Summary

Original source:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=34924

Details

• The most harm to a child's mental health takes place in the years before parents split up, according to a University of Alberta study that suggests staying together for the sake of the kids is not always the right choice.
• "Perhaps we should pay more attention to what happens to kids in the period leading up to parental divorce rather than directing all our efforts to helping children after the event occurs," said Dr. Lisa Strohschein, from the U of A's Department of Sociology.
• "For example, levels of child antisocial behaviour actually drop following parental divorce for kids living in highly dysfunctional families."
• Earlier studies have compared children whose parents are divorced with those in intact two-parent families but failed to take into account the quality of family life prior to divorce.
• Strohschein looked at divorce as a process, which enabled her to track its effects on child mental health before, during and after the divorce event.
• This approach allows researchers to separate effects on child mental health that are actually due to divorce and not due to other family characteristics.
• Statistics Canada launched the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth in 1994 and continues to reinterview the original cohort of children every two years.
• In other words, in 1994--before a divorce took place--kids whose parents eventually divorce displayed higher levels of anxiety/depression and antisocial behavior than kids whose parents stay married.
• She also found that, compared to parents who remain married, parents who divorce tend to be younger at initial interview and report higher levels of family dysfunction and depression, and lower levels of marital satisfaction.
• These characteristics that put them at risk of divorce are also associated with child mental health.
• On average, levels of child anxiety/depression increase following parental divorce.
• But in some highly dysfunctional families, the level of a child's antisocial behaviour drops after a divorce.

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