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Study: Divorce Affects Children’s Math Scores, Friendships

While all experts agree that divorce is not easy on kids, there is a surprising lack of solid research regarding exactly how children are affected by arguing parents, the divorce proceedings themselves, and post-divorce life. Now, however, a new study has shed light on all three of these stages.

According to divorce researcher Hyun Sik Kim, children are affected most significantly in the two years during and after a divorce – and they show this through lower math scores, social issues in school, and mental health problems like depression and anxiety. At the same time, divorce did not seem to significantly affect children’s reading scores or behavior in the classroom.

The study began in 1988 and followed roughly 3,500 children from kindergarten through eighth grade. Of the group, 142 children experienced a divorce in the family, while 3,443 children had stable homes during the eight-year study. The kids of widows, single parents, and remarried parents were excluded, and the study was controlled for kids’ socioeconomic status, teen pregnancy, and marital satisfaction.

The study found that children are most affected by divorce during the actual process of separation and other proceedings, while children were not significantly affected directly before the divorce or two years after the divorce. The researcher noted that this study doesn’t explore whether the children of parents in unhappy relationships also suffer socially and academically.

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