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Michael Greenberg Professor Keaton ENC1102-31 10 April 2014 JTC Part #2 Final Draft A young child named Billy is a ten years old young boy who had just come home after school. Billys face was as if he had just received a new bike. As the Billy walked in he sees his parents arguing intensely at one another. Billy tries to listen to see what his mom and dad are yelling and screaming about. His mom screaming at his father saying Im done, this is over! I want a divorce!! She then leaves the room and as she walks out she sees her child sitting in front of the door with a shocked face. Billy then begins to cry immensely after what he had just heard pleading to his mom to not do this. Dont divorce dad mom please I beg you. You both love each other. The mom responds by saying Things change honey we do not love each other anymore. The divorce ended up happening and the child went to school in the days following the divorce. Then Billys teachers begin to see changes in Billy. He seems to not care about anything anymore. Billy had once been on the straight A honor role at the school which only a handful students receive each year. Billy now only maintains a C average in all his classes and his teachers are worried that his grades may fall even lower. I hope my audience after reading this paper will understand the effects of divorce and to know what causes the effects to be harsher on their children. Divorce is mainly seen as a negative impact on the childs education which includes his or her overall grades. Anyone who has been affected by divorce would be my audience in this paper. The main ideas that will be featured in this paper are the different effects of divorced mentioned by each of my sources. Each source mentions that divorce does have a

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negative impact but the effects in each source are different. My audience should be people who care about my paper because the audience can hopefully relate to the topic of divorce and how his or her education was affected by this event. My topic is important because like said in the paper it affects millions of people every year. The effects of this event should be known by every parent and child who experiences this event. Also the importance of this topic is very high because so many people can relate to this research. By the end of this paper I hope my readers and audience will have an understanding of how divorce in most cases does seem to hurt a students grades some short term others long-term it is different for every person affected by divorce. To begin with the relationship between the parents becomes divorced and their child play key aspects in the effects of the child. Wijckmans research includes that research has stated that divorce weakens the ties between the parent and their adult children. This is a negative effect of divorce because a parents bond with his or her child can be very strong. To lose such a bond is heart breaking at times and feelings for a parent can be changed forever in a child. The effects of divorce go in both directions in regards to support of one another. The results show that divorce is positively associated with norms of family obligations, even after controlling for the exchange of support between the generations and the perceived quality of the relationship. This idea by Wijckman means that the child of the divorced parents feels obligated to the family and because of the divorce his effects would be good because he or she is may become closer to their family. Wijckman also states that people who have experienced loss through divorce, either from a parent or a partner, and having experienced the hardships a divorce might bring with it, may result in stronger family norms, regardless of the behavior individuals show. When a divorce occurs some people are more affected than others it just depends on the type of person he or she

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is. If a child is younger that the age of six he or she may not truly understand what is happening when his parents are divorced. So the effects on this child may not be as harsh as an older child at the age of twelve who knows what divorce is and what happens when a divorce occurs. Molepos research states those teachers believe that younger children from divorced parents were more likely to have emotional and behavioral challenges than those from intact families. What Molepo means when he says this is that children that have divorced parents are more likely to have challenges with their behavior and emotions than those of children whose families are not divorced. Both of the researchers Molepo and Wijckmans research try to prove that the relationship between the children and his or her parents plays a key role in determining if the effects of a divorce will be smaller or larger for that child. In addition the age of the child also plays a key aspect in the effects of the child. In Jennifer E. Langfords findings Parental divorce was related to boys externalizing trajectories differently depending on the timing of the divorce. In particular, parental divorce during elementary school was related to an increase in boys externalizing behaviors that began in the year of the divorce and persisted for years afterward. Parental divorce during middle school was related to an increase in boys externalizing behaviors in the years the divorce declined; (5-6). The behavior of the children becomes worse and worse in the following years after the divorce occurred. Also I found that in Langsfords research she says that children who grades are dropping are the same children whose internal or external problems are increasing following their parents divorce (10). The children whose grades drop blame their parents divorce as an excuse for their unacceptable grades. The older the child is the more recent the divorce is the

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more he will blame his grades falling on the divorce. The younger the child is the less likely to blame his or her grades falling because of the divorce. Molepo adds that there is an emotional and behavioral adjust effect and the effect is more clearly observed in only the younger children and not for the older children. In the source by Molepo he says that the younger the child is the more quickly he is at adjusting to the effects of his or her families divorce. Lastly the effects of divorce are mainly seen in the children, but there are also many different effects that occur in adults. Also some overall effects of younger children stated by Molepo are Younger children who experienced parental divorce are likely to be more sensitive to criticism than older children or others from intact families. The younger the child is the more criticism he or she may receive from peers and the child may feel depressed and may begin to cry at times unlike an older child who knows that divorce happens all around the world. A specific person that I found that has experienced the effects of divorce within her family was Arielle Shapiro. Arielle, who is a colleague of mine, is an eighteen year old student at Florida State University. Arielle experienced a divorce in her life and she says that The effects of the divorce between my mom and dad affected me significantly but I never thought about how it made my mom feel. Arielle then went on to say that she asked her mom one day how she felt after her dad has left her moms answer is speechless and shocked. Arielle now realizes that her mom experienced more pain than she had because her mom had lost the love of her life. Now Arielles mom will never marry again because of the divorce between her lover and her. Arielles story relates to the rest of the paragraph because Arielle realized that she was not the only one who had been affected by the divorce. Arielles mom had something she will never have again her lifelong lover and she is never going to be truly in love again according to Arielle. This

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proves that the parent is also clearly affected by the divorce in a completely different way than the children are. All of research I conducted was based on scientific studies that included different variables and different ways to measure those variables. Also, I interviewed a student who has had firsthand experience with a divorce in her life. Arielle told me that many different things that I also found in my research. Arielles effects were things that she struggled with or noticed throughout her experience. She agreed with me that divorce and grades have a correlation with each other especially when it came to her grades. Arielle stated the following: My schooling like I said was extremely affected. I saw my grades drop one to two letter grades. I had to take pills because of my depression I had gotten from this. I definitely believe that this divorce played a key role in the drop of my grades (Shapiro). She told me that she struggled to find motivation to do her work and that she became extremely depressed. She said I experienced a drop in my grades. I became depressed very quickly out of nowhere. I would have to be signed out of school because I could not focus at all. My teacher Mr. Thomas saw this change in me and asked if he could do anything. Also my mom and dad kept fighting over the phone and I had to hold my mom back (Shapiro). Specifically people can inform parents about what to expect from the effects of divorce and their children so that the parents are ready to help their child overcome something that was not his or her fault. Children can also learn that divorce happens and that a divorce happens every 38 seconds in the United States. Also the child should learn that it had nothing to do with him or her that it was not their fault in any way. Teachers should be on the lookout for their students grades dropping significantly. The should encourage the student to participate in class rather than put his head down.

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Through all the exploration of different studies as well as a personal interview, I have found a few different sources that can help identify the effects of divorce. Many of the ideas tested were statistically significant while only a few of the ideas proved to be insignificant. Some of the ideas in the research are repetitive and can be seen in almost all the sources. That idea is that divorce does have some serious life affecting effects to the individuals experiencing the divorce. Each source goes into its own reasoning what causes the effects to become worse for example in Wijckmans research the relationship between the parents becoming divorced and their child if the relationship between the child and parents is tight then it is harder than that of a child who does not have a good relationship with their parents.

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Works Cited Conan, Neil. "Analysis: Effects of Divorce on Children." Literature Resource Center. Gale, 31 Jan. 2002. Web. 22 Feb. 2014. Lansford, Jennifer E. Parental Divorce and Children's Adjustment. 2nd ed. Vol. 4. N.p.: Sage Publications, on Behalf of Association for Psychological Science, n.d. JSTOR. Web. 27 Mar. 2014. Molepo, Lephodisa Stephen, Tholene Sodi, Levison Maunganidze, and Pilot Mudhovozi, Behavioural and Emotional Development in Children of Divorce. 22.2 (2012): 251-54. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Feb. 2014. Shapiro, Arielle. Personal interview. 11. Mar. 2014 Vanassche, Sofie, An Katrien Sodermans, Koen Matthijs, and Gray Swicegood. Commuting between Two Parental Households: The Association between Joint Physical Custody and Adolescent Wellbeing following Divorce. 19.2 (2013): 139-40 Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Feb. 2014. Wijckmans, Belinda, and Jan Van Bavel. Divorce and Adult Children's Perceptions of Family Obligations. 44.3 (2013): 291-310. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Feb. 2014.