10 Shocking Statistics on Children and Divorce

March 23, 2010 | Lifechangers

Here are ten statistics compiled by WorldVillage.com that show how divorce affects your child's well being. Trina Dolenz of "Tool Academy" has advice on how to leave a marriage peacefully.

1. Half of all American children will witness the breakup of a parent's marriage. Of these, close to half will also see the breakup of a parent's second marriage.

2. Among the millions of children who have seen their parents divorce, one of every 10 will also live through three or more parental marriage breakups.

3. Forty percent of children growing up in America today are being raised without their fathers.

4. Of all children born to married parents this year, fifty percent will experience the divorce of their parents before they reach their 18th birthday.

5. Studies in the early 1980s showed that children in repeat divorces earned lower grades and their peers rated them as less pleasant to be around.

6. Teenagers in single-parent families and in blended families are three times more likely to need psychological help within a given year.

7. Compared to children from homes disrupted by death, children from divorced homes have more psychological problems.

8. Children of divorce are at a greater risk to experience injury, asthma, headaches and speech defects than children whose parents have remained married.

9. Following divorce, children are fifty percent more likely to develop health problems than two-parent families.

10. Children living with both biological parents are 20 to 35 percent more physically healthy than children from broken homes.

comments

I don’t think they were saying that people should stay together through abuse and arguing. They were saying don’t down talk one another in front of the children. I’m a child of divorce and my mom would talk bad about my father in front of us. I was sixteen, my sister was six. They had been married all of her life and to speak about our father that way was unfair to her. Children will have plenty of time to see for themselves how the other parent is, let them love the other parent until their actions make it different. Your job is to love your child and get them help.

Jessica
March 27, 2010

BRAVO to the kids from divorced parents who find a way to shine & BRAVO to who raised them!

Natalie
March 25, 2010

That’s true being a parent is a gift not a right. I am going through this I was married for 9 years, and was unhappy for about the last 4 or 5. I stayed for my little girl, whom adored her father. But he wasn’t willing to try and work things out. He never put forth effort to be a husband or a dad, so leaving was easy but my little girl was crushed, I got some help for ASAP, b/c he would tell her he was coming to get her. We wouldn’t hear from him til 2 months later. So I stopped answering and now he only calls around or during a holiday, which i’ve explained there are other weekends besides holiday weekends. He has never kept in contact with her, we had another little girl and he doesn’t even claim her and she doesn’t even know who he is. We were divorced in aug, he got married again in dec of the same yr, had a baby with his new wife and to this day we dont know what the baby is, how old or nothing. And in child support court he tells me he has a family to take care of.. so I really would have been better off staying in a horrible marriage just to see my kids get hurt, I dont think so.. it was rough in the beginning but now they have a real daddy in their lives, a true man.. so i’m glad i left to give them something they would not have had it I stayed…

priceless
March 24, 2010

So a parent should stay married if they are arguing all the time or/and getting abuse by spouse for the sake of a child. Instead of speaking to the child and making them aware about the situation. That is the problem with the adult of the situation instead of focusing on the child thru divorce they rather use the kid as their weapon of defense to look for the greed of child support or/and so they can get back at the other spouse. That is the issue not the divorce. Talk to the child, go to therapy as a family to deal with the issue of child, think about the child and how being divorce makes a better home for a child if the two adults can not be together because it happens, not everyone made to live with each other.

For the father not being in child lives, half the time the mother not even in the child life either even if she physically there or not. Anyone can be a mother or father but not anyone should be.

Also poverty causes issues. There are more stories then just these statistics show. Every case needs to be study. It may not be the result of divorce that hurt a child. But like everything else there more then a number that proves things. But there organizations that rather people stay together even if they argue or get abuse so the numbers look good.

Sara
March 23, 2010
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