Effectiveness of a Support Group for Children of Divorce.

Abstract

Today, more children than ever before are being affected by divorce. According to a U.S. Bureau of the Census report (1983), 22% of all children younger than 18 live with a single parent. Of these schoolchildren, 20.5 million live with their mothers and about 1 million live with their fathers. Children whose parents divorce are faced with unique problems and concerns, including changes in life-styles and loss of part of their previous psychological support systems (Cantor, 1977). Additional concerns include shame at what has happened, anger at mom or dad or both, fears of being forgotten or abandoned, a shaken identity from being taken out of a family, loneliness, and loyalty conflicts (Kanoy & Cunningham, 1984; Wallerstein & Kelly, 1976, 1980). Reactions to divorce may also be observed in school through acting-out behavior, decline in achievement, and strained relationships with peers and teachers (Wallerstein & Kelly, 1976, 1980). children of divorce have the potential to develop problems, divorce in a family does not always mean that problems will occur (Gardner, 1971; Hetherington, Cox, & Cox, 1976; Rohrlich, Ranier, Berg-Cross, & BergCross, 1977; Scherman, 1985; Wallerstein & Kelly, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1980). Children's reactions vary according to their age at the of divorce. Children 9 and 10 years old tend to show a greater disruption in school performance than do children at other age levels (Kanoy & Cunningham, 1984; Wallerstein & Kelly, 1976, 1980). Children in this 9and 10-year age group are also very aware of the family disruption and parental turbulence, even though the parents often try to shelter and protect the children (Cantor, 1979; Wallerstein & Kelly, 1976, 1980). Community agencies and schools are a viable treatment setting. Graver and Morse (1986) believed that Although assistance to children can come from a variety of sources, . . . help can be provided in a school setting. The school has contact with students on a regular basis and for a significant amount of time (p. 10). Thus, for 9 or 10 months a year, support can be provided for the children in their school setting.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 8 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.