Relationships that end in divorce not only leave children with a higher risk of developing anxiety, low self-esteem, loneliness and sadness, but can also negatively impact their social and academic lives.
According to a new study led by Hyun Sik Kim, a sociology doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin, children whose parents go through a divorce face setbacks in both their interpersonal skills and within the academic area of math.
"Somewhat surprisingly, children of divorce do not experience detrimental setbacks in the pre-divorce period," Kim said. “From the divorce stage onward, however, children of divorce lag behind in math test scores and interpersonal social skills. Children of divorce also show enhanced risk of internalizing problem behaviors characterized by anxiety, loneliness, low self-esteem and sadness.”
Kim and his colleagues conducted a long-term study surverying 3,600 children who were entering kindergarten at the onset of the study (2008). The team of researchers continued to survey the children through fifth grade and compared the children whose parents had gotten divorced while the child was in first, second or third grade, with the children whose parents were still happily married.
