The Impact of Divorce on Children Tamara D PDF

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Unit 3...

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The Impact of Divorce on Children: Tamara D. Afifi at TEDxUCSB http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKcNyfXbQzQ watch entire video: 0:00 - 16:18

1. Does divorce have negative effects for all children? In what circumstances would children have better responses towards divorce? Divorce can have both a negative or a positive impact on children. Some children fare a lot better if they are removed from violent, turbulent environments and some children are worse off. 2. What are some short-term effects of divorce? Lower self esteem, anxiety, depression, less quality contact with parents, and their standard of living decreases. 3. In Dr. Paul Amato’s “meta-analysis” of studies of divorce, did he find divorce to have a stronger or weaker effect on children than in the past? Why does he think this might be? Why does Dr. Afifi’s students think it is? He found that divorce had a stronger effect on children in the past. Dr Amato believes that people are getting divorced now for personal happiness. Dr. Afifi’s students believe that children are closer to their parents now than they have ever been. 4. What is the main variable that determines how well children will function after divorce? The main variable that determines how well a child will function is parent’s conflict. 5. What are the typical outcomes for children whose parents have a high rate of conflict and stay married? Some typical outcomes include that these children have more psychological problems and physical problems. 6. What are some physiological stress responses that can occur from divorce? Some physiological stress responses that occur are that their stress levels are very sporadic which can affect your heart rate and sweat levels. 7. Describe the cortisol experiment and its findings. They studied people split for stress hormones. Parents that had high communication and not much conflict lead to less stress in the child. The most stress came from the children whose parents were still married and had a lot of conflict. Children of divorced parents had delayed stress but, like the communicative group, were able to calm down. 8. What is the best way for divorced parents to communicate?

For them to talk to each other, rather than through the child. It’s not healthy for the child to be the middleman or for their alliance to feel caught between the parents. Create rules on how they’ll communicate with each other....