Divorce is always difficult. But especially when children are involved, it is a sensitive subject. Should you go through with the divorce or is it better in some cases to stay together? Always weigh everything carefully before making a decision. Whatever you choose, it will in many cases be a difficult decision and unfortunately you cannot always spare people. It is not nice for children to have a home situation where there is a lot of arguing. This gives an unsafe feeling and can make a child unnecessarily insecure. However, a divorce is also a traumatic event that has a major impact on a child’s life.
Why divorce?
You don’t just think about divorce. This is of course already a sign that the relationship is no longer going well. At least not good enough to stay together any longer. Every year there are 70,000 children in the Netherlands whose parents decide to divorce. It has also been shown that a child of divorced parents is twice as likely to get divorced later.
Arguments within the family
When arguments occur regularly within a family, this is of course not good for the development of the children. It can make them very insecure and can turn them into a completely different child. The children may also become very concerned about their parents when the parents no longer get along well with each other. For example, the child may feel sorry for his father or mother, which makes him feel responsible. In principle, the child takes on a father or mother role in this way. This is of course not the intention.
A divorce can improve the situation in some cases…
It can therefore even be positive for a child if the parents divorce. The children no longer have to worry about the arguments between their parents. It has also been shown that children of divorced parents are even a lot more independent. This is because they often have to arrange a lot themselves at a young age. Older children in particular may even be relieved when their parents choose to divorce. This feeling is especially prevalent in children over 10 years old. They have often lived in their parents’ arguments (and sometimes even aggression) for years. They are mainly relieved because the tensions will finally disappear.
Why not divorce?
In some cases it can feel better to just stay together. If you don’t argue and are on the same page, you may want to stay together for the sake of the children. The parents are the foundation of every child. In many cases, children want nothing more than two parents being together, regardless of what has happened within the relationship. This situation is generally more common in younger children, under 10 years of age. In the event of a divorce, the child is also faced with a difficult choice. He feels he will always fail one parent. Children will always have the feeling that they have to choose between one of the parents. Who will the child live with more often? Research has shown that 15% of children no longer have contact with the parent who left the original home 1 year after the divorce.
Conclusion
So you can say that a divorce causes damage in all cases, but not going through with a divorce can just as easily cause a lot of damage to a child. Whether or not it is wise to divorce really varies per situation. How a child will deal with it depends greatly on the age of the child. In general, the older the child, the better. Yet it is often difficult for children in puberty to deal with the fact that their parents are going to split up. Another important point is the character of the child. This also largely determines how the child will cope.
Always try to get out of it in a mature way, by talking to each other a lot!