Correlates of children's long-term adjustment to their parents' divorce.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the nature and correlates of adjustment to divorce in a sample of 58 white, middle-class, 8-through 17-year-old-children whose parents had been separated about 4 years. Measures of the children's understanding of and feelings about the divorce were nonsignificantly related, and the parents' assessment of the children's adjustment was significantly related only to the children's positive feelings about the divorce. The children's understanding of the divorce did not reveal great difficulty of adjustment. The children's feelings about the divorce, however, were largely negative. A 2-year follow-up of 24 of these children (plus 14 of their siblings) revealed moderate stability in the children's divorce adjustment, with significant increases in their positive feelings regarding the loss of the noncustodial parent and peer relations. The profile of the well-adjusted child was consistent at both assessment points. Two agerelated factors, locus of control and interpersonal reasoning, were significant predictors of the children's divorce adjustment independent of age. Finally, the children's specific adjustment to divorce was related to their more global personal adjustment. One theme in recent reviews of how children are affected by their parents' divorce is the identification of factors related to divorce adjustment in particular and to personal adjustment in general (Hetherington, 1979; Lamb, 1977; Longfellow, 1979; Magrab, 1978; Rohrlich, Rainer, Berg-Cross, & Berg-Cross, 1977). Children's age has repeatedly been identified as a strong correlate of divorce adjustment, and information is available on preschoolers' through adolescents' reactions to parental separation (Kelly & Wallerstein, 1976; McDermott, 1970; Sorosky, 1977; Wallerstein & Kelly, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1980).' As Hetherington (1979) and Wallerstein & Kelly (1980) noted, these global age changes are likely due to specific developmental changes in children's ability to appraise the divorce, to