OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH

HOW BIG IS THE PROBLEM?

We already know the divorce rate to be near 50%, but not everyone understands the impact of divorce on children. Most children experience some pain during and after their parents' divorce, and some experience mental health problems, as compared to families where parents don't divorce. For a research-based popular review of how divorce affects children and parents, Mavis Hetherington's (2002) book For Better or For Worse is a good resource.  Joan Kelly and Paul Amato have also written some professional articles summarizing the research on children of divorce.  Here is an outline of some of the research on the topic:

• Sara McLanahan, a sociologist at Princeton University, conducted a study showing that children whose parents split are more likely to drop out of high school, give birth as teens, and be unable to find work as adults.
• Kathleen Kiernan of the Family Policy Studies Center and Martin Richards of Cambridge University conducted a study showing that children whose parents divorce early are more likely to leave school early, leave home early, co-habit early, and have an extra marital birth than children whose parents stay together. Additionally, children of middle-class parents who divorce are less likely to attend college.
• Newsweek Magazine is quoted as saying, "the most accurate predictor for whether a child will drop out of school, face unemployment and commit crime is...growing up in a single parent family" but I don't have a source.
• Andrew Cherlin of Johns-Hopkins University says that children tend to do better after the death of a parent than after divorce.

HOW DO WE KNOW THAT KIDS’ TURN CAN HELP?

Our program evaluation conducted in collaboration with the California School of Professional Psychology in Alameda showed that we helped by improving parent-child communication,  improving children's adjustment, and decreasing parental conflict, among other ways (see the Program Evaluation page for more information).

Meantime, there has been significant research on the efficacy of similar programs. This
research has shown that an early intervention program like Kids' Turn can help children survive divorce/separation and can help parents better support their children and deal with each other:

1. On October 16, 2002, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that an 11-week intervention program with divorcing mothers and their children halved mental health problems for children in the program -- even 6 years later.  They state that, "In adolescents of divorced parents, the mother program and the mother plus child program reduced symptoms of mental disorder; rates of diagnoses of mental disorder; levels of externalizing problems; marijuana, alcohol, and other drug use; and number of sexual partners." (http//jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v288n15/abs/joc11877.html).
2. Gray, et al., in "Making it Work," reported in Family and Conciliation Courts Review (1997) that parents attending their 6-hour class improved communication skills with their children, kept children out of parental conflicts and decreased struggles over custody, visitation and co-parenting. Children’s adjustment to the separation/divorce improved and they became less preoccupied with it.
3. Frieman, Garon and Mandell, "Parenting Seminars for Divorcing Parents" (1994) reported that in a six-hour class, parents increased their understanding of the effect of divorce on children, and learned strategies to enable their children to cope with separation/divorce.
4. Janet Johnston (Alameda County), "Developing and Testing a Group Intervention for Families at Impasse" (1997) reported that high conflict parents receiving her eight-week intervention program (four weeks for children) were substantially more cooperative and more likely to resolve custody disputes themselves. Domestic violence diminished, and parents expressed commitment to keeping conflict away from the children. New client-initiated custody, visitation and financial filings dropped by two-thirds.
5. JoAnne Pedro-Carroll and others (University of Rochester, 1997) have conducted controlled evaluations and found  that children enrolled in the Children of Divorce Intervention Program have many positive improvements, including better adjustment as much as 2 years later, and fewer visits to the doctor.