Marriage is viewed as a “forever contract; through thick and thin, sickness and in health, rich or poor, love and obey, till death do us part. When this forever contract is broken the entire family, especially their children are negatively affected in every way possible. “Approximately half of all American youth will experience parental divorce at some point during their childhood (Anthony, Diperna, & Amato, 2014 pg. )”. Parents do not realize that every decision they make in life will affect their children in a positive or a negative way. Failed relationships that ends up in divorce is one of the main causes for a lack in the child’s academics. This is one of the most important aspects of the child’s life is their academics.
If the relationship with the child’s parents is unhealthy and unstable that alone can negatively affect the child’s academics. Divorce rates in the U.S. are at an all-time high and this research will examine whether the student experienced an academic decline because of their parent’s divorce. “Children with divorced parents continued to show a significantly lower score on academic achievement (Anderson, 2014 pg.
381).” Lower academics is in fact associated with parental divorce. A child’s learning behavior, motivation, and engagement can all be negatively affected by their parent’s divorce making them feel as if they are the main cause of the divorce such as guilt, blame, and stressors (Anthony, Diperna, ; Amato, 2014).The purpose of this research is to see if there is an association between divorce and the child’s academic results. My hypothesis is supported by the parental divorce adversely affecting the child’s academic achievement (Anthony, Diperna, ; Amato, 2014).
Staying on tasks, finding the motivation to finish activities and asking for assistance are all factors of engagement behavior and can all be negatively affected by divorce alone. The data for this study was drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal study which consisted of a sample of 10,639 students ranging from pre-K through eighth grade. Each parent was given a questionnaire with questions asking whether they were divorced or separated. Results indicate that divorce causes less growth in test scores such as mathematics and reading.
This is especially true in Chinese children. In China, if the student’s academic performance is not at all desirable the child is often rejected by classmates and punished by their parents. Chinese children of divorced parents feel a strong rejection from others since their grades drop due to less motivation to finish tasks, less likely to ask for assistance with tasks, and being able to successfully stay on task (Xu, Zhang, & Xia, 2008). This article finds that the parent’s education had a huge effect on the child’s academic performance. Meaning the higher education parents achieved, the better their child performed academically (Xu, Zhang, & Xia, 2008).The study of (Xu, Zhang, & Xia, 2008) is to examine the parent’s divorce on the Chinese children’s overall well being with a sample consisting of 940 Chinese children between the ages of 6-16. The child’s academic performance was used as a mediating variable to determine the cause and effects of the child’s academic performance.
This cross-sectional design study was reversible and did show that the child’s well being such as divorce has an effect on the child’s academic performance. All in all, if the children’s parents stay together and work through their issues then their children can live carefree academically intelligent lives. Unfortunately, most parents don’t think of how their children will be affected by this major decision. Sometimes the parents are so caught within themselves that they automatically assume that their children won’t know or couldn’t possibly understand what is going on. Children go off of what they see their parents do, sort of like monkey see monkey do, and their parents emotions. Now let’s take a look at some of the long terms effects of parental divorce on their child’s academics.Authors, Grubb and Long hypothesized that college students who have experienced divorce in the past have a much lower chance of having a close parent-child relationship will, in fact, have a lower academic achievement while in college compared to someone whose parents are still happily married. The college students who experienced divorce whether it was when they were younger or just a few years ago still had a tremendous effect on themselves as well as their academics.
In his recent findings, Grub found this to be true. College students who experience divorce whether at a young age or just a few years ago, has a greater sense of feeling alone, lesser percentage of college attendance, and a lesser percentage of college completion (Grubb & Long).” Bernardi found this to be especially true in children whose parents are divorced because they seem to score 7 percentage points lower on achieving their university degree than of those children whose families are still intact (Pg. 1653). Some long-term consequences of the children whose parents divorce “has less harmful consequences for the educational achievement of children of highly educated parents than of children with less educated parents (Bernardi pg. 1656).”In conclusion, there are major effects associated with parental divorce and their children’s academics. Each study has shown a close correlation with having long-term effects academically; unfortunately for each child that will experience parental divorce through their lives will never make a complete recovery.
Special events such as holidays or celebrations are only a sad reminder to the child of their parent’s separation. Our children are suffering because of the parent’s poor decisions but few understand that these will not only affect themselves but their children as well in every negative way possible. It is our responsibility to make sure every child who will experience parental divorce will have the necessary resources available to them at all times. Each child deserves a chance academically whether their parents are divorced or intact.
