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CHICAGO—In a new study published this week in The American Journal Of Sociology, researchers reported that parents throughout the United States are increasingly opting to delay divorce until their children are old enough to remember each and every traumatizing detail. “What we found is that more and more couples are deliberately holding off on dissolving their unhappy marriages until their children are 9 or 10, the approximate age at which they’re cognitively capable of retaining every unbearably painful moment,” said study co-author Anna Dasgupta, adding that children at that stage of maturation will generally have the ability to recall for the rest of their lives the moment their dad told them he was moving out. “And by not rushing the announcement, parents ensure that their children have accumulated at least some memories of happier times
I hear this question every time I lecture to parents or participate on talk shows. People love their children, and they want to diminish any hurt from the divorce. They want to know whether there's an age when divorce is easier on children. What's the "best" time to divorce? The trouble is, there's no simple answer. It all depends on what's going on in your family, what kind of parents you are, how much you can cooperate, and also the age and temperament of your child.
First take a close look at what's happening in your family. If there's chronic violence at home, the answer is "the sooner the better," unrelated to the age of your child. By violence, I mean physical attack -- hitting, kicking, throwing objects -- or chronic threats of physical violence. Exposure to violence has serious consequences for a child's development that may last well into adulthood. They fear for your safety. They fear for themselves and their siblings.
If there's repeated high conflict in your marriage accompanied by yelling, screaming, and pounding the table, then I'd also say the sooner the better. Since there are no meaningful measures of high conflict, this judgment is highly subjective. Some families are reserved, others are operatic. But if you're in a marriage where almost every subject is material for another fierce argument, you know what I mean. In some high-conflict homes, serious differences between the partners are a recurrent theme in everyday life. In other marriages, fights erupt over insignificant issues -- a grocery bill, local politics, a bad report card -- leading to hurt and a sense of endless frustration. Like violence, high conflict is terrifying for children to witness because it creates a climate that leads to fear and trembling. In such an environment, a child can lose the capacity to trust, even to feel. The longer it goes on, the worse it will be
http://www.divorcemag.com/articles/Children_and_Divorce/besttime.html
I hear this question every time I lecture to parents or participate on talk shows. People love their children, and they want to diminish any hurt from the divorce. They want to know whether there's an age when divorce is easier on children. What's the "best" time to divorce? The trouble is, there's no simple answer. It all depends on what's going on in your family, what kind of parents you are, how much you can cooperate, and also the age and temperament of your child.
First take a close look at what's happening in your family. If there's chronic violence at home, the answer is "the sooner the better," unrelated to the age of your child. By violence, I mean physical attack -- hitting, kicking, throwing objects -- or chronic threats of physical violence. Exposure to violence has serious consequences for a child's development that may last well into adulthood. They fear for your safety. They fear for themselves and their siblings.
If there's repeated high conflict in your marriage accompanied by yelling, screaming, and pounding the table, then I'd also say the sooner the better. Since there are no meaningful measures of high conflict, this judgment is highly subjective. Some families are reserved, others are operatic. But if you're in a marriage where almost every subject is material for another fierce argument, you know what I mean. In some high-conflict homes, serious differences between the partners are a recurrent theme in everyday life. In other marriages, fights erupt over insignificant issues -- a grocery bill, local politics, a bad report card -- leading to hurt and a sense of endless frustration. Like violence, high conflict is terrifying for children to witness because it creates a climate that leads to fear and trembling. In such an environment, a child can lose the capacity to trust, even to feel. The longer it goes on, the worse it will be
http://www.divorcemag.com/articles/Children_and_Divorce/besttime.html