When a marriage comes to an end, a similar state of emergency exists, but no

one hands you a life preserver. You and your children are on your own,

thrashing about, trying hard to survive. Many parents in this situation feel like

helpless, frightened children themselves, wishing someone or something would

save them. Imagine, then, how devastated and powerless children feel. A

separation and divorce is a shocking experience for them, for their very

existence depends on their parents. They sustain tremendous losses and

experience great pain, during, and after divorce. This crisis and tragedy of

divorce is that this time, when parents are usually least able to help or even

think about helping, is when children need their help most of all (Bienfeld,1). The

effects of divorce on children can be devastating.

To children, divorce does not mean the second chance that it so often

means to one or both parents. To children it is the loss of their family - the entity

that provides them with support, stability, security, and continuity in an often

unpredictable world (Bienenfeld, 92). Children assume that their family is a given

and that their parents are permanent. Studies uniformly find that divorce is a jolt

to most children. Even youngsters that have lived in tense, conflict-ridden home

for many years seldom think of divorce as a remedy for unhappiness; the remedy

would be for parents to stop fighting (92). When suddenly divorce becomes

reality, the assumptions children have accepted as givens and the structure they

have relied on crumble, they feel not only vulnerable but powerless to have any

influence on a situation the profoundly impacts their lives.

During a divorce children's feelings become extremely confused. Many

children feel intensely rejected, perceiving that the parent is leaving them as well

as the spouse. Intense fears of abandonment are not uncommon. In the widely

cited California Children of Divorce study, Judith Wallerstein and Joan Kelly

found that one-half of the children they studied were intensely afraid of being

abandoned by their fathers, while one-third feared abandonment by their

mothers. A few even feared they would be placed in foster homes. Not

suprisingly, children's self-esteem frequently takes a plunge after divorce.

The majority of children are intensely sad and feel a deep sense of loss -

of their family, their security, even their daily routines and family traditions (93).

Many children have little control over their tears. Here is how a fourteen-year-old

girl described how she felt when her parents were divorcing:

"The divorce really affected me emotionally. I just felt bad

all the time, I used to cry a lot, and when I wasn't crying, I

would feel like crying.... it was just a terrible time in my life"

Anger, also, is a fairly common reaction among children going through a

divorce. Many feel betrayed by the very people they have trusted to protect and

care for them. They feel no one is considering their needs, and they feel

powerless to change the situation that is disrupting their lives. Some children

hide their anger, fearing it will further upset or alienate their parents. Others

have explosive outbursts. While some act out their anger in temper tantrum,

noncompliance, aggressiveness. destructiveness, rebelliousness, and

Some youngsters, especially younger ones, are haunted by gnawing

feelings that they are responsible for the divorce (91). Some will remember

overhearing fights concerning them, while others will remember their parents'

upset over their fights with their siblings. Some, even, will turn into model

children, hoping they can undo the damage they think they have done. One child

confessed the following the her mother years later:

I felt I was being punished by God for being really

bad, so I tried being really good so God would

change His mind... and let Dad come home

On the other hand, some youngsters feel relief when their parents

divorce, although, it appears that this happens to only a relative few. One widely

cited study found that fewer than ten percent felt this way - most often older

children who lived in fear that the violence in the their homes would end in

physical injury (Clapp, 94). Several studies have reported that initial feelings of

relief are sometimes temporary and are later replaced by sadness and anger.

Do children of different ages react differently to divorce? Some people

feel that divorce is easier on older children because they have more sources of

support outside the family. However, div