Essential Questions

This blog is centered completely around parental abandonment, and how it can effect children long term.  Over half of marriages end in divorce, which often leads to the separation of parent and child.  What that parent does not realize however; is that the absence of that parental figure can emotionally scar their child for life.  Being abandoned causes the child to struggle socially, mentally, and even physically.  These are just a few questions that I will be answering in my blog.

1. How does divorce/parental abandonment effect a child long term?
2. Does divorce/parental abandonment effect boys and girls differently?
3. Is abandonment a wound that can heal through therapy?
4. How many children per year experience either divorce or parental abandonment?
5. What is the percentage of marriages that end in divorce?
6. How does divorce/parental abandonment effect a child socially?
7. What are some of the main causes of divorce/parental abandonment?

Summary For Article 1: "Echos of Breakup"

     In this article, the author, Judith Wallerstein is researching the long term effects of divorce on children.  In her research, she surveyed 1,500 young adults.  Half of those adults had experienced the separation of their parents.  Ms. Wallerstein also surveyed kids a few years after their parents divorce.  She recorded the behaviors and mind sets of the children. Most of them were either sad or angry.  Then 25 years later, she interviewed the same "kids" as she did all those years ago.  Ms. Wallerstein discovered that many of the grown children grew up to get married.  However, to her surprise, she found that the kids she had interviewed grew up being terrified of their spouses leaving them.  Ms. Judith Wallerstein said that with one woman she had interviewed, she discovered that the woman would often take small problems way out of proportion.  In one example, the woman and her husband had had a dispute over something trivial.  When her husband left for work afterwords, she believed that he was going to leave her.  Using this example, the author is informing us of just one of the many tragic outcomes of parental abandonment.  In each of the articles i found, there was something new to be learned.  In this article, it was that even though it may not seem as if the loss of a parent is affecting you now, somewhere on a subconscious level, the hurt and pain is there.  Building up all this sadness, and sometimes anger, can also be a key factor in how abandoned kids grow into mature young adults.  Without proper examples on how a stable, structural home life is supposed to look, these children are doomed to make the same mistakes their parents did.  Doing this only makes it harder on the child.  Most children whose parents left them swear to never be like how their absent parent was.  However, if they do not know how to give their children a stable, calm, and structural environment as their home life, the same thing that happened to them as a child, will happen to their children.

Works Cited: Kantrowitz, Barbara. "Echoes of the Breakup: In her latest book, a psychologist takes another look at the long-term effects of divorce on children." Newsweek 4 Sept. 2000: 48. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 30 Mar. 2012

Graph





 This pie chart is showing the types of child abuse in the United States in the year 2010. The blue section represents Physical Neglect, or abandonment. This chart is answering the question that I asked in my hypothesis: "How many kids are affected by abandonment or divorce?" It also has other facts that relate to the issue of abandonment such as abuse, mental maltreatment, and medical neglect.

  "Topic 1: Recognizing Child Abuse and Neglect—Definitions and Indicators." Topic 1, Introduction. Web. 07 May 2012. <http://www.dss.virginia.gov/family/cps/mandated_reporters/cws5691/topic1.html>.