Resilience During & After Divorce Essay-SOC-320 PDF

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I had Professor Nielsen and he was very honest with his grading scale. I feel that I received the score that I deserved....

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RESILIENCE DURING AND AFTER DIVORCE

Resilience During and After Divorce Emma Lambrecht SOC-320 Professor Nielsen March 28th, 2021

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RESILIENCE DURING AND AFTER DIVORCE Resilience is the person's ability to return to the original form or state before a situation of trauma, tragedy, or stress occurred (Chen & George, 2005, p.453). It is defined as a dynamic process of adapting well to a stressful situation or the ability to bounce back from bad experiences or situations (Allen et al., 2011, p 1). A divorce may seem easy to do; however, it has a diverse effect on the parents and children during and after the process. In this paper, I will reflect on resilience during and after divorce from the stories; The Imperative to mature and Difficulty in Accepting a Stepfather. The imperative mature (Harvey & Fine, 2011, p.130) story is about a 22-year-old woman who, at her age, still finds it difficult to accept that her parents are divorced. She talks about her parents fighting almost every day and her father moving out one day without talking to her even after going silent on her for five months. She says that her relationship with her father had grown weak, but it gets even worse, and she feels abandoned. She talks about her father moving back in after her mother moves out with her and her sister and files for divorce with the hope that it ends the tension between her parents, but it doesn't. She says that even some years later, when she spent time with either parent, all she heard were complaints about how one hurt the other, and with time she learned how to ignore what is being said. The constant conflict and divorce between the parents weakened their relationship with the children. The woman, however, learned to ignore most of what either parent was saying about the other. This story depicts the effects of constant conflict between parents on children and how they establish resilience over the situation. The continuous conflict between the parents before, during, and after the divorce had adverse emotional effects on the lady. Divorce can cause emotional sensitivity like anger, anxiety, and confusion. To deal with these emotions, a child may adopt some destructive behavior like the one the lady talks about, ignoring what is being said.

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RESILIENCE DURING AND AFTER DIVORCE Difficulty in accepting a stepfather (Harvey & Fine, 2011, p.133) is another story that describes children's resilience to divorce. A young woman tells of her struggle to accept her stepfather. She talks about how she helped her father pack up his bags, and she decided that she's going to live with him. However, most of the time, she found herself with her mother, which was quite uncomfortable since she had a new boyfriend who was her school principal. She talks about how she acted out at her stepfather for no reason and how she would often leave and go to her father's to be away from her stepfather. However, as she grew older, she established a relationship with her stepfather and said that he was pretty awesome to be around from his sound advice and time well spent. This story shows why children reject stepparents after a divorce and how they get over it through resilience. Through changing her trajectory, the girl was able to realize the benefit of the stepfather in her life, and that's how she was able to change her attitude towards him. This rejection can be a form of denial of the divorce situation and resistance to change (Fagan & Churchill, 2012,p.20). Often, children of divorce tend to reject the new stepparents for a while, but they become resilient and develop positive attitudes with emotional and social support. Conclusively, resilience during and after divorce is vital for both the parents and the children of divorce. Children need support from parents by being there for their emotional support. An individual needs to develop the ability to turn stressful situations around for their benefit. Resilience can be inherent or adopted from the social support that the children are given.

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RESILIENCE DURING AND AFTER DIVORCE References Harvey, J. H., & Fine, M. A. (2011). Children of divorce: Stories of loss and growth. Routledge. Chen, J. D., & George, R. A. (2005). Cultivating resilience in children from divorced families. The Family Journal, 13(4), 452-455. Allen, R. S., Haley, P. P., Harris, G. M., Fowler, S. N., & Pruthi, R. (2011). Resilience: Definitions, ambiguities, and applications. Resilience in aging, 1-13. Fagan, P. F., & Churchill, A. (2012). The effects of divorce on children. Marri Research, 1, 1-48....