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AFA JournalFAMILYCounselor Confirms Divorce's 'Sleeper Effects'AFA Journal, May 2001 Edition Dr. Robert N. Crankshaw has been counseling families and children for 28 years. Licensed as a marriage and family therapist in Florida and a professional counselor in Mississippi, he has identified four common responses his clients have had when dealing with parents' divorce. All four are likely to come only after the child of divorce is an adult looking back on that traumatic experience. 1. "I feel like I lost my childhood when my parents got divorced." This response is not usually articulated until older teenage years or young adulthood. Looking back, the child of divorce often realizes that he experienced a sudden loss of innocence and security. He thinks, "I used to be carefree. I was a kid, and then with the divorce I had to start dealing with grownup things." 2. "Who do I support, and how can I do it without losing Dad (or Mom)?" Internal struggles with loyalty are intense. Children of divorce struggle with wanting both parents to still love them, but don't know how to cope when one or both parents harbor bitterness and anger. Again, this impact is not normally addressed by young children. They are afraid to talk about it because it is too threatening, so it surfaces later in life. 3. "If I had been a better kid, would Mom and Dad have stayed married?" Kids are egocentric, thinking they cause everything that happens in their lives, says Dr. Crankshaw. A child of divorce may ask this question early, but she is not mature enough to understand an objective answer. Thus she carries a sense of guilt until maturity helps her see that Mom and Dad's problems had nothing to do with her. 4. "What do I tell my friends?" With divorce so common today, divorcing parents rarely realize that they are embarrassing their children. Embarrassment and sadness are both still prevalent emotions. When a child fills out forms for little league or beauty pageants, which parent(s) should be listed? How about step-parents? How do kids explain that Dad lives in another town? Dr. Crankshaw says the pop psychology premise that a child is better off with one "happy" parent than with two "unhappy" parents is not valid. He acknowledges that children are resilient, at least superficially so. They may appear to adjust well to the divorce of their parents, but we can expect more distractions, lower grades at school, acting up in school and more depression. "What you don't see," he says, "is when they become young adults. What has divorce done to their ability to trust? To bond with somebody else? To feel secure in relationships? There are long-term scars to divorce." He refers to "sleeper" effects--things that surface in adulthood: "I see clients in their 40s and 50s who say, 'You know, when I was nine years old, my parents divorced and....' Then they begin relating problems with their functioning today at age 50--their view of marriage, their fear of losing their security, their fear of losing love relationships. [Kids] do rebound superficially, but divorce leaves scars that don't heal." Dr. Crankshaw worked nine years as an elementary school counselor (beginning in 1973) and eight years as a marriage and family therapist in Florida. He earned his Ph.D. degree from Florida State University. He has now been director of counseling services for 11 years at Palmer Home for Children in Columbus, Mississippi. |
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