1. Behavioral and Emotional Problems

Children who experience their parent’s divorce at a young age tend to develop behavioral and emotional problems that could last long-term. Some behavioral and emotional problems could range from anxiety, depression, and aggressive behavior. These types of behaviors can also lead children to have anger toward both their parents or more toward the parent who chose to get a divorce. As someone who comes from this experience, I can say that I developed anger toward my mother when my parents had gotten divorced. I blamed her for wanting to have this divorce in the first place and breaking our family apart.

2. The Pressure to Choose Between Both Parents: "Being in the Middle"

Parents may not see it but oftentimes they tend to put their children in the “middle”. What I mean by this is that they put their children in a situation where they have to choose between two parents. In some cases if parents end on bad terms after divorcing, one parent tends to put unpleasant things in children’s head about the other parent which pressures the child to choose between both parents. When I was younger, I was in this situation where I felt like I had to choose between my mother and father because I would hear stuff from my mother about my father.

3. Fear of Starting a New Family

Some children fear the idea of having to be a part of a new family. If one parent remarries and brings home a stepparent to the house, the child may feel that the stepparent is replacing their other parent. In some cases, children find it difficult to adjust to living with a stepparent and with step siblings which could lead the child to have anger toward their parent who brought a new family home. When my parents got divorced, I always struggled having to live with a stepfather. I didn’t like the idea of my mother moving on from my dad and bringing in a stepparent to our home. This also led me to express jealousy when I noticed that my mother would pay more attention to her new spouse.

4. Having to Split Holidays

Children get used to spending holidays as a whole family together. However, that might change for children with divorced parents. Some parents are able to co-parent and come together for the holidays for the sake of their children. But there are also some parents who aren’t in good terms after the divorce which leads them to have to split the holidays. Growing up, I had to split the holidays between my parents because they weren’t on good terms with each other. It was very difficult for me because there were times when I wished I was able to spend the holidays with both of my parents and as a family like how it was before.

5. Can Affect Academically

Children tend to lose focus in school because all they could think of is the problems they have at home with their parents divorcing. This leads to a decrease in their grades, and they lose the motivation to do well in school. When my parents got a divorce, I had to move schools because I was going to be living with my mom and her new place was far from my old school. It was difficult because I felt like I had to start all over and I struggled to make new friends. It also affected my academic performance because I wasn’t used to the new school, and I was still struggling with my parents' divorce.

6. Feeling Separated from One Parent

When it comes to the divorce of parents, there is usually a parent who gets more custody of their children than the other parent. Although I was supposed to be with my mother more than my father, I ended up seeing my father more because my mother had been working most of the time. I felt separated from my mother because I would hardly see her and when I would see her I felt like I had to share her with her spouse at that time. It was also hard to see both of my parents the same amount of time because of the different work schedules they had. When there’s custody agreements, one parent tends to miss out on some of their children's lives.

7. Experience Parental Conflict

Parents tend to have many arguments leading up to the divorce. They think that their children won’t notice that they have been arguing too much. But in reality, children are smarter than we think, and they can always sense when something is wrong at home. There are also some parents who can’t control themselves, and they end up arguing in front of their own children. This can cause children to have trauma and feel lonely when they don’t have anyone to talk to. Before my parents got divorced, I already had a feeling that something was wrong because my mom had been acting different. A few weeks later, my parents ended up separating which proves my point of how children can sense when something is wrong.