss of hopes and dreams
• Loss of a life partner
• Loss of quality time with children
• Loss of economic resources
• Loss of emotional support
• Loss of choice
• School & Work Achievement
• Self-esteem & Confidence

Anxiety

When a person has an anxiety disorder, it interferes with their ability to function normally on a daily basis. Anxiety disorders can cause teens to suffer from intense, long-lasting fear or worry, in addition to other symptoms.

Alcohol, Drugs and Depression

A lot of depressed people, especially teenagers, also have problems with alcohol or other drugs. (Alcohol is a drug too.) Sometimes the depression comes first and people try drugs as a way to escape it. In the long run, drugs or alcohol just make things worse. Other times, the alcohol or other drug use comes first, and depression is caused by:

• the drug itself
• withdrawal from it or
• the problems that substance abuse causes.

And sometimes you can't tell which came first. The important point is that when you struggle with either of these problems, the sooner you get treatment, the better. Unaddressed, these problems can lead to even greater trouble, like addiction or job failure or relationship fractures. You have to be honest about both problems - first with yourself and then with someone who can help you get into treatment. It's the only way to get better and stay better.

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Divorce Affects Children in Adult Life

Children who experience divorce while growing up tend to report a comparatievely low level of psychological well-being in adulthood.  Parent-child relationships mediate most of the associations between parents marital discord and divorce and children's subsequent psychological outcomes.  Chronic marital discord between continuously married parents appears to be as detrimental as divorce.

Research has found that adults who recall a high level of conflict between parents while growing up tend to report a large number of psychological and marital problems in their own lives.Their analysis suggest that parents' marital problems weaken the emotional bonds between parents and children in adulthood.  Week parent-child bonds place adult offsping at risk for distress, low sel-esteem and general unhappiness.  Relatively little parental support in early adulthood can maintain or amplify earlier levels of distress.

According to findings, for mothers, the apparent effects of divorce are largely accounted for by conflict preceding the divorce.  However, problems in the father-child relationship appear to results from divorce as well as marital conflict. Parents divorce, while having little effect on the socioeconomic status of their offspring or their marital status, is positively associated with their number of relationship disruptions.  They do not argue that these factors are unimportantly that parent-child relationships are a part of the process linking disruptions in the family to psychological distress.