What is known about children’s experience of parental separation and divorce?

Abstract

The chapter starts by describing the types of families in the United Kingdom (UK) and goes on to explain some of the legislation governing marriage, civil partnerships and divorce. Using data available from each of the Home Nations - England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - it assesses the extent of divorce across the UK and the number of children affected, where possible. The type of information collected by each government varies, meaning the picture is incomplete. The second part of the chapter explains the reasons for focusing on children’s ‘voice’ and identifies previous research studies giving ‘voice’ to their experience of parental separation and divorce. The main themes emerging from the review are used to report their findings in the third part of the chapter under the following headings: parental communication; children’s involvement in decision-making; continuity in relationships and arrangements; support; parental conflict; family transitions and looking back on their experience.

Effects of family disintegration on children later depression

“…Divorce might be considered a crisis due to the impending devastations (Hoyt et al, 1990;Karababa, 2021;Kay-Flowers, 2019). Therefore, the study will examine the problem in a theoretical framework involving the Double ABCX model.…”