365 Reasons to Stay Married

Seperation from Mom, Dad Linked with Learning Trouble
University of Rochester Medical Center
May 16, 2008

18 percent of the urban children surveyed had been separated from their parents at least once before kindergarten.

In the wake of divorce, illness, violence and other problems that can unsettle homes, countless young children are liable to experience temporary separations from one or both parents before packing their knapsack for kindergarten. Published in the May/June issue of Ambulatory Pediatrics, a new, community-wide study from Rochester, New York, warns that such kids are at increased risk for learning difficulties and that these separations are good predictors of which children may require special educational interventions to succeed.

Previous research on parent-child separation has concentrated on children in foster or kinship care, who are known to often experience considerable emotional, behavioral and developmental problems. Yet little is known about the impact of separation more generally, especially in less formalized situations in which one or more parents temporarily leaves.

"In most cases, separation is a marker of instability. We suspect that homes in which children are separated from their parents may be less nurturing environments. Parents are less apt to be reading to their kids or taking time to teach them new skills, such as tying shoes, practicing their letters or penning their names," said Sandy Jee, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center¹s Golisano Children¹s Hospital, who led the study. "Kindergarten can be a wet-cement year for many kids, so it¹s important that we start their educational trajectories on the best paths possible."

The study enrolled 1,619 children between ages 4 and 6 who were entering Rochester City School District kindergarten classrooms in the fall of 2003. Parents or caregivers were asked if their child had ever been away from a parent for more than a month, and if so, if the separation occurred once, twice, or more than three times. These adults also completed the Parent¹s Appraisal of Children¹s Experiences (PACE) survey to measure their children¹s developmental skills by various observable behaviors (e.g., if the child can cut with scissors; if he or she can tie their shoes). The results were then analyzed to produce four 4-point scales, each measuring different dimensions of healthy development, including: how well a child learns new tasks; how well he or she uses language to express ideas; how literate he or she is (e.g., can he or she read his own written name?); and the quality of his or her speech (e.g., do other people often have difficulty understanding the child?).

"We found that 18 percent of these urban children had been separated from their parents at any point in their childhood," Jee said. "This was surprising, but not unimaginable, since poverty is often linked with volatility in homes. In fact, 7 percent of these kids had been separated two or more times."

Children who have been separated at any point scored significantly worse both on the 4-point scales measuring their ability to learn new tasks and their pre-literacy skills. Of note, their expressive language and speech scores fared better they were comparable to those of their non-separated peers.

"This makes intuitive sense," Jee said. "In families disrupted by separation, adults are less likely to make consistent efforts to expose kids to new ideas, or to encourage reading. Without this first educational coaching from mom or dad, kids¹ early learning and preliteracy skills are less likely to really blossom.

"Thankfully, most school districts require a physical before a child enters kindergarten," she added. "Pediatricians have a unique opportunity to anticipate which children might be starting their educational careers at a disadvantage, to recommend more screening for such children, and to help see that they get the interventions they need."

Jee and her colleagues do not know yet which types of separations might have the most deleterious effects on kids¹ early learning, since the survey did not ask specific reasons for the separation. It is possible that in some of instances, separations might not be caused by upsets within the home, but perhaps the pull of forces outside it: army duty, or perhaps a parent leaving to tend to a sick relative.

"This study reminds us to treat any sort of separation as a marker for possible psychosocial stress in a family," Jee said. "And intervening early is the best way to minimize long-term educational and vocational deficits for these children."

This research was supported in part by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Physician Faculty Scholars Program.

For more media inquiries, contact:
Becky Jones
(585) 275-8490

Marriage Matters for Children - Research
Press Release: Family First
July 4, 2007
Media Release

Research published by the International Child and Youth Care Network Online Journal this month has supported the volumes of research already published showing that the very best environment for children growing up is with two co

ntinuously married parents. Professor Paul Amato, Professor of Sociology, Demography and Family Studies at Pennsylvania State University first published a meta-analysis of studies dealing with the effects of divorce on children in 1991. This was updated in 2001, and THIS LATEST META-ANALYSIS CONFIRMS WHAT PREVIOUS STUDIES HAVE FOUND - that children with divorced parents continued to have lower average levels of cognitive, social, and emotional well-being, EVEN IN A DECADE IN WHICH DIVORCE HAD BECOME COMMON AND WIDELY ACCEPTED, AND NOT ONLY DURING CHILDHOOD BUT ALSO IN ADULTHOOD.

Compared with other children, those who grow up in stable, two-parent families have a higher standard of living, receive more effective parenting, experience more cooperative co-parenting, are emotionally closer to both parents, and are subjected to fewer stressful events and circumstances.

Interestingly, cohabiting parents tend to be more disadvantaged than married parents. They have less education, earn less income, report poorer relationship quality, and experience more mental health problems. The risk of relationship dissolution also is substantially higher for cohabiting couples with children than for married couples with children

The research shows that single-parent families have an elevated risk of economic hardship, greater challenges in functioning effectively as parents, and greater exposure to stress due to their circumstances.

Negative outcomes for children can include academic failure and suspensions, delinquency, violent behaviour, the need for counselling, and suicide attempts.

The researchers recommend policies that strengthen marriage, decrease the rate of divorce, and lower non-marital fertility through promoting marriage and strengthening marital stability, but supplemented by policies that improves the economic well-being and strengthens the parent-child bonds of single-parent and stepparent households. This includes improving the quality and quantity of time that non-resident parents, especially fathers, spend with their children.

Family First looks forward to the Families Commission and the Commissioner for Children advocating strongly for marriage and its benefits, and promoting it at governmental policy level in the best interests of children and families.

The full research can be viewed here:
http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-0707-amato.html

Children of Divorce Twice as Likely to be Put on Ritalin
The Star (Edmonton Canada)
Helen Branswell
June 06, 2007
Canadian Press

Children of divorce twice as likely to be put on Ritalin. Edmonton sociologist says there may be a variety of explanations

Children whose parents divorce are nearly twice as likely to be prescribed Ritalin in the aftermath of the split, a Canadian study reports.

But the author, a sociologist from the University of Alberta, cautions against concluding that children of divorce are over-prescribed the drug, which is used to treat Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD.

Lisa Strohschein says the data she used can only identify the phenomenon and cannot reveal why Ritalin use rates are double when children of divorced parents are compared to children whose parents stay married.

"I've got the what, but not the why," Strohschein says from Edmonton.

Strohschein suggests there may be a variety of answers. Some kids may need the drug to cope with the stress of the split, some kids may have ADHD and some kids may be getting a drug they don't really need.

"The problem is I can't be clear about it," she says.

"I mean, I would love to be able to say, `Yes, it's divorce. That's the problem,' but it's not necessarily so. It could just be our perceptions about divorce and that's the thing that makes me really cautious here.

"(But) I don't want to come out on the other side, either and say, `Ritalin is bad,' because I think it clearly does help some kids."

The psychiatrist-in-chief of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto says the study should serve as a reminder to doctors to move cautiously when prescribing Ritalin or other methylphenidate-based drugs to children in these circumstances.

"What we need is a deeper understanding of this issue, at the level of the primary care practitioners," Dr. Abel Ickowicz says.

"If we are going too quick to prescribe medication, like Ritalin, like methylphenidate, we may not only be masking the normal process of adaptation to divorce, but we may be contributing to the degree of distress the children of divorce are experiencing."

The study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, used data gathered by Statistics Canada through its National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. The survey, which was first conducted in 1994, is completed every two years. Strohschein used data collected between 1994 and 2000.

The study notes a number of potential explanations for the doubling of the usage rate.

One possibility is that the stress of the divorce aggravated a child's existing behavioural problems to the point where Ritalin would actually be helpful, she hypothesized.

It is known that ADHD can run in families. In addition to passing on the condition to their children, parents with ADHD-type behaviour might be more likely to divorce a theory that points toward appropriate use of the drug.

Another possibility is that in divorce, the natural emotions children experience anxiety, sadness, anger might manifest themselves in behaviour that is mislabelled as ADHD-like, or that parents and doctors may be anticipating problematic behaviour because of the stress of divorce.

The study suggested this type of rationale would reflect inappropriate use.

Dr. Anton Miller, a developmental pediatrician and child health researcher at the University of British Columbia's Centre for Community Child Health Research, says it's possible no single answer applies across the board for these children.

"None of them is an outlandish kind of suggestion. They probably all have some validity," he says.

Stressed Parents Make for Unhappy Children
UK Marriage News

Children whose parents experience a lot of stress are significantly less satisfied with their lives than children whose parents take life easily, finds a study by the Institute of Education Parents' suffering has a long-term impact on a child's emotional well-being, and fathers' distress levels are particularly crucial in determining a child's satisfaction with life. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, the study investigated the extent to which parental stress and distress are transmitted to children. The researchers analysed data on 2,300 British young people to test whether mothers' and fathers' psychological distress in the previous year had a significant effect on children's own well-being at present. The research also explored the extent to which this distress effect differed between boys and girls.

Results showed that while parental distress affects both boys and girls in the long run, boys do not appear to be significantly affected by their mothers' misery. It is largely the father's degree of distress in the previous year that has a significant effect on the child's own assessment of life satisfaction. Even taking into account how happy the child was in the previous year, dad's distress has a significant and negative impact on the child's well-being one year later.

The findings tie in with the recent UNICEF report that concluded that children in the UK are less happy than children in many other countries, such as the Netherlands, Spain or Greece. Researcher Anna Vignoles explains: "If parents in the UK are more stressed for whatever reason, perhaps due to the longer working hours that UK citizens work, then this is transmitted to their children, potentially explaining why children in the UK are less happy than their counterparts in other countries."

The research evidence points to the need for policies designed to reduce parental stress which might have knock on beneficial effects on children's emotional well-being.

Parents' Fighting Has Long-Term Impact on Kids
HealthDay News
February 10, 2006

Studies show they don't 'get used to it' with time

Two new studies suggest that even moderate amounts of parental conflict can wreak havoc on the lives of children, disrupting their sleep and causing negative feelings in their day-to-day lives.

Kids even feel distressed when the parents give each other the "silent treatment" in the hope their children won't notice they're angry, said Patrick T. Davies, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester and lead researcher on one of the studies.

"These kids are still able to pick up on the fact that their parents are unhappy with each other," Davies said, "and it comes through when you ask them questions about how they feel: they report feeling more fearful, more angry, more sad."

In recent years, researchers have been studying how parental interaction affects children, with an eye toward finding the tipping point where problems in a marriage begin to disrupt the emotional lives of children.

One of the new studies looked at sleep. Researchers at Auburn University in Alabama and Brown University in Providence, R.I., studied 54 healthy 8- and 9-year-old children, interviewing both them and their parents about their family lives. The children also wore a watch-like device called an Actigraph, which tracks their sleep patterns by monitoring their movements.

The findings appear in the January/February issue of Child Development.

The team found that even moderate amounts of parental conflict -- including angry outbursts and belittling comments -- can disrupt children's sleep.

In general, kids in families with moderate to severe levels of conflict lost about 30 minutes of sleep per night, said study author Mona El-Sheikh, a professor of human development and family studies at Auburn University. That may not seem like much, she said, "but this half hour is occurring throughout the night and might prevent them from getting into stages of sleep where they really need to rest."

The result, she said, could be irritability the next day, and other problems.

How much conflict was too much? El-Sheikh said the conflict level found in typical families was enough to cause problems. "A lot of them engaged in putting each down verbally, making fun of each other sometimes. Most families have engaged in some level of that," she noted.

The other study was led by Davies and appear in the same journal. Researchers from the University of Rochester in New York and the University of Notre Dame tracked 223 6-year-old children and their parents for one year to see how parental conflict affected the youngsters' emotional state.

Children were more likely to suffer from emotional difficulties if their parents engaged in what the researchers described as "hostile or indifferent" interactions with each other.

The researchers wanted to figure out if the children became accustomed to the conflict and felt better over time, or remained troubled at the same level, lead researcher Davies said. The latter turned out to be true.

"When kids are exposed to high levels of conflict between their parents, they don't get used to it," he said. "They become more sensitive and reactive to it."

What to do? Davies suggested that parents try to keep their major conflicts behind closed doors, although not necessarily all the time. And El-Sheikh said parents should make sure to do one thing when they resolve a problem: do it in front of the children.

Copyright © 2006 ScoutNews LLC

A Marriage of Family and Education: Stable Home LIft Helps Children Learn
Zenit News Service (zenit.org)
January 14, 2006

Family structure has a significant influence on children's educational performance. So says a recent study published by the Center for Marriage and Families, part of the New York-based Institute for American Values. The director of the center, ELIZABETH MARQUARDT, gained wide attention earlier last year with a book she published on the effects of divorce on children.

The more-recent study produced by the center is entitled "Family Structure and Children's Educational Outcomes," a work that relies on an extensive review of recent academic research.

Family structure affects all levels of educational performance, from preschool to college, the brief argues. This is so because what happens in the family has a big influence on a range of child behaviors, such as school misbehavior, drug and alcohol consumption, sexual activity and teen pregnancy, and psychological distress.

Over a 35-year span, the proportion of children in the United States being raised in two-parent homes has dropped significantly -- from about 85% in 1968 to 70% in 2003 -- while the proportion of children living in single-parent homes has nearly doubled. Before they reach the age of 18, most U.S. children are likely to spend at least a significant portion of their childhoods in a one-parent home.

Before going on to detail the conclusions of research into the effects on education, the policy brief took note of some problems with the methodology of the studies.

Some studies define family structure inconsistently, and others do not differentiate between stepparents and biological parents. Other defects include data taken from very small numbers of unmarried cohabiting parents, or data for only one point in time.

Despite these limitations, the research brief argued that a large body of research clearly suggests that family structure significantly affects children's academic and social development.

The first years

Three- and 4-year-olds growing up with their own married parents are three times less likely than those in any other family structure to experience emotional or behavioral problems such as attention deficit disorder.

Overall, children living with their own married parents have fewer behavioral problems compared to children whose parents are living together but not married. Differences in the area of physical health also exist. Young children in single-parent families are less healthy overall than are children in all other family types.

Moreover, children living with their own married parents are more likely to be involved in activities that help them learn to read than are children from single-parent homes. These differences at such a young age can establish behavior patterns in education that persist in later educational levels, the study warned.

In primary school, the ability of children to perform in basic subject areas and at their grade level is weaker for those who don't live with their own married parents. For example, fourth-graders with married parents score higher on reading comprehension, compared to students living in stepfamilies, with single mothers, and in other types of families. Living in a single-parent family is also linked with decreases in children's math scores.

To some extent the financial penalties of living in a single-parent family explains some of the negative results, but not all. The question of marriage itself also has a measurable impact on these educational outcomes.

High school and beyond

Children growing up with non-intact families engage in more adolescent misbehavior, which harms grades and test scores. At this older age, the negative consequences due to family structure are notably more serious. They affect such matters as high school dropout rates, graduation rates, and age at first pregnancy.

The brief explained that studies carried out in both Sweden and the United States show that children living in non-intact families do worse educationally. In fact, each additional year a Swedish or an American child spends with a single mother or stepparent reduces that child's overall educational attainment by about one-half year.

The brief commented that these similarities between U.S. and Swedish children in non-intact families are particularly striking in light of these two nations' dramatic differences in both family policy and in areas such as income inequality.

When it comes to college, adolescents from non-intact families continue to pay a high price. It involves such negative consequences as lower college attendance rates and acceptance at less-selective institutions.

As well, young people, especially women, who grow up with their own married parents tend to marry later. Research has shown a link between delayed marriage and higher educational attainment among young women.

Problem behavior

The brief outlined a number of negative behavior patterns more evident in children from non-intact families.

-- Misbehavior at school. Marital breakup is associated with a higher incidence of anti-social behavior in the classroom for boys. Children from homes headed by their own married parents have the fewest incidences of misbehavior at school.

-- School attendance and tardiness. Students from non-intact families miss school, are tardy, and cut class about 30% more often than do students from intact homes. These differences exist in part because parents in non-intact family homes appear less able to supervise and monitor their children.

-- Smoking, illegal drugs, and alcohol consumption. Teen-agers from non-intact families are more likely to smoke, use drugs and consume alcohol, even when controlling for important factors such as age, sex, race and parent education. One study found that family structure had a significant relationship to family attachment, with intact families reporting higher levels of attachment. In turn, family attachment had a direct and deterrent effect on adolescent cigarette smoking and illicit drug use.

-- Sexual activity and teen pregnancy. Teen-agers from non-intact families are more likely to be sexually active. There appear to be no significant differences in sexual behavior between adolescents from stepfamilies and those from single-parent families. The similarity of sexual behavior among these two groups of adolescents suggests that remarriage presents some risks with regard to monitoring adolescent behaviors effectively and transmitting values that deter early sexual relationships.

-- Illegal activities. Being in a stepparent or single-parent family at age 10 more than doubles the odds of a child being arrested by age 14. One study found that male adolescents in families without a biological father were more likely to be incarcerated than teens from intact-family homes. Young people who have never lived with their biological fathers have the highest odds of being arrested.

-- Psychological problems. For children, growing up without their own married parents is linked with higher rates of stress, depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem during the teen-age years -- problems that can significantly reduce their ability to focus and achieve in school. Research consistently shows that parental divorce has lasting negative emotional effects throughout childhood, adolescence and adulthood.

The brief concludes with recommendations for improving matters. For a start, given that many children now grow up in non-intact families, programs and policies should help families offset as best they can the negative effects linked to these family structures.

More fundamentally, the brief concludes that education policy and family policy logically go hand in hand. And, if we want better-educated children, we need to strengthen families. Supporting marriage will allow a greater number of children to succeed educationally and flourish socially, the brief argued. A resolution worth recommending for the new year.

For a copy of the Nov 2005 brief, go to: http://www.americanvalues.org/briefs/edoutcomes.htm

THE DIVORCE CYCLE: Children of Divorce in Their Own Marriages
Newswise - University of Utah
June 27, 2005

Children of divorced parents often bitterly vow not to repeat the same mistakes. They want to avoid putting themselves and their own children through the pain that comes from the dissolution of a marriage. But, according to University of Utah researcher Nicholas H. Wolfinger, these children¹s aspirations face unfavorable odds.

"Growing up in a divorced family greatly increases the chances of ending one¹s own marriage, a phenomenon called the divorce cycle or the intergenerational transmission of divorce,² says Wolfinger, assistant professor in the University of Utah¹s Department of Family and Consumer Studies.

Wolfinger has spent a decade studying the marriages of children from divorced homes in America. These children are more likely to marry as teens, cohabitate and marry someone who is also a child of divorced parents. And they are also one-third less likely to marry if they are over age 20.

Wolfinger¹s new book is devoted entirely to the divorce cycle. "Understanding the Divorce Cycle: The Children of Divorce in Their Own Marriages," published by Cambridge University Press, contains important information for those interested in divorce and its repercussions and for policy makers who determine family and divorce law.

³Divorce is an important topic because it has so many consequences for well-being,² writes Wolfinger, also an adjunct assistant professor in the university¹s Department of Sociology. ³Its transmission between generations adds a whole new dimension by perpetuating the cycle of divorce. The divorce cycle, in short, can be thought of as a cascade. Ending a marriage starts a cycle that threatens to affect increasing numbers of people over time, a sobering thought in an era when half of all new marriages fail.²

Wolfinger¹s research also suggests that if one spouse comes from divorced parents, the couple may be up to twice as likely to divorce. Spouses who are both children of divorced parents are three times more likely to divorce as couples who both hail from intact families.

Besides observing the marital stability of the offspring of divorced couples, Wolfinger¹s 180-page book provides perspective on how parental divorce affects offspring marriage timing, mate selection, cohabitating relationships as well as historical trends in the divorce cycle. Wolfinger also explores the divorce reform movement in America and argues in favor of no-fault divorce laws, arguing that a return to an age of tough divorce laws would recreate the social conditions that used to make divorce harder on children.

³One reason children from divorced families get divorced more often is because they have a tendency to marry as teenagers,² Wolfinger reports, adding ³the older you are when you marry, the less likely you are to get divorced. It¹s good advice for everyone.²

On the other hand, the more transitions children experience while growing up, the more they will experience as adults, Wolfinger notes. ³What is the hardest for kids is how many disruptions they experience -- the up-and-down cycles. Many will have stepparents, and some will see their new families dissolve. A disruption occurs any time they lose a parent -- except from death. That¹s different, and doesn¹t have the same negative effects on children. Whereas divorce is ambiguous. Children wonder whether the divorce was their fault or who is to blame. And they wonder ŒIs he coming back?¹²

Wolfinger writes, ³It is certainly good news that people are less likely to stay in high conflict marriages than they used to.² However, ³ending a low-conflict marriage may hurt children as much as staying in a high-conflict family,² and the odds of divorce transmission are actually highest if parents dissolve a marriage after little or no conflict.

³The most interesting finding,² Wolfinger says, is that ³some of the negative consequences of growing up in a divorced family, including stigmatization, are less severe because divorce has become more common.²

Ultimately, Wolfinger shows that the divorce cycle can primarily be attributed to the lessons children learn about relationship skills and marital commitment, and secondarily to the effects of parental divorce on offspring marriage formation behavior and educational attainment.

Wolfinger¹s research is based on the National Survey of Families and Households, which included detailed information on family background for 13,000 people, and the General Social Survey, which surveyed 20,000 people over a 30-year period.

Divorce Can Worsen Asthma in Children
Medical News Today
December 1, 2004

School nurses should be aware that parental strife and other stressful events can precipitate asthma attacks in children, according to a new study.

Research published in Thorax found that children with asthma who experience stressful life events such as separation, divorce, illness and death are at increased risk of having an asthma attack immediately following the event and again 5 to 7 weeks later. 'The risk of a new asthma attack, defined by symptoms and peak flow, was increased nearly five-fold in the first 48 hours following a severely negative life event. Furthermore, after a period of stabilization, the risk again nearly doubled some 6 weeks later,' say the authors.

Legacy of Divorce Depends on the Study
by Felix Carroll
Albany Times Union (NY)
August 12, 2004

The effect divorce has on children has caused irreconcilable differences between two recent studies. One holds that children of divorce often suffer emotional scars that last a lifetime. The other, that the effects of divorce are overblown and that the majority of children of divorce emerge emotionally well grounded.

So, for divorcing parents riddled with guilt, choose your poison or your panacea. In the meantime, the statistics on divorce in the United States remain startling. Half of all marriages end in divorce. And more than 1 million children each year experience the divorce of their parents.

Looking at legacy In seeking to trace "the real legacy of divorce," Constance Ahrons, professor emerita from the department of sociology at the University of Southern California, interviewed 173 grown children whose divorcing parents she studied years earlier for her book "The Good Divorce" (HarperCollins, 1994).

In her new book, "We're Still Family: What Grown Children Have to Say About Their Parents' Divorce" (HarperCollins, 2004), she concludes that most adult children of divorce "emerge stronger and wiser in spite of-or perhaps because of-their complex histories."

"The prevailing myth about the effects of divorce on children is that they are doomed to have serious problems for the rest of their lives," says Ahrons. "The reality, however, is that although a minority of children will indeed suffer negative consequences, the great majority do not."

She said much depends on the ability of parents to put their children's needs first by protecting them from any lingering anger and conflict and by continuing to stay involved in their lives. Children's adjustment after divorce depends in large part upon their parents' adjustment, she says.

"Many children are very resilient and, in spite of difficult circumstances, manage to thrive," Ahrons says. Her study showed that of the 173 now-grown children, nearly 80 percent felt that they are either better off because their parents' divorce or were not affected by it. About 20 percent didn't fare so well after the divorce. But Ahrons says most of the damage in those children's lives had already occurred during their parents' marriage, and often these parents continued these dysfunctional patterns after the divorce as well.

A different view In the other corner, Elizabeth Marquardt, a scholar with a New York City think tank on family issues, the Institute for American Values, says a so-called "good divorce" is certainly better than a bad divorce, but it's still not good.

"Children from good divorces have a better experience than those from bad divorces, but they look nothing like children from happy, intact families," she says, "and they even look worse in some cases than children from unhappy, intact families."

Marquardt bases her conclusions on a study she conducted last year that was titled, "The Secret Inner Lives of Children of Divorce: A Generation's Childhood Turned Inside Out," which she hopes to publish by year's end. In it, she interviewed 1,500 young adults (18- to 35-year-olds), half of whom grew up in divorced families and half of whom grew up in intact ones.

Her study-conducted with Norval Glenn, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas-Austin-found that children of divorce are more likely to be torn between two parents and that even under the best of circumstances they often suffer emotional scars that last a lifetime.

For instance, she says, half of the children of divorce she interviewed agreed with the statement, "What my mother said was true and what my father said was true were often two different things," while only one in five children from intact families agreed with the same statement. And two-thirds of the children from intact families said that as children they went to one or both of their parents for comfort, compared to just one-third of children of divorce. More than a fifth of children of divorce said they went to peers instead.

Different views Probably the biggest difference between Ahrons and Marquardt is their personal views on divorce itself. Ahrons views divorce as a fact of life. Marquardt views divorce as an unacceptable aberration.

"There's nothing set in stone that says our nation's divorce rate has to be as high as it is," Marquardt says. "There's a whole lot we know now about marriage education and what it takes to make a marriage work.

"Yes, some divorces have to happen, but we do no one, especially the children, any favors by pretending that divorce is good or by denying the tragedy of it and the brokenness of it and the losses that come out of it for the children, especially."

To be sure, Ahrons says she doesn't seek to paint a rosy picture of divorce. "But I also don't believe that all divorces are as catastrophic as they are portrayed in the media," she says. "It is very difficult for many people to give up their ingrained beliefs about divorce as a social ill of society that threatens to destroy families and the institution of marriage."

You're Divorced - Do You Know Where Your Teen Is?
Health Daily News
AP
Wednesday, June 23

Teens skilled at manipulating divorced parents.

Many teens learn how to manipulate their divorced or separated parents to their own advantage, according to a Ball State University study.

"There is a perception that after a divorce or separation parents are active and children passive in their relationships. We found the opposite to be true. Adolescents are not passive," study author and sociology professor Chad Menning said in a prepared statement.

"Adolescents after divorce or separation do no simply absorb parental resources as sponges absorb water. Rather, they gather and interpret information about their parents, dodge questions, engineer images of themselves, parry parents' probes, maneuver between households, and cut ties with parents in efforts to exert their own authority and to secure their individual identities," Menning said.

The researchers interviewed 50 teens whose parents were separated or divorced. They discovered strategies that include:
a.. Withholding information from one parent to avoid punishment or to solidify a relationship with another parent. Children can gain an upper hand by controlling information flow because, following a separation or divorce, there is often reduced communication between parents.
b.. Moving from one home to another. Children often move into the home of the parent who is less controlling. They do this to punish the other parent or to escape a situation they don't like.
c.. Cutting one parent completely out of the teen's life. This allows the child to control when and where they have contact with that parent.

"None of these options would be open to a child in a single household with two parents," Menning said. "Parents talk and form a team to raise a child. Separate the two parents and the child can use the situation to play one off the other."

Families Split, but Kids Survive
USA TODAY
Karen S. Peterson
June 7, 2004

More on the academic debate on the effects of divorce on children

How children fare after their parents divorce is one of the nation's most emotionally charged family issues.

The latest research finds that in retrospect (20 years later) most of the now-adult children have adapted to their parents' divorce and function successfully, and 79% feel their parents' decision to split was a good one.

The findings sit well with some noted researchers, but others are not applauding.

Although the adult children of divorce "went through difficult times and experienced stressful family changes, most emerged stronger and wiser in spite of, or perhaps because of their complex histories" says Constance Ahrons, author of We're Still Family: What Grown Children Have to Say About Their Parents' Divorce, in bookstores this week.

Her findings "clearly and boldly contradict our deeply entrenched stereotypes that children remain angry and bitter about their parents' divorces," she says.

Although families "have been rearranged and are more complex," the grown children still see them as their families. And that's in spite of experiencing what Ahrons calls today's reality for children of divorce: living in a single-parent home, having parents who date, often cohabit, remarry and form stepfamilies and, in some cases, redivorce.

"Dramatic changes in contemporary family life make the Norman Rockwell images of family life obsolete," she says.

A founding member of the non-profit Council on Contemporary Families and a researcher and former professor of sociology at the University of Southern California, Ahrons is open about her own relationships. Now 67, she has been divorced twice, has two grown daughters from her first marriage and has lived with her current partner for eight years.

Her book will comfort divorced parents and their children < and discomfort those who believe divorce is consistently negative for kids.

Ahrons is not "pro-divorce," says Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist and researcher at Johns Hopkins University who studies trends in family life. "But she is one of our leading voices saying that some divorces work out well. She is respected by most researchers, but disliked by those who think divorce is a disaster. She does give divorce a rosier cast."

Of the 173 now-grown children Ahrons studied, she finds:

EUR 76% do not wish their parents were still together.
EUR 79% feel that their parents are better off today.
EUR 78% feel that they themselves are either better off or not affected.

But she also notes that while most eventually thrived, 20% of her sample felt "life-long emotional scars that didn't heal."

Ahrons' study began in 1979. Working in part on a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, she interviewed 98 pairs of ex-spouses over five years. Mostly white and middle class, the adults were randomly selected from public divorce records in Madison, Wis., and surrounding Dane County. Her work resulted in a 1994 book called The Good Divorce that highlighted ways to protect the kids.

Then she targeted the now-grown children. For her new book she located 173 from 89 of the original families and interviewed them at length by telephone. Their average age is 31; most were between 6 and 15 at the time of the split.

The adjustment to their parents' divorce, she finds, is primarily related to "how parents relate to each other." The less conflict the better. And flexibility in living arrangements matters, particularly as the kids get older. "The children want to have some sense of control," she says.

Many felt their parents' relationship improved over time; 60% say parents are now cooperative.

Despite a large body of research that shows the children of divorce are at risk for a raft of problems, Ahrons says the 173 mostly "rate themselves as average or above average on self-esteem, success and overall happiness."

Such findings don't quiet those who challenge Ahrons' views.

David Blankenhorn, founder of the Institute for American Values, a think tank on the family, says talking about a "good divorce" "is not nearly as important as having less divorce. No matter how good your divorce is, it is still a very painful experience for your child."

Two of the most-cited doyennes of divorce research have different takes on Ahrons' new work. Judith Wallerstein, the psychologist whose warnings about the lasting effects of divorce on children have long caught the public's attention, calls it "a part of a drumbeat we have gotten from academics and others: 'This is the new family get used to it.' "

But in her book The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study, published in 2000, Wallerstein cautioned that there is a sleeper effect from parental divorce as children mature and want to form their own relationships.

"They feel their sense of future is compromised. They fear any change will be for the worse," she says.

Wallerstein notes that while slightly over half of Ahrons' sample have married, 29% are divorced. "That is high," Wallerstein says. She also dislikes Ahrons' use of telephone interviews, calling them "good for political polling," but bad for probing relationships.

However, Ahrons has support from trailblazing researcher Mavis Hetherington, whose 2002 For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered found, in part, that the effects of divorce on both children and parents are exaggerated.

Hetherington's book recounted studies of 1,400 families and more than 2,500 children, some followed for 30 years. She says Ahrons' work "is an important contribution and parallels my premise and that of others that about 75% to 80% of children are coping reasonably well." Ahrons' book "runs counter to the gloom-and-doom approach to divorce."

Effects of Parental Support During Childhood
American Psychological Association
March 21, 2004

Lack of parental support during childhood is associated with poorer adult mental & physical health

WASHINGTON -- People with abundant parental support during childhood are likely to have relatively good health throughout adulthood, whereas people with inadequate parental support while growing up are likely to have poorer health as adults, suggests a new study involving a nationally representative sample of nearly 3,000 adults. The findings are reported on in the March issue of Psychology and Aging, a journal published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

Research has long showed that children who receive abundant support from their parents report fewer psychological and physical problems during childhood than children who receive less parental support. Studies have also found that adult psychological and physical health is influenced by the amount of social support adults receive. Now, Benjamin A. Shaw, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the School of Public Health, University at Albany and colleagues from the University of Michigan investigated for the first time whether the health effects of parental support received during childhood persist throughout adulthood into old age.

The researchers analyzed responses from 2,905 adults, ages 25-74, who participated in the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States. The participants were asked about the availability of emotional support from their mothers and fathers during the years they were growing up, such as "how much could you confide in her or him about things that were bothering you?" and "how much love and affection did she or he give you?" Depressive symptoms, chronic health conditions and self-esteem were also assessed through survey questions.

Results of the study indicate that adults' current mental and physical health is influenced not only by current psychosocial conditions, but also by earlier life psychosocial conditions dating back to childhood, including parental support. The researchers found a lack of parental support during childhood is associated with increased levels of depressive symptoms and chronic health conditions (such as hypertension, arthritis and urinary problems) in adulthood, and this association persists with increasing age throughout adulthood into early old age. The association appears to be more strongly linked to mental health than physical health problems, which may be due to differences in how these problems develop over time, according to the authors.

"These findings are important because they not only reveal a strong association between early parental support and adult health status, but also provide some preliminary insight into factors that link early social conditions with adult health and well-being," says Dr. Shaw. "In this study, we found that the association between early parental support and adult health may be largely due to the long-term impact of parent-child relationships on important psychosocial resources. Specifically, early parental support appears to shape people's sense of personal control, self-esteem and family relationships, which in turn affect adult depressive symptoms and physical health."

If additional research supports these findings, the authors say the implications may be far-reaching for predicting who is at elevated risk for ill health in late life, and for improving the physical and mental health of older adults. "Instead of only considering the impact that contemporaneous psychosocial resources and experiences may have on the physical and mental health of adults and older adults, health practitioners may need to cast a much broader net that encompasses earlier life conditions dating as far back as childhood."

### Article: "Emotional Support From Parents Early in Life, Aging, and Health," Benjamin A. Shaw, University at Albany, State University of New York, Neal Krause, Linda M. Chatters, Cathleen M Connell, and Berit Ingersoll-Dayton, University of Michigan; Psychology and Aging, Vol. 19, No. 1.

Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office or at http://www.apa.org/journals/pag/press_releases/march_2004/pag1914.html

Children of Married Parents Do Better in Life
Daily Telegraph (UK)
Sarah Womack, Social Affairs
December 12, 2003
Click here for full report

Children born out of wedlock suffer financially, according to an official study released yesterday.

The study of 18,500 babies shows that married parents are less likely to claim income support.

They are also more likely to own a property and live on an income of at least £20,000 a year.

The survey found that 60 per cent of parents who had children in 2000-2002 were married, 25 per cent were co-habiting and 15 per cent were not married or living together.

Only 7.8 per cent of married couples were classed as "poor" compared to 76.4 per cent of parents who did not live together, and 25 per cent of co-habiting parents.

John Haskey, from the Office for National Statistics, which published the figures, said the study had far-reaching implications.

Children born out of wedlock were not only disadvantaged at birth, he said. "It seems that this will go on throughout the life of those children," he added.

Mr Haskey said the study raised the question of how social policy should be formulated.

He asked: "Should the Government be encouraging marriage, or at least encouraging people to stay together in a stable relationship?" Only 1.7 per cent of single parents had a "high income" compared to 17.4 per cent of co-habiting parents (with a joint income of £31,200 or more) and 33.5 per cent of married parents (also with a joint income of £31,200 or more).

The number of single parents on income support was 69.8 per cent. The number of married parents on income support dropped to just 3.2 per cent.

And while 81.1 per cent of married parents owned their own home, only 12.2 per cent of single parents did so, with 58.4 per cent of them living in council housing.

Ministers have so far been unwilling to act to reverse the decline of the institution of marriage.

The study was the first of its kind to break down the strength of the relationship between the parents who were not living together at the time their child was born.

While 7.2 per cent were closely involved at the time of birth, 4.4 per cent were not in a relationship, 2.4 per cent were friends and one per cent were separated or divorced.

Fathers who were closely involved with mothers at the time of birth were most likely to end up moving in with them.

"It is clear that children born to single, non-cohabiting parents are the most disadvantaged," the study said.

The findings highlighted the "complexity and fuzziness" of parental relationships in the new millennium.

"The most advantaged children are those born to married parents," it concluded.

"The co-habiting couples are substantially better off than the single parents not living with anyone, but are more disadvantaged than their married counterparts."

The figures showed that only 32.6 per cent of all absent fathers paid child maintenance.