Children of divorced parents face trouble in math and social skills – Study

Children of divorced parents are more likely to find difficulties in learning math and social skills, observed social scientists in a recent research

The collective findings concluded that parents’ divorce has its most adverse affect on their children’s cognitive aptitude and social well being. Owing to separation, the child is also more likely to suffer anxiety, trauma and insecurity, in comparison to any other child from a stable family.

The research also underlines that the distress may or may not show its effects right after separation, since its impression in a child’s psyche is long term. Thus a child who faced his parents’ divorce as a toddler may suffer social and cognitive disturbances in the teens, as a high school student.

The study
The study, published by the University of Wisconsin-Madison on Wednesday, proposes the period during which the conflict emerges.

Researcher Hyun Sik Kim conducted an empirical study on 3,585 students from pre-school through fifth grade to observe pre-divorce and post-divorce affect on kids.

Kim found out visible impact on kids during the divorce-proceedings and post-divorce period. While pre-divorce impact on kids was evidently minimal. Conversely, it was initially believed that impact of pre-divorce i.e. family-strives period, is most detrimental to child’s psychological growth.

In Kim’s words, "People tend to think that couples go through intense marital conflict before the divorce… My original prediction was that children of divorce would experience negative impacts even before formal divorce processes began. But my study finds that this is not the case."

Kim, a student of PhD in Sociology, also realized that the child’s mathematical abilities, in particular, to have had affected as math, unlike other subjects, demands consistency for gaining a strong foundation.

The researcher ascribed inner conflict owing to miserable folks, financial insecurity, and divided parental love as crucial setbacks hampering child’s development.