Children Respond When Their Parents Research Paper

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Meantime, the Hetherington and Kelly study that Portnoy references tracked 1,300 families over a twenty-year period and their results showed that children of divorce "do less well than other children" and they do "struggle to cope with the divorce" (p. 127). However, the Hetherington / Kelly results showed that by two years following the divorce "80%" of the children in those 1,300 families "are not significantly different on measure of adjustment" -- when compared to children from intact families (Portnoy, p. 127).

Portnoy summarizes some of the problems that children of divorce suffer through during their adolescence: they show "conduct disorders, antisocial behaviors" and difficult with "authorities" (p. 128). They are also "two to three times more likely to engage in adolescent delinquent behavior" than their peers from families that stayed together.

Meanwhile Julie Ensign and colleagues present a slightly different picture of what happens to the children of divorce. By referencing a multitude of research studies, they conclude that children of divorced families have been found to "be sexually active at an earlier age" (Ensign, et al., 1998, p. 575).

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They also found that children of divorced parents "have more sexual partners," are "more likely to cohabitate" and tend to marry younger than children of families that stay intact (p. 575). Interestingly, however, the research that Ensign et al. found shows that children of divorce, who stayed close with their divorced parents, "did not differ significantly from children who came from happily intact families…" (p. 576).

Conclusion: While the divorce rate is not expected to be reduced any time soon, the research in this paper shows that for those families that do go through divorce, it is vital that both biological parents maintain strong relationships with their children, to lessen the pain, pave the way for academic success, and keep the family as close together as possible notwithstanding the divorce.

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