The divorce for Helen meant the loss of a companion. To cope with this she tried to find companionship in her children. This made parenting and discipline difficult. Helen had a lot of stress and issues herself, and had no one to really share it with or help her through it. "It's not easy for parents to lay down the law after divorce. Not only are they emotionally exhausted, they're reluctant to come down too hard on a child who has been through the breakup" (Fredericks 1). There are reports that show that single parents show lower levels of monitoring and discipline than married parents do. Single parents also seem to make fewer demands on the children and utilize less effective disciplinary strategies (Simons et al. 1). Helen'

The Divorce affected Julie in that she was missing a disciplinarian. With her father gone she felt as if the rules were gone. She lied to her mother about her relationship with her boyfriend, ran away from home, had pre-marital sex, and had a child out of wedlock

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Helen also did not feel prepared to date and find a new companion because of the stress level involved. She already had much to deal with. She had her career which already took up a lot of her time. She needed to work so that she could support her children, but then did not have time for much else. She also had her children which took up a lot of time and did not want to have less time to spend with them. Her children caused a lot of the stress in her life and she did not need another thing that would add to her stress, which she feels dating will do.

The Divorce caused a very important of all the family members lives to be missing. It causes them all many problems. The mother lost a companion, the son lost a male role model, and the daughter lost a disciplinarian. They lost things very important to their development. These things hinder their growth as individuals.

The discipline was gone from the household. Julie also saw the bad example that her father had set by having an extra-marital affair. She used this is justify her own actions of pre-marital sex. Studies have shown that young men and women who have experienced parental divorce are more likely to enter their first marriage or cohabitating relationship before those with intact families. They are also more likely to give birth to their first child at a younger age. Women whose parents were divorced were more than a year younger at first sex than those who came from intact families (Althaus 1).

In response to the divorce and not having a positive male role model not only was Gary depressed but he also showed a lot of misbehavior. He lied, vandalized, and watched pornography. He lied to his mother about where he was going and what he was doing all the time. He also vented his anger towards his father by vandalizing his office after his father refused to let him come and live

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1496
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)