How Divorce Affects Children Developmentally

Causes of Developmental Setbacks

The "American Sociological Review" study attributes developmental setbacks among children of divorce to several factors such as a stressful environment where parents argue or are depressed, changing living arrangements, struggles dividing time between parents and financial hardship from a reduction in family income.

Divorce can also impact some young children's development by causing health problems such as a loss of appetite, anxiety, trouble sleeping and nightmares. Some school-age children complain that they have headaches, upset stomach, diarrhea and frequent urination.

Many young children whose parents divorce will regress from their most recently achieved milestone. Toddlers may regress to infant behaviors such as thumb sucking or go back to diapers after being toilet trained. The emotional development of infants and toddlers is affected because small children may become clingy with parents, withdrawn and worried when they can't see the parent.

Preschoolers don't understand what divorce means. Some preschoolers are aggressive and angry toward the custodial parent and become more accident prone. Other preschoolers become angry without understanding why they feel rage, are irritable, feel insecure about their future or express their anger by biting. The emotional development of preschool children may be affected by pleasant and unpleasant fantasies and nightmares. Some children carry feelings of responsibility for the divorce.

Some young children ignore school-related activities and don't develop friendships. Elementary school children are challenged in their emotional development by a sense of loss, feeling rejected by the noncustodial parent, a sense of powerlessness and fears, such as a parent not showing up to pick them up after school. Some children try to re-create the past in the hope that their parents will reconcile and get back together. Some adolescents will show extreme good or bad behavior such as becoming moralistic, indulging in high-risk behavior like drugs or shoplifting or trying to control the family.

Many children experience stress because of a divorce. Children have different individual reactions to divorce developmentally such as declining health, while other children show few negative effects or an improvement in their development. Most children are able to overcome the negative developmental effects of divorce when the children have a loving, stable relationship with both parents and see the noncustodial parent on a regular basis.